Next year HC will turn 21 years young, and the team and I have been spending a bit of time thinking about how we will celebrate this important milestone. We’re excited about how we’ll reconnect with all who have made our 21-year journey so amazing, and we’ve been trolling through lists of past clients, staff, industry connections and others who have supported, inspired, mentored or cheered us along the way.
To have got this far in business (the typical survival rate of businesses in this country is the same as flipping a coin – around 50%) and to have made the friends we have, to have worked on the projects we have – and to have had such talented staff to work alongside and share laughs along the way, is something I am very grateful for. So thank you all for the trust, the deadlines, the challenges, the friendship, the learnings, the experience, the recognition, the fun, the success and the satisfaction.
You’ll be hearing lots more about our journey of 21 years throughout our year of celebration in 2023 – the highlights, the lessons and recognising all of you, but for now I’ll leave you with a few little-known facts about HC:
- The business was first registered as Hardman Consulting and the name only changed when we grew up from sole trader status and became a Pty Ltd company in 2009.
- The first client was a connected homes technology business based in Singapore – they were well ahead of their time.
- When we couldn’t find the tech solution we needed – we built our own and this was well before APPs were a thing. This included a content capture platform, our own HTML email system (pre Mailchimp days) and our own media database and distribution system called LUIS.
- We conceived and launched our own podcast, Regional Voices, in 2014 and ran it for nearly five years, with over 13,000 downloads. This was well before podcasts were as ubiquitous as they are today.
- The furthest we travelled on a gamble for new business was 7,876kms to Shanghai, China.
- The first out of home office was a co-working space in Parramatta which then led to locations in Sydney Olympic Park and Newington. We’ve now come full circle moving back to Parramatta in our current co-working space in 2019.
- The highest number of full-time staff we’ve had is 12 – we are currently the perfect, small but mighty sized team of five.
- We invest in long term relationships and have clients who have taken us with them to five or more other businesses, as their career has progressed.
- Sue’s fourth son was born when the business was really hitting its stride so he came to work every day and used to sleep in the travel cot in the boardroom in between feeding and cuddles with his work aunties. That baby boy is now almost 14 years old and we have always prided ourselves on making it work for working families.
Ah, but back to the party in early 2023… A save the date is coming your way so we hope you can make time to celebrate for this or any of the other activities we’ll have planned for our big anniversary year.
Sue Hardman