2017 Vic Award
The 2017 Victorian Pearcey Entrepreneur Award was presented to Cyan and Collis Ta'eed as part of the Pearcey Oration held on Monday 28th August at the Hub, Melbourne. The award was presented by Rick Harvey, Victorian Chairman of the Pearcey Foundation who noted that the award is not just about success, it is also very much about Cyan and Collis being great entrepreneurs and really special people "taking a risk, making a difference and being an inspiration".
Cyan and Collis Ta'eed
Cyan and (husband) Collis co-founded Envato in 2006 with a friend Jun Rung. Now in 2017, Envato has become a one of the most successful Australian startups with over 300 staff and $100m in revenues. The Envato Market has more than 10,000 sellers and over 7 million members who buy music, photos, website templates, video and more.
Envato started in a garage in 2006 with borrowed money. Cyan was a designer and Collis a web designer. They saw the need for creative content, such a Flash and photography. So they started an online business (originally called FlashDen) to sell wider stock, and give better return to the creatives. Over the next 11 years they nurtured the business to its now stellar position of being in the top 100 websites in the world. Envato has over 300 staff with flexible working conditions (staff can work overseas for 3 months per year) and the staff also enjoy a profit sharing arrangement.
Cyan and Collis are an amazing team. Collis is CEO and is more of a behind-the-scenes person focussed on growing the business. Cyan (Executive director) is more vivacious and spends a lot of time building the communities of creators that provide the Envato content and handling the public facing aspects of the company. They have always had a great vision for their platform and an innate understanding of building the ecosystem for the buyers and sellers. They are also well known for their rich company culture with generous and inclusive values for all Envato employees.
Cyan is passionate about women entrepreneurs and social enterprises. She is founder of NewDayBox, a company that mobilises volunteers to give gifts on Christmas Day to women in crises. She likes to give presentations and visit schools to talk about careers in technology, especially for women. Her latest venture (to be launched in November) is "Hey Tiger" which makes chocolates using ethically sourced cocoa.
