Home Grown Business Success Stories

We’re a home-grown company dedicated to nurturing the dreams of other home-grown businesses. We spoke to a few of them to find out how RedBalloon has helped their business to grow and how customers like you, are helping them do what they love.

Woodman Estate

In the late nineties, Rick and his wife had a vision to do something for themselves. Their dream was to raise their family in a semi-rural setting and build a business which was unique. In 1998 they opened Woodman Estate which includes luxury accommodation, acclaimed restaurant dining and an indulgent wellness retreat; all set against the backdrop of sprawling, beautiful grounds and a 5-acre private lake in Mornington Peninsula.

Five years into running their own business, Rick saw the potential to grow their business through RedBalloon - and grow it did.

"Not only has our business doubled in size, RedBalloon has enabled us to reach customers that may not have otherwise found us," says Rick.

One of these customers is Jim from Essendon. "This lovely man discovered us through RedBalloon because he was given gift vouchers as a reward though a company he works with. At last count, Jim has frequented us on more than 33 occasions."

But the secret to Woodman Estate's success is not just a result of their decision to partner with RedBalloon to widen their reach, it's also due to their passion for delivering a great experience and their commitment to consistently change and evolve - something they've done every 5 years.

"We feel the most important thing about being a small business is to have an unwavering focus on the guest experience. It's all about the lifetime value of the guest to us," says Rick.

>> Shop Woodman Estate experiences

Heli Experiences  

Ten years ago, two brothers with a shared passion for helicopters decided to turn it into a business - and they've never looked back. Chief pilot, Guy Maine, and his brother Darcy Maine started Heli Experiences in Melbourne and today, they offer flights in four states, making them Australia’s largest capital city helicopter scenic flight operator. Since joining the RedBalloon family three years ago, the business has really 'taken off'.

"Providing a high-quality experience at reasonable prices has helped us become a top seller in our field, but since joining RedBalloon our bookings have increased - as has our reputation in the industry. We like that RedBalloon takes care of the marketing aspect of promoting our business to a huge customer base so we can focus on delivering the best experience."

In addition to their scenic flights, the business has grown to service corporate customers too, providing flights to media and news crews. 

Not only do Heli Experiences pride themselves on their professionalism and providing an amazing helicopter experience to customers every time, they place a great emphasis on hiring dedicated and friendly staff - some of whom are multilingual.

So on top of making a dream come true, what's the best thing about coming to work every day? According to the brothers, it's meeting new people, introducing them to the experiences they offer and of course, the view!

>> View helicopter flights provided by Heli Experiences

V8 Race Experience

"We had the cars and RedBalloon was our highway..." This is how Greg Evans, Managing Partner of V8 Experience explains his reason for why joining the RedBalloon community was an obvious one. 

This single decision made a decade ago has accelerated the expansion of the business which is now available Australia-wide.

"In the last decade, we’ve built 27 cars, contracted over 200 professional instructors and 500 part-time employees," says Greg.

Their extensive offering of V8 experiences has attracted customers of all ages for reasons ranging from celebrating milestones to simply wanting to experience the adrenaline rush of reaching speeds of up to 200km per hour. Of the thousands of driving experiences they've sold, 80,000 of them have been purchased through RedBalloon.

"It’s easy to underestimate and hard to really measure the economic contribution of RedBalloon to our business," says Greg.

>> Shop V8 Race Experiences

So when it comes to gifting this end of financial year (and beyond), a RedBalloon experience voucher is in many ways a gift that keeps on giving.