Volta Tech founder and chief executive Ryan Clark. Photo / Supplied
Ryan Clark was just 14 years old when he started his tech firm. The young entrepreneur, now 16, explains how Volta Tech became a fully fledged business and how he has personalised his high school attendance to work around his business responsibilities.
What does your business do?
Volta Tech is a technology firm and there are two sides to the business: The first side of the business builds gaming computers, our best-selling ones are refurbished, and what we do is get 3- to 5-year-old office PCs and we pull out the main components and re-case them into a gaming PC, that creates a budget or cheaper PC compared to what you would get brand new. The other side of our business is cryptocurrency mining rigs, hardware which basically validates transactions on a blockchain and reward the owner with cryptocurrency.
Our business is very dependent on the market. Cryptocurrency is volatile, we find when crypto is going up our mining rigs are very popular but like right now we're in a bit of a dip so they are not as popular. Usually our mining rigs have a lot better margins than our PCs and are definitely more popular but our gaming PC sales have been ticking away in the background consistently.
What was the motivation for starting it?
I was about 12 when I bought my first computer, and I was just playing around with it and it ended up that the guy that sold it to me asked if I wanted to build my own and sell them. I don't know how I came across it but I was 12 when I started slowly building one every couple of months. I took about a year or two off eventually and it was July 2020 when I properly started to ramp it up, building multiple at a time. I started the business in July 2020 and registered it as a company in March 2021. It all really took off in the past year and a half.
Are you working on the business full-time currently?
I was running the business while I was at school last year, doing it on the side of school and trying to balance it all, but this year I've transitioned to a more hybrid schedule. I'm doing two days a week at school and three days working on the business. It is almost a full-time gig. I was going to fully leave school but decided to keep a couple of days for the social kind of side. I go to Cornerstone School in Palmerston North and basically I'm not enrolled in NCEA, what I'm doing while I am at school is a level 4 Certificate in Small Business - a UCOL (Universal College of Learning) polytech course. For the days I'm at school I'm doing that online course in class, so I'm getting the social side of school but also gaining business knowledge.
How big is your team?
At the moment it is myself, I've also got my brother who I'm contracting on, my Mum that I'm contracting on to do accounts and a friend from school that I am contracting on. All up around four staff are working on Volta Tech, but part-time contractors that I bring in when I need the extra help.
You were recently selected for a young entrepreneur programme - talk me through what that has given you and how the opportunity came about?
That was a three-week course in Wellington, it was really good and really valuable. Creative HQ were awesome and gave an in-depth overview of small business. There were lots of speakers that came in and spoke on different topics and I got to meet quite a few start-up founders; the Fix & Fogg founders and other big start-up people. It was a mentorship-type programme offering coaching for young founders like myself. There were six founders and six assistants that you paired up with that worked on your business with you. I was offered the opportunity through Young Enterprise after I won the Manawatu Young Enterprise Scheme last year, and got second place in the nationals as well. Someone reached out to me and asked if I would be interested in doing the course so I signed up.
Where do you see the business in three to five years' time?
Within the next few years I wanted to keep building the business up and potentially look to exit or sell it to another company; whether that's get acquired by a bigger company or sell it to someone else that is wanting a business, but for myself I'm an entrepreneur so I like building things up and moving on to the next thing to build. I don't want to do Volta Tech for the rest of my life, but I do want to build it up to a point where it is sustainable on its own and can be acquired by someone else. I've always got different ideas for businesses on the go. The next business I will do is likely within the cryptocurrency space again. As well as exiting, I will look to take the business to the Australian market as we look to scale and grow.
How does Volta Tech make its money and what are your earnings like?
The majority of earnings are coming from sales of the mining rigs and gaming PCs - the main products we sell. About 60 per cent of sales are mining rigs and 40 per cent gaming PCs generally, but right now more coming from gaming PCs with the down market. Our best-selling gaming PCs are the refurbished ones between $500-$800 compared to what you could otherwise buy brand new for about $1500.
We've done $650,000 in turnover this financial year and about $90,000 in profit. I didn't expect the business to get this big but very happy about it and super proud of myself for building the business to where it is. It hasn't been easy and some days I've been working 10-12 hours to get stuff done but it has been an exciting couple of years. None of us expected that it would take off this big, but my parents are pretty proud of it and my Mum and my Dad have been helpful, giving me different business advice and they gave me my first $200 loan when I started the business.
Do you think you have an advantage in business because of your age?
We have a few competitors in the refurbished gaming space - one store here in Palmy, but most competitors are just individual sellers selling on Trade Me, doing what I was doing at the start, but I think I have a leg up in that Volta Tech is an established business, now a fully registered company. It provides a bit more trust over someone selling them one at a time on Trade Me or Facebook, and we offer a warranty as well. On the side of marketing, being younger and in the target market of who we are trying to sell to, when I do marketing and ads I think about "Would I want to buy this" and perhaps I understand the target market a bit better than perhaps an older competitor would.
What's the greatest lesson you have learnt in business?
Do things outside the norm. A lot of people, even teachers at school, looked down on the idea and make fun of you for different things but if you persevere and have resilience, if you work hard, it is really not a hugely hard thing to build a business. Resilience is key and you should push through even if people tell you it is not going to work.
What advice do you give others wanting to start their own business?
Find a problem to solve first. The problem for my business was gaming PCs are too expensive, so basically if you find a problem first then it is a lot easier to make a successful business, because when you identify the problem people are having then they are more likely to buy your product or service.