Case Study

RUSLAN KOGANImage By Kogan Technologies [CC BY 2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons

creating great leaders

Overview

Career

Ruslan Kogan (born November 1982) is a serial Entrepreneur, and founder and CEO of Kogan.com as well as one of the founders of Milan Direct, an Australian and UK furniture retailer.

He was Australia’s richest person under the age of 30 from 2011 to his 30th birthday in November 2012.

His wealth has multiplied more than 20 times in half a decade, making him one of the richest 200 in Australia’s Rich List 2014, and one of the top 10 richest in Australia’s Young Rich List 2014, with a personal wealth of $349 million.

In 2010, following the launch of Milan Direct, Kogan.com expanded to the UK, with the launch of www.kogan.co.uk. From day one, Ruslan Kogan had his sights set on making the Kogan company a global brand, in the last few years Kogan began to sell products in Belgium, Finland, France, Hong Kong, Ireland, New Zealand, Singapore, Spain, and the US.

Kogan achieved $3 million in its third year, followed by $8 million in the fourth, $22 million in the fifth, $70 million in the sixth, and over $200 million in the seventh year. Kogan is projected to produce more than A$400 million in fiscal 2015, and has been growing at between 200% and 300% per year since its 2006 inception. The Wall Street Journal speculates Kogan is worth over $400M. More than 2 million products have been delivered by Kogan, with daily sales of more than $1 million.

Having started with no external funding or capital, Kogan.com has grown to become one of Australia’s fastest growing businesses in any industry.

Ruslan Kogan left his job at Accenture in 2006, and started Kogan.com at the age of 23 in 2006 from his parents’

garage in Melbourne, Australia.

When he was asking factories to provide quotes for the manufacturing of the first production run of Kogan TVs, he claims the factories laughed at him, and would not accept

his small order.

He realised he was able to create a business benefit for the factory beyond the small initial order. He noticed that the organisations he was dealing with had poorly laid out marketing material, with incorrect spelling and grammar,

and so reworked all of their material. After he sent them the work, they replied to him and accepted the initial order, and

even gave him a better price. A week later, they told him that they had just won a large contract with a US customer because their documentation was the most professional.

When Kogan began to sell TVs on eBay, the TVs were in full production and he needed to pay the supplier, but

eBay shut his account down because he was yet to receive any feedback. He had no way of paying the remaining

amount for the first production run. He was forced to apply for many credit cards, ask his friends to do the same, and

take cash advances on all of them.

Following this, he travelled to China, where he took charge of the whole container load of TVs and personally inspected each one. Ruslan watched the TVs get loaded onto the truck, got in a taxi and followed the truck driver to the port to make sure the container made it on to the

vessel safely.

The company rapidly expanded to a broader range of products such as Digital Radios, GPS devices, Netbooks,

Tablets, and Video Cameras, and in September 2011 began selling complementary products from a range of brands

including Apple, Canon, Nikon, Samsung, Motorola and others.

Channel 10’s The Project Story on Ruslan Kogan

Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dtKCHVnuJ_8

Ruslan Kogan Biography

Link: https://www.youtube.com/embed/qTf28yjlfng?list=

UUMdGDkUGhYYIHbPL SLQEt0w?modestbranding=

1&showinfo=0&controls=0

Early Life

Ruslan Kogan was born to Belarusian parents, and moved with his sister Svetlana and parents to Australia in 1989.

He grew up in the Elsternwick Housing Commission flats, and started his first business at the age of 10 by finding lost golf balls, cleaning them and selling them for $0.50/each to golfers at Elsternwick Golf Course on Saturday mornings.

He was interested in technology from an early age, building his first computer at the age of nine. He has started approximately 20 businesses since the age of 10,

with Kogan.com his most recent and most successful venture.

He attended Brighton Secondary College and Melbourne High School before going on to complete a Bachelor of Business Systems (Information Technology) at Monash University.

By the age of 23 he had worked at the IT departments of Bosch, GE, Telstra, and was a management consultant at Accenture.

Watch

creating great leaders

Ruslan Kogan’s Extensive Interview with Business

Builders

Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0fi_PmY72kM

“We have to embrace [the internet], realise it’s the future and keep talent here in Australia. There are going to be jobs lost in Australian retail no matter what, because the

business world changes.”

– Ruslan Kogan

Read

A few years ago, Kogan was at a gala “Entrepreneur of the year” awards dinner. The plaques for all finalists were on a table, and Kogan noticed all the names were Eastern European or Russian. Kogan won, and was asked by the MC why those names dominated. He joked it might have something to do with vodka. The MC pressed further, and asked Kogan if he got his business skills from his parents. No, he replied, the principles of economics didn’t apply in Communist Russia.

When he got off stage, an older man approached. “You got a lot more business skills from your parents than you know,” he told Kogan. “Think about what it takes to be an Entrepreneur. You’ve got to drop everything you’ve got, take a massive risk, travel into the unknown, and work your arse off for a potential benefit that might not even be there.”

The point resonated. Now, when he talks to conferences or school students, he defines an Entrepreneur as a mixture of inventor and athlete. The inventor creates something that hasn’t existed before. “And then the athlete bit kicks in, which is to work your butt off to make it happen,” says Kogan. “The athlete part of Entrepreneurship I got from my parents.”

He was recently asked at a business event about the legacy he would like

to leave.

Given the setting, his instant reaction related to business. Then he reconsidered. “After tossing that

around in my head for a while, I thought, ‘I really don’t care about how

I’m remembered in the business world.’ I realised the stuff that I do care about is that I want to be remembered as a good son, a good brother and a

good friend.”

Kogan works 70 to 100 hours a week, and remains passionate about what

he has created. “One promise to myself that I have is the moment I’m

not enjoying it, I’m gone,” he says, but adds: “I can’t see that happening.”

ABC Radio interview

Link: http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/

sundayprofile/ruslan-kogan/7014054

Article on Kogan considering Dick Smith online acquisition

Link: http://www.smartcompany.com.au/

finance/49427-ruslan-kogan-dick-smith-collapse-a-bittersweet-situation/

Article with Kogan’s perspective on ‘rejection’

Link: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/best-advice-your-ideas-get-rejected-youre-right-track-ruslan-

kogan?trk=mp-reader-card

creating great leaders

Listen

“If you think you can, or you think you can’t... you’re wasting too much time ‘thinking’. JUST DO IT!”

– Ruslan Kogan