Basil spent 12 years in IT business solutions and consulting within large enterprises. Prior to that, he worked as a Developer at some of Perth’s most well-known web development companies - something he always maintained a strong interest in.
His vast experience in tech, along with a business degree from UWA has led him to follow a lifelong entrepreneurial desire with the launch of All The Dresses - one of Australia’s largest fashion rental marketplaces. All The Dresses are able to connect customers with over 10,000 designer fashion pieces available for hire online, delivered to your door, Australia-wide. Their website makes it super fast and easy to find and book the perfect outfit for your event or occasion.
With a passion for identifying solutions in the e-commerce space, Basil is especially focused on user experience. He is trained in design thinking and certified in Product Ownership (CSPO) and Enterprise Architecture (TOGAF). At All The Dresses, Basil oversees product, web development, SEO, analytics, finance and commercial partnerships.
Outside work, Basil has played soccer most of his life and is a massive Gunners fan (Arsenal FC). He’s well on his way to brainwashing his 1 and 3-year-old boys with all things Arsenal.
E-commerce and entrepreneurship
My passion is online business and entrepreneurship.
I was fascinated by the Internet as a kid and started building websites in year 9, which was young back in 1996. I was amazed that I could put something online and have people all over the world come to see it. Companies started sending me free stuff, which took my interest to another level.
I was really good at accounting in high school and had an interest in the stock market, having won a national ASX competition. I chose to do a Commerce degree majoring in E-commerce and Accounting.
I worked for a few web development companies before gravitating toward IT in the resources industry. With software going browser-based, and later Cloud, it was a natural transition. Working in IT in the resources industry, your customers are mostly internal, and most have no option but to use your product or service at the end of the day. This means you don’t always get a true understanding of the success or desire for the product you’ve delivered, and also means you can’t go overboard on quality and user experience - the ROI often isn’t there to perfect a product that isn’t really competing against anything.
I ran various online side-businesses, but finally, I left corporate IT as it wasn’t satisfying an itch of mine, which was to design and build something that really delighted customers. I started my own e-commerce venture, All The Dresses, a designer dress and accessory hire marketplace.
The build-up for a business
My wife was an early adopter of the trend of renting designer clothing online, as part of her business in branding and event styling. I was an avid listener of podcasts talking about trends in business and there was a growing movement toward access & experiences over ownership in many areas of life. We had a hunch that the way people consumed certain types of fashion would follow the same path.
After some research, we determined that there was an opportunity and a gap in the market for a marketplace that brought together all the designer fashion available for hire across the country into one place.
I knew that marketplace businesses are notoriously tough to build, but they’re extremely valuable once they reach a certain level. A lack of existing players and an industry just starting to take off made it worth looking into.
We hacked our way to an initial release of the website, where we made no revenue, but it allowed us to gauge interest and traffic. We were amazed at the amount of traction we got almost right away.
After a year or so, the level it had gotten to meant that I had to go all in. I put my career in IT on hold and went full-time in the business.
Jump forward a couple of years and we’re one of, if not the biggest dress and accessory rental marketplace in Australia, and we also have a big presence in New Zealand. We’ve helped dress tens of thousands of customers and our websites welcome close to 250,000 visitors each month.
My web and technology experience has been hugely important, but I’ve leant on so many learnings from my career - in areas of legal/contracts, fostering partnerships, user experience, customer service, finance, and proposal writing. The experience has been so gratifying, having faced so many different and unique business challenges in a relatively short time frame.
Improving efficiency
We still have a major challenge dealing with an Australian postage network that’s unreliable and provides no guarantees since COVID. One week, a package from A to B will get delivered in two days, the next week it’s five. This is tough as a booking-based business delivering on time for a specific date/event.
We need to maximise the utilisation of stock and take advantage of peak periods.
We’ve implemented a heap of automation and algorithms to help us and our rental partners with this. Our system aggregates data about deliveries all over the country to provide an up-to-date status of how a particular route is performing (e.g. Melbourne to Perth Inner Suburbs).
This allows us to identify at-risk bookings and send alerts so action can be taken. We can also dynamically tweak the amount of notice required for last-minute bookings, which is a significant part of total sales.
It’s impossible to maintain quality and reliability when items are being provided by individuals all over the country, many without much experience and without a reputation to uphold. By listing items from professional rental businesses only, we ensure high standards and it’s also great from a sustainability perspective as it ensures clothing gets maximum use in the circular economy.
Fostering entrepreneurial spirit
My most important mentor has been my dad. He fostered the entrepreneurial spirit in me from an early age and is always someone I can bounce ideas off, or talk to about career and financial challenges.
He’s owned and run a range of different businesses in his time, from a distribution warehouse to a computer hardware and services business, to a dry-cleaner. He’s even been a horse trainer and driver at the trots. So his knowledge and experience are vast. He’s also the hardest worker I know, even to this day (he’s 73!)
Industry growth
Dress hire isn’t a new concept, but the way it is being offered now is. You can rent almost any dress from any designer now and it can be done online and delivered to your door. The rise of social media, and in particular Instagram over recent years has made it really difficult to go to any event or occasion without photographs appearing online. It meant that people who weren’t even at the event or part of the same circle of friends had already seen you wearing the outfit. So the desire to wear something different to each occasion has risen. But who can afford to buy a beautiful designer dress every few weeks?
Recent documentaries have really brought to the fore how the fashion industry is the second largest polluter in the world, and “fast fashion” has had big social and environmental problems called out. By renting rather than buying, consumers aren’t only reducing overall consumption, but they can choose garments of higher quality that have been produced more ethically, over choices from fast fashion brands, for about the same price.
My UWA experience
For me it was mostly about independence. I had to commit to achieving something without much input or oversight from my parents, which was a pretty new thing for me at that age.
Other students were also really important to me. A few of the people I met at UWA are some of my closest friends 20 years later. They aren’t just great mates though, they’ve had great professional success in their fields. I’ve lost count of the number of times they’ve been able to help me out in that sense, whether that be connecting me with someone, providing advice, making a recommendation or referring a client.
You never stop learning
My UWA degree certainly opened up job opportunities in the early years after graduating and I still feel that the quality and prestige of a UWA education is looked upon favourably by employers and the business community.
You never stop learning in your career and in business, but the learning at UWA gave me the foundation to build on. There are also a bunch of basic/broad skills which I really developed during my time at uni, such as how to conduct research and think critically.
Focusing on the customer experience
As a two-sided marketplace, “customers” for us aren’t just those wanting to rent items, it’s also the businesses we partner with who bring the inventory and do fulfilment.
We make it as easy as possible for those businesses through our tech. Everything is automated for them and they barely need to do anything to start working with us and have all their clothing pieces listed on our site. We show live availability through our integrations with their systems, so they don’t need to accept/reject bookings like on competing platforms.
Product discovery through search and filtering is lightning fast. We’re the only ones doing true price comparisons between suppliers, saving customers money or giving them friendlier terms. When a dress is booked out from one supplier, we show them others they can book it from. Our tight integrations with partner systems also give customers instant confirmation of bookings - again something competing platforms can’t do.
Getting involved
Get involved! Whatever it is, volunteering, society events, socialising or even partying. If I’m honest, it’s something I wished I did more of during my degree.
Universities are such fantastic places for finding professional and personal connections, some of which will last for life. It’s the perfect opportunity with so many like-minded people around, and most of you will have the time to really get involved, network and meet people - maybe more than any other point of your life.