A start-up often tipped as being one of the country's next "unicorns", Envato, has more cash than it needs to keep growing, so it has decided to make the unusual move of sharing its profits with its staff.
The bootstrapped online graphics marketplace was founded 11 years ago in the garage of Collis Ta'eed's Bondi home with his wife Cyan, their long-time friend Jun Rung and two years later his brother Vahid Ta'eed. Since then it has emerged as one of the most profitable tech start-ups in the country.
In the 2016 financial year the company recorded $US29.4 million ($37.1 million) in net profit. While it is yet to file its 2017 numbers, it is expected that profits will be similar.
Envato co-founder Collis Ta'eed is giving $US1.2 million of its profits back to its staff. Pat Scala
Envato chief executive Collis Ta'eed said he wasn't aware of any other start-ups having profit shares with their staff, partly because many are not profitable.
"We've been profitable for pretty much as long as we've been around, and we're bootstrapped, so last year at our 10-year anniversary we stopped and reflected and thought about what we're doing and where it's going and with us being profitable enough, we'd always wanted to reward the staff and people who contribute each year," he said.
"Last year was the point where we realised we weren't spending as fast as money was accumulating and we have a belief that while we're a capitalist business, that can be a very narrow view of what businesses should do with their profits and we have shareholders who want to see the business as a force for good and something that helps the community grow."
This year Envato has increased its profit share with its 300 employees from $US1 million in FY16 to $US1.2 million. Former staff members who had left the company in the last financial year are also given a share.
"One of my worries was that it would be looked at as just part of their salary. But I wanted to make it clear that they were getting salaries for their job and this was a windfall," Mr Ta'eed said.
"I made a slide deck on things they could spend their profit share on – an alpaca, a ticket to Hawaii, or paying off your mortgage which our CFO would recommend. It was part of getting the staff in touch with how the business is going."
As a company, Mr Ta'eed believes the business is at a crossroads and he has been questioning whether to keep the business private, or take it public.
At this stage no decision has been made and Mr Ta'eed said he changed his mind daily on the best option.
"The thing that matters to us is to make a company that makes an impact. That's the thing we talk about amongst ourselves. I'm losing sleep about it," he said.
In terms of the marketplace, in May the company introduced Envato Hosted, so that customers can buy a WordPress website and hosting at the time of purchase for selected themes.
Last year it also launched Envato Elements, which is a subscription marketplace like Netflix or Spotify, but it lets users download unlimited templates for graphics for $29 a month and it has just added photography to this service.
In line with the company's mission to make an impact, Mr Ta'eed said the start-up was also preparing to launch its own charity.
"Since year two we started putting about 1 per cent of pre-tax profits to charitable causes. The first year we did it I had no idea what charities to put it toward, so we asked the team to nominate charities and we got more than we could give to, so we voted," he said.
"But we've decided we want to do something more meaningful with these partnerships. So we're setting up a private ancillary fund to put the money into and to look for charities to partner with more deeply around the space of job readiness and helping under-represented people get into not just technology, but employment."
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