Inventor inspired to find recipe for successAuthor: Garry...

Inventor inspired to find recipe for success
Author: Garry Barker
Date: 06/05/2006
Words: 1317
Source: AGE
Publication: The Age
Section: Business
Page: 7


It is no accident that the persistent Mike Carew and his Freshtel company are leading the world in internet telephony, writes Garry Barker.
SOME chefs get rich and famous. Others slave unrecognised in chaotic kitchens, working hours that anywhere else would bring on a strike.

Mike Carew escaped an early venture with the stove to spend 25 years as a plumber and inventor, sell out and begin a totally different business that is now at the forefront of telecommunications development.

His company, Freshtel, based in Melbourne, provides internet telephony services, known as VoIP (pronounced "voype") meaning voice over internet protocol. It is a technology that is sweeping the world, slashing the telephone call revenues of big telecommunications companies and making real the idea that phone calls to anywhere should be free.

Running a global technology company in one of the most competitive and difficult business environments on the planet is a long way from the kitchens of Le Chateau, at the time a leading Melbourne restaurant, or even a successful career in plumbing, but Mike Carew appears to handle it with aplomb.

He is a chunky, plain-speaking, silver-haired man who carries signs of his Irish heritage in his face and who hides his keen business acumen behind a relaxed and casual manner.

He met the internet in the '90s when he rode the dotcom wave with a company called tradestore.com, survived and went on to found Freshtel, lead the development of some first-class technology and find as a partner, Tesco, the huge British supermarket corporation, one of the largest retailers in the world, and the most profitable.

"I've always had a need to find something," he says, "but often did not know what it was."

In his plumbing days he invented the Leaf-free Gutter Guard and then a water conservation control device, both of which he later sold.

"I could invent things that had value, but I found I was not a marketer," he said. Always, he kept learning, sometimes hard lessons.

"The big mistake with the Gutter Guard was selling it off, patent and all, without a royalty on it. It made a fortune for the buyers. They are now looking to retire. But for me it was a valuable lesson: don't sell things too cheaply."

The water conservation control device "was bigger than I was", he said. "I took it from concept to first product, but I didn't have the money to properly commercialise it. I sold it off, but it proved that doing things better was the way to go," he said.

Then came the dotcom boom. Carew dived into an environment of which he then knew little, but he kept his head and, in the end, got out without costing anyone their shirt.

His dotcom venture, tradestore.com, "was Australia's largest online store, with over 30,000 products - aimed at renovators; anything to do with your house; timber, doors, hardware", he said.

Jeff Kennett liked the concept and bought into the company. "I admired him for his business ethics and his brilliant vision," Carew says.

Tradestore.com could have listed, he says, "but we decided not to. The boom was starting to fall apart and we weren't about to grab shareholders' money (on an enterprise) for which we could no longer see a long-term future." The venture was shut down.

And then he was given "a little plastic internet phone from Taiwan", he said. "You could just about hear someone on the other end. I thought, 'there's got to be a better way'."

There was. It developed into Freshtel, now a listed company providing what it says is the best internet telephony in the world. Tesco, a 6 per cent shareholder in Freshtel, thinks so, too. But the relationship came out of the blue.

"I got a call from the UK from a bloke called John Cassidy, who is now our general manager there. He wanted to introduce us to a supermarket company. I said we're about telephony, not groceries. How is a supermarket going to sell internet telephony?

"I had been in the UK, talking to British Telecom, and some big ISPs, about wholesaling our services. So I met with John and we had a meeting with Tesco and I realised they were already in telecommunications with an internet division. I found out they were the third-largest retailer in the world. Suddenly it made sense.

"Here was the third-largest retailer in the world interested in trusting us to roll out their domestic VoIP services throughout the whole of the UK against global companies such as Skype, Vonage, Cable and Wireless and so on," he said.

But Tesco had done its research. "Our voice quality was fantastic and we had the ability to build all the back-end systems required for them to go to market in their own name. The way they have hit VoIP is new. No one has done it like this before."

Carew believes strongly in the advantage of strategic alliances with powerful friends.

Binatone, of Hong Kong, makes Freshtel's telephone handsets, installing technology the Australian company has developed. That connection has opened new doors. At the recent CeBIT IT expo in Germany Binatone hosted Freshtel and introduced Carew and his team to other big retail players, among them Carrefour of France and WalMart of the US, the world's largest retailer.

Freshtel runs Tesco's VoIP service out of a base in Canary Wharf in London, using lines leased from British Telecom and Cable and Wireless. Nearly 400 Tesco supermarkets all over Britain now sell the retail boxes containing handset, a start-up voucher for calls and easy instructions. Freshtel does the rest.

The technology is strictly Australian, built by the team that did the web development for tradestore.com.

"They had always overdelivered on anything I had asked of them," Carew says. "They had done a lot of research and were keen to go ahead. In about six months it became obvious that we could create a clearer voice from one end to the other. By then I knew we could grow the business; had something that was marketable."

And so far as Carew can see, this is only the beginning.

CV

? 1954. Born Melbourne.

? 1970. Apprenticed at 16 to Le Chateau, in Albert Park, while studying cooking.

? 1973. Took up late apprenticeship with a plumber in the Melbourne metropolitan area.

? Formed plumbing business, eventually employing 30 people, and ran it for nearly 25 years.

? 1991. Invented, and sold, a patented gutter guard for houses, and a water conservation controller.

? 1998. Founded tradestore.com, an internet-based DIY warehouse. Closed it in 2001.

? 2002. Founded Freshtel. ? 2005. Marketing deals with Tesco in Britain and Freshtel.

PERSONAL SPACE

What is your favourite pastime?

My family, squash and a good debate with friends.

Your favourite restaurant in Melbourne?

Periwinkles in Malvern. It closed about 10 years ago and I have yet to find another that comes close.

The last great bottle of wine you had?

I don't have a favourite wine. It's the company that makes the night and if the company is good I rarely question the wine.

Your favourite piece of music or song?

Izrael Kamakawiwoole, Over the Rainbow.

Your favourite town?

Melbourne. Returning from overseas one sunny morning I stopped by the Yarra and walked along the bank. The atmosphere blew me away. Of all the cities I have visited, I have not found a match.

Your favourite place in Melbourne?

Besides home, the Yarra on a sunny morning.

The best time you ever had?

Taking my young sons spear fishing this year and watching their looks of amazement as we had sword fights with large crabs, watched sea horses dance and saw a large manta ray. Hard to beat.

What most annoys you?

When people are narrow minded and not visionary in thinking outside the box.

Your favourite book?

Across the Nightingale Floor - set in ancient Japan about the samurai.

What are you most passionate about?

My work, succeeding and turning an idea into a reality.


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