Entrepreneur of the month
This month we chat with Aidan about his journey from working in sales in Tamworth to startups in Sydney. Aidan is a co-founder of SimsDirect – the #1 travel sim store in AU!
One of the most interesting things about business founders is how they got onto their pathway, especially for young founders; only 4% are below the age of 25. It’s particularly interesting how they skip the traditional education – industry pathway and switch lanes into something completely different.
Have you always been a founder?
I haven’t. I worked in sales for a few years after school. I never did the university thing and was fortunate enough to have people in my life that were apart of the startup world which put me on the path of becoming a founder – after many failures (lessons) of being in the startup world as an employee.
What prompted the transition from an employee to founder?
Honestly, it just happened naturally. After being apart of a couple of startups with Mac that were the same concept as SimsDirect that didn’t work out, we decided to give it a shot ourselves. Christmas 17’ Mac and I were broke and had no idea what we were doing with our lives, we had a chat on the phone and decided to give the SIM card game another shot haha. (Thankfully it all worked out!)
It’s unique that you’re from a rural area and early on switched into a founder. Awareness of entrepreneurship in urban areas is considered to be low, so in rural and regional areas of Australia, it’s even lower. A ‘founder pathway’ being a career, many people wouldn’t think to be possible or even know that it exists.
I totally agree, there’s not much awareness around becoming a business owner or going down your own path in the sticks, at least where I’m from anyway! I was fortunate enough that I had a good friend who was building his own business at the time in Sydney and wanted me to move from Tamworth to the big smoke to come and help out on the biz.
How did you get into the business of Simcards? It’s a great idea. In Europe, you have to buy a new sim every time you cross a border because of heightened security after terrorism fears. You need the internet to survive these days so it’s a pain having to pay top dollar to conveniently purchase a sim at airports and train stations with local carriers. For people who use prepaid phones roaming isn’t an option.
Haha it is pretty cool hey, like I mentioned earlier, I was lucky enough to be apart of other startups that were doing the same concept, however, they didn’t work out. So Mac and I decided to give it a shot ourselves and voila, here we are.
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