Need a new pair of running shoes? Broke your water bottle? You can now order these items – and many, many more – online thanks to Matt Brodie and Andrew Kidd.
The self-confessed sports nuts turned their passion into a promising business by launching Onsport – a new online sports and fitness store that will save you a trip to the shops. So you can spend more time at the gym!
“We wanted to launch a business in an area that we were truly passionate about,” the co-founders say.
“We saw a large gap in the sports/fitness online retail market in Australia and wanted to offer a superior online shopping experience than the incumbent bricks and mortar retailers were offering Aussies who love sport and exercising.”
It’s quite a sea change for the former Macquarie bankers, who helped launched the investment giant’s credit card business – among other achievements – in 2007.
They funded Onsport with a combination of personal savings, a bank loan from ANZ and sponsorship from Visa. That relationship gives the business a number of competitive advantages.
“Our biggest point of difference is that our site is fully integrated in the Velocity Frequent Flyer program. That means the program’s 3.3 million members can purchase anything on our site with Velocity Points and/or a credit card and Paypal.”
Supreme customer service is another point of difference.
“We want our customers to be genuinely wowed by the service they receive from Onsport and we’ll keep striving to make sure we deliver the best possible customer service.”
Despite the auspicious start there have been some setbacks.
“The biggest challenge is finding enough hours in the day to do everything on our to-do list and keep an eye on the strategic direction of the business.”
“We’re both used to working in large organisations with plenty of support and resources, so it’s been quite an adjustment to be out on our own,” they add.
They also face supply challenges due to a number of sports wholesalers currently precluding any Australian-based online business from opening a trade account with them and selling online, unless they have a physical store.
“Consequently we have to continuously search for the best products we can find to increase our range in the core product categories while we wait for the rest of the sporting goods wholesalers to drag themselves out of the 90’s and finally adapt to the quickly changing retail landscape.”
Brodie and Kidd up have drawn on their previous experience to overcome the setbacks.
“It’s been very useful that both of us have a sales and business development background as selling us, the business, the concept, the potential of Onsport has been crucial to getting our current (and future) partners on board, funding, sponsorship and everything else in between,” they say.
“We’ve also learnt to be very selective about where to invest our limited capital.”
“We’ve found the old anecdote of not spending a dollar unless you’re sure you’ll get at least a dollar back, a very good guideline to decision making,” they add.
It’s fitting that their advice to fellow entrepreneurs was coined by a sporting goods giant.
“I know it’s a bit of a cliché but just do it!” says Brodie.
“We talked about starting our own business for a few years and it’s been the best thing we’ve done – so if you’ve got an idea give it a go – worst case is you can always go back into paid employment but if you don’t try you’ll never know what might have happened!”
