Graduating entrepreneurs

October 2004

An increasingly competitive jobs market and an entrepreneurial spirit have encouraged two recent Monash South Africa graduates to start their own company. Jeanette Lamont reports.

Prepared for the challenge: Entrepreneur and Monash South Africa graduate Mr Matthew Hodge.

When Matthew Hodge and Bradley Harrison graduated from Monash South Africa last year with Bachelor of Computing degrees, they left with a belief in their ability to join the highly competitive world of IT -- and an entrepreneurial spirit.

Rather than work for an existing company, the pair, together with fellow graduate Douglas Minnaar (who has since left the company) started their own business, TX Solutions.

Mr Hodge says his studies at Monash prepared him well for the challenges of running an IT company.

"During our third year of study at Monash, we had to complete an industrial experience project in a workplace environment. We were presented with a real problem and had to produce a workable solution for the client," he says.

"Seven students were placed in the same company, where we were divided into two groups. The first group was given the task of producing a website for the company, while the second had to develop the software to 'talk' to the website. This project was a great confidence-building and practical learning experience for us all."

When they first formed the company, Mr Minnaar focused on the supply and installation of hardware for clients, while Mr Hodge and Mr Harrison were responsible for software and website development.

"When Douglas left earlier this year, we had to re-align our focus," Mr Hodge says. "We are now offering mainly website development and design as well as hosting options for our clients."

Once the website is complete and operational, TX Solutions offers to host it in its domain and provides an ongoing update and upgrade service for clients.

"This is a good way for us to keep in touch and establish ongoing, long-term relationships with our clients," says Mr Harrison. "We offer an informal and personalised service whereby we can adapt to our clients' needs.

"We find running our own business challenging and exciting. Cold-calling on clients to present our credentials has also been a huge learning curve. The presentation skills we learned as part of the business communications unit of our course helped us enormously, but we have found that actually going out there has extended us even more.

"We try and learn from every interview -- even those with a negative outcome can be a very valuable learning experience."

The three graduates were part of the first intake at Monash South Africa in 2001 and were among the first group to graduate in 2003.