Like many former political science students, Cavillon CEO Kent Duston has done his fair share of explaining his choice of degree.
"People used to ask me stupid things like, did I want to be a politician?" Duston said, forking his way through a chocolate fudge brownie in a café in Sydney's Italian heartland - Leichhardt. "What they still don't realise is that a semester or Feudal Politics 101 teaches you more about the operations of most companies around here than any business degree."
Whether it was his background in politics, or his characteristic optimism that got him through, Duston has managed to work his way through the industry from reseller to vendor to becoming the CEO of his own company, Cavillon.
Having chalked up over a decade in IT, Duston was busily selling real estate in Wellington New Zealand when a recession interrupted his initial career path.
"First the stock market hit the wall, and then the rest of the economy followed - so suddenly the money for property dried up," Duston said. Rather than forcing his way through a market in decline he began looking for options in other industries, and eventually found his way to IT.
"Basically I borrowed as many magazines as I could carry from my brother, and took a holiday for a fortnight to read them all," he said.
Clued up on the technology, not to mention the jargon it carries with it, Duston took his new-found knowledge into the nearest computer reseller and talked his way into a new career.
"It wasn't like it is now where there is a lot of specialisation - then you were all generalists," he said. "You learnt a bit of everything as you were going along, and most of it on the job."
A self-confessed gadget man, Duston admits his attention span is what prevents him from every being a "good techie". And while the IT skills can be traced back through his career his attention span - or lack thereof is perhaps the result of growing up in a country where the scenery changes every 100 Km.
"I lived in Christchurch, Wellington, Dunedin, Auckland, you name it," he said. "but they are all so close that it is a bit like swapping neighbourhoods."
By the early 90's Duston found himself working for New Zealand's largest telco, under the guidance of Chris Tyler, whose departure from the upper echelons of Solution Six last year was plagued by controversy.
"He was an incredible guy to work with, and to this day I would invest in any company he suggested to be a good bet, because if Tyler is involved it is sure to grow initially," Duston said, then qualified the statement, "that doesn't mean you want to be around when he leaves."
And it would seem that the respect is mutual. When Tyler left New Zealand to work with an software development company called Solution 6, Duston was one of the management team Tyler enticed over the Tasman.
Although he was initially occupied setting up Solution 6's internal IT systems and intranet, Duston was more interested in the sorts of things that could be sent over the Internet.
"We were talking about what you could with digital delivery," Duston said. "We talked about what you could do if you could deliver the software via a browser, and suddenly we were talking an ASP business model."
And in fact it was precisely this model that lead him to part ways with Tyler, and the company.
"It all comes down to - who owns the customer, I figure you may aswell still funnel everything out through the channel, but Chris had different ideas," Duston said.
And through, Cavillon the company he founded with seed capital in June 2000, Duston continues to foster his version of ASP business. That is when he is not extolling the detriment caused to the IT industry by short sighted venture capitalists, and inexperienced management.
"We are staring down the barrel of the first recession in IT in 7 or 8 years," Duston said. "Many of these guys have never been through hard times before. They are used to faxing out a quote and standing by the fax waiting for it to appear with again with a signature on it. Now they are faced with 18 months buying cycles and all they want to do is stick their heads in the sand."
When it comes to Australian venture capitalists Duston is even more scathing, pointing out that their short sighted approach to business was forcing entrepreneurs off shore rather than fostering a local industry.
"They don't even bother to return your calls, then they sit you down with a twenty-five year old who has somehow become an industry specialist," Duston said.
However, if he is right about his predilection for the start-up stage of business, venture capitalists will be the bane of his existence for some time to come.
"I am the real first 80 percent guy, but I never want to finish off the final details. I will stick with Cavillon until it is up and running and the business model has been shown to work. Then I will leave the day to day operations to someone else and start up a new venture," Duston says with a smile.
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