“You always learn from experience. Otherwise you’re wasting your time.”

Frank Penhalluriack

Family and Education

“I think the early life is vitally important for anyone who wants to be an entrepreneur,” he told me. “It determines whether you’re going to be an entrepreneur or not”.

Frank Penhalluriack initially went to Hampton High School, but was offered the opportunity to finish Year 12 at Melbourne High in 1958 after several classrooms were engulfed in a fire over the summer holidays. “Back then, at an average high school, perhaps 50% of the students wanted to achieve something, but the other 50% held them back,” said Frank. “The beauty of Melbourne High is that everyone wants to achieve”. Whilst Frank loved the sports and outdoor activities available to him at Hampton, most of his peers weren’t academically interested.

The move to MHS for year 12 meant he did more work than ever before. Frank wasn’t allowed to do the higher-level maths and science subjects he was doing at Hampton because he was well below the Melbourne High standard. One of the teachers even told him not to bother learning the words of the school song. ‘You’ve come in at the tail end of what is normally a four-year career, so just make sure you pass,’ was the instruction. Having since had two sons go through MHS, Chris in 2010 and Will in 2014, he now know the words, and is a member of the Green, Maroon & Black Patrons Club, an affiliate club of the MHSOBA.

 

 

As a little ‘sneak peak’ into Frank’s story, here’s an excerpt from my upcoming book MHS Entrepreneurs: 7 Decades, 7 Old Boys, 7 Businesses. You can grab a copy and read all seven stories of success here.

 

Penhalluriack’s Building Supplies

During Frank’s earlier overseas travels, he visited America and saw a completely different retail landscape. He saw massive department stores that were open late at night, and he saw convenience stores that were open seven days a week. Frank understood that people were doing handyman jobs around the house, such as painting the fence, fixing door handles and trying to repair leaking pipes on weekends and ‘after-hours’. So, Frank decided to open a “Do-It-Yourself shop”. Frank took a little shop on Hawthorn Road and hired a few employees to work in the store. This was during the mid-70s and the world was facing a bit of a recession. Gradually, the businesses either side of Frank’s shop went broke. Frank bought the buildings and began to expand. The shop continued to do well and continued to expand until it took up the four buildings along Hawthorn Road as well as some of the property behind the shops. Penhalluriack’s still operates today at 345 Hawthorn Road, Caulfield.

 

The 7-day DIY convenience store was a new concept to Australia but Frank made it work. He grew the store physically by acquiring the surrounding buildings and the business is still operating after over 40 years. It wasn’t until more than 20 year after Frank opened his shop that Bunnings came along with a similar concept and opened their first ‘warehouse’ in Melbourne in 1994. Even with the enormous competition of Bunnings, Home Hardware, Masters, Mitre 10 and so on, Penhalluriacks continues to turn a profit.

The story of Penhalluriack’s Building Supplies is already impressive, but what I think is even more impressive is the way Frank used his shop to transform Australian retail forever. But not before a decade-long battle with the law, three weeks in jail and a $501,000 fine…