Fast Female winner Katherine McConnell’s business insights

The Technology Fast 50 program ranks the 50 fastest growing public or private technology companies, based on percentage revenue growth over three years. The competition has been running since 2000 and the 2019 program was proudly sponsored in Australia by the ASX, DLA Piper and NAB. In this blog series, we take a look at the 2019 winners to find out how they got to where they are.

Sustainable home improvement financing company Brighte won the all-new 2019 Tech Fast Female award. Founder and CEO Katherine McConnell shares her key business insights for running a successful tech start-up.

Insight one: Focus.

“We’ve never lacked an idea. There are so many things you can do, but for me it’s been around focus. It’s being very clear on the one, two, three things that you’re going to execute that day, that week, that month, and focus on that. It means saying ‘no’ a lot, but if you can just execute on those three things then you can get 8881 per cent growth and that’s good enough.

“It’s step by step, day by day, just focus and execute, focus and execute and being very methodical with everything you want to do.”

Insight two: Work out what you don’t know

“Work out what you don't know, what you're not good at and what you don't feel confident in. Once you’ve worked out those areas, you should learn as much as you can through networking or reaching out to randoms on LinkedIn, asking your friends to introduce you to specific people that know about those areas. Try and bring yourself up to speed so you can feel confident in navigating those areas.”

Insight three: Join a coworking hub

“Coworking hubs like Stone and Chalk are a fantastic way to get access to different skills, people and companies.

“I was able to attend events where I got to pitch to different stakeholders, meet mentors or hire interns. I was able to make relationships with corporate partners and I worked with many of them to get cost-effective rates to start up.”

Find out about more about the awards, meet all the 2019 Tech Fast 50 Australia winners and pre-register for 2020 Tech Fast 50.