“You’re making a very big mistake.”
Reflecting on his teenage years, Jack Grace recalls those exact words being said to him numerous times.
He recalls being laughed at by his peers when he told them he wanted to leave school to start his own global-scale business.
Now, at 25, the owner of a completely self-funded, multi-million dollar company that is one of both Google and Facebook’s largest advertising clients, Jack’s the one having the last laugh.
“Yeah, I was a high school dropout,” he says with a chuckle.
“I left at 16, I just knew it wasn’t for me. I was really into bodybuilding and fitness, and I wanted to create a supplement company.
“I lost a lot of friendships when I left school to start the business, but I knew that if it was going to have any chance at working, I had to go all in.
“This had to be my job, even though it wasn’t making me money. I was afraid that if I got a 9-to-5, that my own business would just become a side hustle.”
Jack is the first to admit the early days of trying to get his supplements into the market weren’t without sacrifice – by himself and his now wife, Frances, also from Mildura.
“Fran has been my partner since we were teenagers and, without a doubt, she is a huge reason why I am where I am today,” he says.
“A lot of people don’t realise the sacrifices she made, that she worked full-time for years while I was trying to get the the business off the ground.
“I remember being so broke that I couldn’t afford to pay my phone bill, I had to use Fran’s phone for six months.
“We kept trying to move from Mildura to Melbourne but we had to turn around and come back time after time because we couldn’t afford it.
“But through it all, there Fran was, backing me, supporting me and believing in me.
“Any money that she made was used to support us both, and to try and get the supplement business off the ground.
“A lot of people around me were telling me to get a real job, there were only a handful of people close to me that always believed in me and Fran was one of them.”
“She believed in me, she worked to support us, and any extra money she had she gave to me to put into the business.
“You just can’t buy things like the support she gave me. To have someone who believes in you when you’re not making any money for years.
“A lot of people don’t realise what Fran did back in the day, what she sacrificed in order for our business to grow.”
Jack took what little money he had and used it to source a manufacturer to help make his dream supplement a reality.
“I sourced an American manufacturer, but the minimum order was like 1000 units, way more than I could afford,” he says.
“So I found a company that would make me just a really small amount of the product, which I used to create samples.
“I sent those samples to every distributor in Australia – and the feedback from them all was the same; ‘the product is good, but you have no money for marketing and you can’t even get us the amount of stock that we’d need’.”
Determined not to give up on his dream, Jack went to retail stores instead – only to be told they bought direct from manufacturers.
“I was constantly dealing with rejection,” he says.
“Out of 100 stores that I approached, maybe five said ‘yes’ and took a little bit of stock,” he says.
“That was the first bit of money I ever made, the first sign of income, but that was a good two or three years after I first started and it wasn’t anywhere near enough to live on.”
Realising that something needed to change, Jack made the decision to cut out the middle man and start selling directly to the consumer.
“I started learning everything there was to know about a business, building a website and advertising online, because I was a one-man show – it’s not like I had, or could afford, any staff,” he says.
“After three years, I built up the website and started selling the supplements online and advertising through Instagram.
“From there, it kind of just took off really fast. That’s the point where I thought to myself, ‘OK, this could actually really work’.”
And work it did. Before long, Jack expanded his brand to include shapewear, which soon overshadowed the supplements and became one of the largest shapewear websites in the country.
“From there, we just kept reinvesting any money we made back into our business, and branching out into other areas,” Jack says.
Jack made the foray into the beauty industry next, manufacturing tools for a wide range of beauty and skincare products, tools and devices for at-home use.
“Pretty much anything you can think of under the beauty umbrella, we have something for it under one of our brands,” he says.
“DOTCOM is a direct to consumer company, so now, instead of being turned away by retail stores, we’re saying no to the very major players who want to stock our products.
“We have to stick to our vision and what we believe in, and that’s remaining direct to consumer.
“In the early days, it was a matter of allowing the market to determine our next steps — now, we’re in a position to be able to make the market what we want.
“That’s kind of how it progresses when you have the capital behind you, you’re able to create the trends.
“We went from being the little guys who jump on the wave to being able to create our own waves.”
Today, DOTCOM Enterprises has operations across three countries, 25 employees scattered across the globe, more than two million website visitors per month and a monthly advertising spend in the seven-figure realm.
It is one of Google and Facebook’s biggest advertising clients.
“We are an entirely self-funded company – we have not taken any outside investment, nor have we needed to get any outside finance
to grow and scale the company.” Jack says.
“All of our growth has come from me reinvesting, and I think it’s rare to be in a position like that on a business scale like this.
“I think that’s one of the things that I’m most proud of, because I’ve been on both sides of this coin, I know what it’s like to have nothing.
“I definitely wasn’t an overnight success story – it was years and years in the making.
“But we’re in a position now where we can spend millions and millions a year on advertising, and you can kind of beat out the smaller players just on marketing budget alone.”
Jack says his family is his No.1 motivation in life.
“The motivation of money really isn’t enough – it has to be something else, something more. For me, I’ve always wanted to put my family in a good position and to see my wife happy. That’s what matters most to me,” he says.
“The fear of where I started and remembering when I couldn’t afford to pay rent, that always pushes me to stay motivated. My work ethic today is even more disciplined than when I had nothing.
“I am proud of what I have done, but never satisfied.”
Today, DOTCOM continues to thrive, and Jack, Frances and their children Carter, 2, and Haven, 5 months, have returned home to Sunraysia after years of international travel.
“Sunraysia was always home,” Jack says firmly.
“We love it here, it’s where we want to raise our kids and it’s where our families are.
“We’re just thankful to be able to do what we love and run our business from the place that we love – Sunraysia.”
