IT entrepreneur to turn over 'hundreds of millions' this year

14 May 2010

A 25-YEAR-OLD Brisbane IT guru will turn over ‘hundreds of millions’ annually with his e-billing company Intabill – making him one of the wealthiest men in Queensland.

At 17 Daniel Tzvetkoff went to the US with his web design business to find clients and it was there he discovered a lot of start-up internet companies had no efficient way to accept payments, so he came up with the idea to provide an online billing service.

Now with a $28million waterfront property on Mermaid Beach on the Gold Coast and a slick nightclub in Fortitude Valley, Tzvetkoff is well on his way to creating a small fortune - defying the downturn and creating his own luck.

“They all struggled to find banks who would actually accept their business, because the banks didn’t have a real great understanding of the internet or how payments were even accepted – it was slowing the expansion of small internet companies,” says Tzvetkoff.

“So we saw a bit of a hole there and went on a whirlwind trip to find banks who would partner with us. It actually began as an add-on product for us.”

But it was this ‘add-on’ product that was to form Intabill, which Tzvetkoff predicts will bring in ‘hundreds of millions’ of dollars in revenue this year, with consistent monthly growth between 10 and 20 per cent since the company started in 2001. Even in these hard times he expects this rate to continue.

While 70 per cent of Intabill’s clients come from the US and the rest are mostly from Europe, Tzvetkoff plans to bring the product to the Australian market this year alongside a debit card service. Intabill has recently started up an acquisition company IB Global to support these expansion plans, which include extended operations abroad.

“Right now we’ve got plans to move around the world and follow the sun – to switch to an eight-hour operation here with a higher number of staff for that period, and then switch to the US for the next shift, and onto Europe for the next day.”

Time zones differences mean Tzvetkoff, as well the 160 employees in his Milton office can end up working all sorts of hours, and he is often woken up in the late hours of the night.

“You really have to make yourself available at ridiculous times. I might have a call one day a week at 6am in the morning, and another day of the week at 1am in the morning. Some weeks I can’t work out how I get through with so little sleep, but I do.”

For an extended version of this story, don’t miss the April issue of Brisbane Business News – to hit the shelves post Easter! You will also be able to find out what makes Virgin Blue CEO Brett Godfrey tick and what troubles him as the airline tackles the trans-Pacific market. We also catch up with Steve Greenwood from the Property Council of Australia, who says urgent reforms are needed in the property industry. This and much more in the April issue.