Tell us a little about your business and what you do?
“call Dave…” is a cutting edge recruitment business who specialise in recruiting for fashion, lifestyle and youth brands. We believe that our clients and candidates require a personalised service that understands their culture, desires and ambitions. It’s the idea of a mate or person you like (that is still professional) having your back, someone that has their ear to the ground for you when it might be hard or inappropriate for you to do it yourself and a mate that has all those connections you don’t.
Where is your business heading in the future?
We are a relative newcomer to the market, celebrating our first year in January 2012, I set the business up as a one man show and now there are 5 of us. I’d imagine that we could double that in the next year or so.
Can you share any inspiring anecdotes about how the business got started?
Sure. I guess 3 things conspired for “call Dave…” to be born. The first wasn’ so much an event as a collection of experiences. I had spent the early part of my career working for some amazing brands and had the benefit of some great mentors. Some of my previous employers where incredibly intelligent and others not so, some were well educated whilst others hadn’t finished high school, I guess what I’m trying to say is they were all quite diverse. However, they all shared two common traits – they had the balls to have ago and they all believed in what they were doing. They loved it! The second thing and probably the most important was where we live. Australia is an amazing country and maybe i’m naive but i figured what’s the worst thing that could happen if my little business failed? I’d go broke. I can live with that. I wouldn’t starve, my wife and kids would still love me, so (hopefully) would my friends. The third and final thing was the blessing of my wife. Ready now. So armed with a strong belief in what we do and putting the fear of failure behind us we took the step into small business ownership. So far so good.
What is your number one tip for small business success?
If you don’t love it, don’t do it!, oh and wherever possible surround yourself with people smarter than you.
What do you love about Surry Hills?
The models that are always walking around. No seriously Surry Hills is the creative hub for Sydney and because we work with lots of creative brands it’s a great place for us to be. Also Surry Hills is kinda easy for most people to get to – it works for us.
Where is your best spot for lunch and why? (you can give a team response)
Tough question. Food is the other reason we like Surry Hills. Our team couldn’t quite agree on one place for lunch. So we settled on a place we love to hang out at. El Loco on Foveaux, it’s more of a long lunch kinda place – great taco’s, cold beer and Slushee Margarita’s.
How did you come to run your business from Office 2010?
When i first started I worked from a home office (also known as our bedroom). The business took off quite quickly and we hired our first employee after 3 months. It would’ve been weird to ask Tamara (our new staff member) to work out of our bedroom so i looked around and found Office 2010. It’s been a great fit for our brand.
What’s the best thing about working from Office 2010? (Is it the location? The Infrastructure?)
The best thing about working from Office 2010 is the little stuff. I run a recruitment business and I think I’m pretty good at it. I’m not real good at running an office, organising cleaners, being a receptionist or doing admin stuff. I’d rather source out the stuff I don’t do well and focus on the things I do best. It seems to work for us.
