 | |
| Founded | 2001 |
|---|---|
| Founder | Naomi Simson |
| Headquarters | , |
Key people | David Anderson, CEO |
| Parent | Big Red Group |
| Website | RedBalloon website |
RedBalloon is an experiential gifts company.
| | |
| Founded | 2001 |
|---|---|
| Founder | Naomi Simson |
| Headquarters | , |
Key people | David Anderson, CEO |
| Parent | Big Red Group |
| Website | RedBalloon website |
RedBalloon is an experiential gifts company.
RedBalloon was founded in 2001 by Naomi Simson. Simson began the company out of her house with a $25,000 personal investment, after copying the idea from the UK business Red Letter Days [2] She grew the company to forty six employees by 2011. The business concept was to sell experiences and memories rather than gifts. Simson launched the company from her home in Balmain, New South Wales. [3] It was at the end of the dot-com era and she had a difficult time signing up businesses to list with the company. [2] It was a total of two months and four days before the company sold its first experience gift, which resulted in a profit of $9 for commission on the sale. [2]
The company began to grow six months after pop when it was contacted by Fuji Xerox about using the experiences available on the website as an incentive for its sales force. Companies such as Telstra, Westpac, Commonwealth Bank, and Qantas signed up shortly thereafter. [2] The success of using the experiences for incentives led the company to create RedBalloon Corporate in 2004. [4] From 2001 through 2012, it was reported that the company sold more than 1.7 million gift experiences. The company also reported a 40% growth in their 2012 financial year for overall transaction values. [5] The company also sells experience gift cards in offline retailers such as Target, Big W, and Myer. [6]
The company migrated its online infrastructure to cloud-based Amazon Web Services in 2013. [7] The move was to manage peak traffic load which included $1Million in sales on Christmas Eve 2012. Prior to that time, the company used caching and had extra servers on standby to deal with peak loads of traffic to the site. [1] The company also made its first external board appointments in 2013 when it appointed Richard England as chairman of the board and Scott Farquhar as a non-executive director. [5]
Naomi Simson was CEO of the company until 2011 when she took a step back from the operational side of the business. [8] In October 2013 RedBalloon delivered its two millionth experience. [9] [10] In 2015, Nick Baker was hired as CEO of the company and Ken Boundy became chairman of the board. [11] [12] RedBalloon went through a re-branding in late 2015, updating the company logo and website. [13] David Anderson took over as CEO in 2017 after becoming the CEO of the newly formed Big Red Group, a holding company that became the parent of RedBalloon. [14] Anderson purchased 50% of Redballoon in 2017. [15]
RedBalloon was fined $43,000 in 2017 by the Australian Competition & Consumer Commission after an investigation found they charged four consumers excessive payment surcharges. [16]
RedBalloon's awards and recognition include being named one of The Great Places to Work by Business Review Weekly [17] from 2009 to 2013 [18] and receiving recognition on the BRW Fast 100 list from 2004 to 2009. The company has also been a regular on the Deloitte Fast 50 for Australia, beginning in 2006. [19] In 2015 it became the first Australian company to be named on the WorldBlu list of Most Freedom-Centered Workplaces. [20]
The Australian Financial Review (AFR) is an Australian business-focused, compact daily newspaper covering the current business and economic affairs of Australia and the world. The newspaper is based in Sydney, New South Wales, Australia; owned by Nine Entertainment and has been published continuously since its founding in 1951. The AFR, along with the rest of Fairfax Media, was sold to Nine Entertainment for more than A$2.3 billion. The AFR is published in tabloid format six times a week, whilst providing 24/7 online coverage through its website. In November 2019, the AFR reached 2.647 million Australians through both print and digital mediums (Mumbrella).
BRW was an Australian business magazine published by the Fairfax Media group. The magazine was headquartered in Melbourne. It regularly compiled lists which rank corporations and individuals according to various criteria, similar to Fortune magazine in the United States. BRW provided news and commentary on the economy, business and investment in Australia. The magazine reported on successful business strategies, investments and entrepreneurialism. Cover stories and features concentrated on ways to make money and improve businesses. Each week BRW focused on a sector or topic relevant to business people or investors.
Experiential gifts, also known as gift experiences, have gained prominence as a unique way to offer memorable experiences rather than material possessions. They encompass a range of activities such as skydiving, kayaking, race car driving, and vineyard tours. Originating in the UK in the 1990s, experiential gifts have become a rapidly growing segment within the $253 billion annual gift industry, serving regions like Europe and Australia.
Tyro Payments Limited (Tyro) is an Australian financial institution (neobank) specialising in merchant credit, debit and EFTPOS acquiring.
