The co-founders of Equalution were named to Forbes’ 30 Under 20: Asia Pacific list.
A Sydney woman who previously lived on a weekly budget of $240 now runs a multimillion-dollar company and was added to Forbes’ 30 Under 30 list.
Jade Spooner and Amal Wakim’s journey from surviving on a few hundred dollars a week to owning a multimillion-dollar company has been capped off by a dream debut on Forbes’ 30 Under 30 Asia Pacific list.
Ms Spooner, 28, and Ms Wakim, 29, co-founded fitness phenomenon Equalution in 2016 in Sydney after both of them lost 50kg following their departure from their IT jobs at Google.
Equalution provides individualized meal plans that include both nutritious and favorite foods, as well as a nutrition tracking app.
The pair came up with the idea for the app after losing weight, which they attribute to a healthy diet consisting of 80 percent whole foods and 20 percent indulgence, within reason.
Forbes also included the pair in its 30 Under 30 (Asia Pacific) index under the Retail and E-commerce group.
Equalution’s nomination was motivated by the fact that it was ranked No. 14 out of 50 companies on Deloitte Technology’s Fast 50 Australia list for sales growth over three years last year.
Equalution’s sales increased 987 percent over the last two years.
Ms Spooner, of Sydney, reported that in the first week of service, she paid herself a weekly salary of $240.
Equalution has grown to become a multimillion-dollar company with several thousand clients worldwide.
Ms Spooner described the Forbes award as a recognition for her initial adversity.
“Being recognized by Forbes in the competitive Asia Pacific Region is an enormous honor,” she told NCA NewsWire.
“We have worked tirelessly, diligently, over an extended period of time, and never wavered in our commitment to our vision.
We started with a lot of free transformations to establish our reputation and brand awareness.
We initially paid ourselves a weekly salary of $240. We’d work through the night, mostly 16-hour days, as we either had no staff or very little staff. It is a reward for effort.”
Ms Spooner expressed confidence in the idea’s viability, stating that they had found a void in the nutrition room.
“When Amal and I began, no one else was doing what we wanted to do, and there was also no mobile app that could promote versatile dieting in the way we imagined the user experience,” she explained.
