2025 SA Award
The 2025 South Australian Pearcey Entrepreneur Award recipient is Tim Stollznow. Tim is founder and CEO of MyVenue, a highly successful Adelaide-based point-of-sale SaaS company that has grown to support major sports and entertainment venues across Australia and North America, including NFL (football), BLB (baseball), NBA (basketball), NHL (hockey), Tennis, Formulae One and even the upcoming 2028 LA Olympics.
Susan Andrews, chair of the SA Pearcey Committee, commented,
In line with the qualities we are looking for in the SA Pearcey Entrepreneur of the year, Tim has taken significant entrepreneurial risks, made a difference both through the export success of his company and his commitment to many non-profit and business organisations, and is an inspiration to the wider business and entrepreneurial community.
Tim founded MyVenue in 2017 in Adelaide. Since then, it has rapidly grown to over 70 employees, supporting around 200 sports and entertainment venues and more than $20m in annual export revenues. Each year, MyVenue platform powers over 100m transactions worth more than $billion. In April 2025, MyVenue, which is doubling in size every year, secured a major investment from Greater Sum Ventures to fuel global expansion.
In parallel, Tim actively supports the IT, export, and startup sectors through government and industry associations. Tim holds an Honours Degree in Electrical Engineering from the University of Adelaide and is a Fellow of the Australian Institute of Company Directors.
In accepting the Award, Tim commented:
Wow! I am honoured to accept the 2025 SA Pearcey Entrepreneur of the Year Award and delighted to part of the fantastic and quality group of SA leaders who have previously received this Award in South Australia.
Tim Stollznow
Tim had very humble beginnings. He was born and raised in remote NT Papunya (north of Alice Springs) and his early childhood had few comforts. At 12 years old, he went to boarding school in Adelaide which was a tough experience. But Tim was brought up to be resourceful and resilient and quickly learned social skills and how to have fun with his like-minded ("dorky") friends.
At school, in the 1980s, Tim was fascinated with technology and computers. One of his teachers encouraged him to apply for Electrical and Electronic Engineering which led to work experience and subsequently employment at a startup, Quest Retail Technology. Tim started as a software engineer, but over time, took on more responsibility and became CEO in the mid 1990s. In parallel, he was an active volunteer, in particular the local football club.
In the early 1990s, Quest was developing smart programmable keyboards for the CAD industry. However, they found their keyboard was being used in small service businesses, such as bottle shops, service stations, etc., as a point of sale (POS) keyboard with a computer to replace a cash register. Quest pivoted and started supplying self-contained POS keyboards to pubs. The take-up was accelerated by Y2K and GST with the government supplying money to small businesses to upgrade their computer systems.
Quest had always been in export markets, so Tim saw the value in developing overseas opportunities. During the 2000s, Tim spent a lot of time and effort networking and travelling to develop the US market. In parallel, Tim was disciplined in building internal systems and processes to scale the business. Being always involved in community organisations, Tim also understood the value of managing, enthusing and empowering a diverse set of people around him. During this period, Quest became the number one supplier into arenas including NFL, baseball, superbowls etc.
In 2008, Quest Retail Technology was acquired by Radiant Systems, a listed US company. After working for Radiant for a few years in Atalanta, Tim and family decided to move back to Adelaide. Back in Australia, Tim did some study (e.g. company directorship) and got involved in the startup community and many boards including aboriginal organisations in Alice Springs.
In 2017, Tim founded MyVenue. He broadly had kept his eye on the industry and noticed that speed of service and managing a casualised workforce was critical to venues. People don't want to miss the game/entertainment to get their food or merchandise. And the vendors need to make 80% of their revenue within the one or two hours while the game is on. Also, the Quest product had hardly been developed over the previous 10 years and Tim decided there was a startup opportunity to do it all again with new technology.
The MyVenue journey began like any other startup with business plans, minimum viable product, investment and market development. Then Covid hit, which seemed like a terrible time to start a company. However, the Covid upheaval meant the competition fell apart and allowed MyVenue to catch up. In 2020, some local customers allowed the product to be proven. In 2021, despite covid, MyVenue started running pilots.
From 2022, MyVenue started signing up customers including the NFL, tennis, Formulae One. In 2023, MyVenue did the Superbowl. MyVenue's hosted solution enabled food and merchandise to be rapidly sold and delivered to a fan anywhere in the venue including suites, bars, car parks etc. All venues and all customers want this. MyVenue grew rapidly, and was able to scale in large part because the second time, Tim knows all the necessary ingredients for success including people, processes, technology, planning, sales, finance, engagement, etc.
By 2025, MyVenue had grown to over 70 employees, supporting around 200 sports and entertainment venues and more than $20m in annual export revenues. The MyVenue platform powers over 100m transactions worth more than $billion each year. In April 2025, MyVenue secured a major investment from Greater Sum Ventures to fuel global expansion, particularly into Europe and Asia. MyVenue is roughly doubling every year.
While leading MyVenue Tim has continued to give back over many years to other organisations. This has included his role as an AmCham Australia Governor, Chair of the Yirara College and Chair of the Finke River Mission in Alice Springs and a Director of ForestrySA. He definitely provides inspiration to young entrepreneurs.