The Financial Review Rich List, formerly known as the BRW Rich 200, is a list of Australia's two hundred wealthiest individuals and families, ranked by personal net worth published annually in The Australian Financial Review Magazine, a supplement of The Australian Financial Review, published by Nine Publishing. The list provides a short summary on some of the known business activities of the individuals and families, together with commentary on how their ranking has changed from the previous year, if listed.
Atlassian Corporation is an Australian software company that develops products for software developers, and project managers among other groups. The company is domiciled in Delaware, with global headquarters in Sydney, Australia, and US headquarters in San Francisco.
Ruslan Kogan is a serial entrepreneur, and founder and CEO of Kogan.com as well as several other eCommerce-related companies in Australia. He was Australia's richest person under the age of 30 from 2011 to his 30th birthday in November 2012. In 2020, Kogan's net worth was estimated by the Financial Review 2020 Rich List as A$575 million.
Michael Cannon-Brookes is an Australian billionaire business magnate who is the co-founder and co-CEO of software company Atlassian.
Redbubble is a global online marketplace for print-on-demand products based on user-submitted artwork. The company was founded in 2006 in Melbourne, Australia, and also maintains offices in San Francisco and Berlin.
Naomi Simson is an Australian businessperson, entrepreneur, podcaster and blogger. After launching the Australian online success story RedBalloon in 2001, Naomi went on to co-found Big Red Group with partner David Anderson in 2017. Headquartered in Sydney's CBD, Big Red Group is the largest marketplace of experiences in ANZ, and home to leading brands including Adrenaline, Experience Oz, Experience Oz Local Agent, Lime&Tonic, and RedBalloon.
Guillaume Johannes "Giam" Swiegers is a South African-born Australian business executive. Swiegers was the Global CEO of international engineering company Aurecon from 2015 to 2019, and was previously CEO of Deloitte Australia for twelve years.
Scott Farquhar is an Australian billionaire business magnate who is the co-founder and co-chief executive officer of software company Atlassian. Farquhar often carries the epithet of accidental billionaire after he and his business partner Mike Cannon-Brookes founded Atlassian with the aim to replicate the A$48,500 graduate starting salary typical at corporations without having to work for someone else.
Menulog Pty. Ltd. is an Australian and New Zealand online food and beverage ordering app and delivery service platform, headquartered and founded in Sydney in 2006. It was bought in 2015 by Danish-based Just Eat, which was subsequently folded into Dutch-based Just Eat Takeaway.com in 2020, following Just Eat's acquisition.
MyNetFone Australia Pty Ltd is part of the MNF Group, the company that owns and operates Australia's largest VoIP network, which is also the 3rd largest interconnected voice network in the country. MyNetFone provides broadband internet and cloud-based communication services to residential, business and government sectors.
Junkee Media, formerly known as Sound Alliance, is a digital media company based in Australia.
Nick Baker is an Australian business executive and CEO of Outdoria. Baker previously worked as the chief marketing officer for Tourism Australia, a position he held from 2007 to 2015. He also served as the CEO of RedBalloon between 2015 and 2017.
Big Red Group is an Australian amusement and experience company founded in 2017 which owns various brands that focus on the entertainment industry. Based in Sydney, the corporation's brand list includes Adrenaline, Experience Oz, Experience Oz Local Agent, and RedBalloon. According to Big Red Group, it owns 10,000 experiences across Australia.
Bastion is a global marketing and advisory company headquartered in the Melbourne, Australia suburb of Cremorne, Victoria. It is reportedly the largest independent marketing and communications group in Australia, and was founded in 2009 by former professional Australian rules footballer Fergus Watts. Watts serves as the company's executive chairman.
The Financial Review Rich List 2017 is the 34th annual survey of the wealthiest people resident in Australia, published by The Australian Financial Review on 25 May 2017. From its establishment in 1984 and up until the publication of the 2016 list, the survey had been published in either hardcopy and/or online format in the BRW, or formerly, the Business Review Weekly. On 4 March 2016, Fairfax Media announced the closure of the BRW website, and redirected the site to a new section of The Australian Financial Review. Rich lists are now published in The Australian Financial Review Magazine and in 2017 were rebranded as the Financial Review Rich List.
The BRW Rich 200, 2016 is the 33rd annual survey of the wealthiest people resident in Australia, published in The Australian Financial Review on 27 May 2016. From its establishment in 1984 and up until the publication of the 2016 list, the survey had been published in either hardcopy and/or online format in the BRW, or formerly, the Business Review Weekly. On 4 March 2016, Fairfax Media announced the closure of the BRW website, and redirected the site to a new section of The Australian Financial Review. Rich lists are now published in The Australian Financial Review Magazine and in 2017 were rebranded as the Financial Review Rich List.
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