24 CreditorWatch

When Colin Porter started real-time credit report company CreditorWatch, his business was the first in seven years to receive the “prestigious” information broker license from the Australian Securities and Investments Commission.

Fuelled by a desire to make creditor information more accessible for SMEs, Porter left his role in a publishing business to start CreditorWatch. He has since taken the business to $6.8 million in revenue in just six years, with a three-year revenue growth rate of 133%.

Speaking to SmartCompany in 2015, Porter said CreditorWatch is much like his first in publishing, saying it is a publishing business “in many ways”.

“We collect data, we reformat it and we publish it. So I see a lot of similarities with my first business,” Porter said.

A big fan of business plans — to the point where he still has pages from the plan stuck up around his office and desk — Porter believes the most important part of running a business is keeping your staff filled in on the company’s purpose, to ensure “everyone is rowing in the same direction”.

With multiple global ransomware attacks rocking businesses in 2017, Porter says one thing keeping him up at night are concerns around online security.

“We do everything possible to ensure data is secure, however, we have seen plenty of instances of larger corporations succumbing to instances of hacking,” he says.

This isn’t deterring the business from ambitious future growth plans, with CreditorWatch planning international expansion into two countries, with Porter believing there’s a “huge market” available in which to grow the business.

“I don’t think any entrepreneur can ever keep up being satisfied with their growth. Even if we were growing at 200%, I would be thinking about what else we can do,” Porter said in 2015.

* CreditorWatch was acquired by property, corporate and search provider InfoTrack in October, after the business had submitted its application for the 2017 Smart50 Awards.