Battling brain cancer, building a business

“The next day, I woke up to someone standing beside my bed – ‘fuck, if you’re an oncologist, it probably is cancer’…”

Less than 24 hours earlier, Geoff Augutis underwent an MRI scan following an aphasia diagnosis. This language disorder affects a person’s ability to communicate – an ongoing struggle to start a conversation and extract the right words during a state of mental confusion.

Doctors identified a brain tumour but advised that it “probably wasn’t cancerous”.

Then the results came back.

“What you realise is that brain cancer is incurable,” Geoff said. “If you get brain cancer, you will die from brain cancer – unless you’re unlucky enough to get hit by a bus in the meantime.”

Between talking to the doctors and intense Googling, the date passing by was 14 February 2024. Valentine’s Day, if anybody cared.

“I don’t expect anyone to care about cancer because I sure didn’t until I was diagnosed with it,” Geoff admitted. “I just never sat there and thought, ‘oh, I wonder how those brain cancer people are doing?’ but now the shoe is on the other foot, it’s with me forever.”

Geoff is Director of Queensland Computers, a 20-year-old managed service provider (MSP) operating at the beating heart of Bundaberg on the coast of Queensland – co-founded with his older brother, Luke.

Today, the family-run business supports organisations across 700KM of coastline, stretching from central Queensland to northern New South Wales.

Luke took full control of the company reins during the early months after Geoff’s diagnosis. After three or four months, doctors narrowed down the condition to oligodendroglioma.

“It sounds beautiful and just rolls off the tongue, right?” smirked Geoff, demonstrating a refreshing dose of gallows humour.

That meant it wasn’t glioblastoma which is the worst kind of brain cancer and also the most common. The average life expectancy for glioblastoma is about two to three years.

Oligo – as they call it – is the least aggressive form.

“Then they have different grades – grade two, three and four,” Geoff explained. “Grade four is the same with all types of cancer in that it’s aggressive, mature and has been around for a long time so you’re in trouble.

“Then down to grade two which means it’s probably going to get worse but if it’s not brain cancer, they can generally cure this grade.”

After months of consultation and surgeries – and the battle head scars to show for it – Geoff was diagnosed with grade two oligo. The best diagnosis anyone can hope for with brain cancer.

Surgery was successful and the cancer was removed. Geoff relocated to Melbourne for the duration of his drug treatment but returned to Bundaberg as one of the few percent of people that couldn’t tolerate the course of medicine.

“It was never designed to be a cure, just to slow down the growth,” he shared.

“But my liver couldn’t tolerate it so I came home. Instead, I’ll keep getting MRI scans and we’ll watch it grow and when it does grow, we’ll decide what to do next which will probably be chemotherapy and radiation.”

Life expectancy varies with the bottom end of the scale amounting to probably 10 years while the top end might be 15 years. Geoff is 38 with a wife and three children.

“In the back of your mind you’re thinking, what will modern science do in the next 20 years?” he queried. “But survival times for brain cancer haven’t increased in the last 30 years so whether I had brain cancer in 1995 or 2025, my survival chances would still be exactly the same.”

Battling brain cancer

Honest to a fault and transparent to his core, Geoff’s story isn’t one of tragedy or triumph. This wasn’t an outlet for pity, nor was it a demonstration of courage.

In fact, the hour-long conversation covered many topics – it was an editorial choice to write this headline and pursue this path.

Why? Because Geoff is authentic and pragmatic. Sat willing to share in his company branded t-shirt, ‘I am a hard-coded QC CREW LEGEND.’

What you see is what you get. Sometimes a smile, occasionally a scowl.

“I said to my wife five or six years ago that she’ll always take priority over everything else,” Geoff recalled. “She laughed and said, ‘Geoff, I love you but there’s no way I take priority. The business always takes priority’.

“That really pissed me off because I knew it was true. I was the one who would get a phone call during our kid’s birthday party from a tender meeting in Brisbane. They’d ask me to come and work out a deal so I’d skip the birthday and go negotiate the tender.”

The eye openers kept on coming with the death of a few good friends during the same period.

“Watching people die is a great way to open your awareness,” he acknowledged. “I wasn’t in the need for a wake up call of my own mortality but I was probably already on the right track before my diagnosis.”

Combined, they served to highlight that things are simply more important than business and money. Yes, everyone knows that but do they follow it?

“It’s not even the money,” Geoff explained. “It was the business, it was the ego. I wasn’t Geoff, I was synonymous with Queensland Computers so the business and its success becomes who you identify as.

“That’s wrong. Once you reach that point you need a kick up the ass. You are a separate person outside of the business and you have your own identity.

“One day, someone will buy your business and they’re going to chop it up into little pieces – taking out the good bits and throwing the rest in the trash, staff included. Who knows what happens when businesses get bought but it sure isn’t you… you’re still a separate entity and that was an eye opener.”

Geoff has made serious lifestyle changes, losing 40 kilos by running every day and eating healthier.

This won’t be the reason he dies.

“I don’t want to think, ‘I could have got more time with my family’ so I put in the effort which I previously never did,” he noted.

Learning that lesson includes long-distance runs at 4:30am and voraciously reading inspirational books, whether that be Atomic Habits, The Go-Giver Marriage, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People or The Diary of a CEO.

“I won’t read books by empire builders and people like Steve Jobs or Elon Musk,” he clarified. “These people don’t value family and only view success as money.”

For the past four years, Geoff would stop working every Friday at lunchtime to study his PhD, receiving conferral as a Doctor of Philosophy from Central Queensland University in late 2024.

Those hours will now be reclaimed to something fun, such as fishing.

But don’t confuse a reordering of priorities and slight shift away from working founder hours – 70-80 a week, sometimes even 100 – as an indication that the business is now inconsequential.

“If my calendar is empty, I’m going to be a menace,” he accepted.

After coming out of his last surgery in July, there was a 50% chance of waking up with a cognitive disability. Most likely a speech issue as the tumour was located on the left frontal lobe.

Geoff woke up that day – let’s say that week because recovery was tough – feeling perfect in the sense that he could easily communicate and his brain was clear.

“About a week or so later I stuck my nose in the business and found a tender that was due in four or five days that hadn’t been started on yet,” he remembered.

“So I jumped in and by the time I had finished the tender, the flood gates had opened and I was just swept back into the business 100%. I’ve been working since then.

“I’ve altered my lifestyle but my outlook hasn’t changed. At some point it will get hairy and this diagnosis will require further treatment but for the time being, we’re not changing perspectives.”

Building a business

Geoff and Luke have never lost touch with their roots as a local company wanting to see Queenslanders succeed with world-class technology. This regional heritage has played a crucial role in developing core company values anchored on real relationships based on honesty and mutual respect.

Upon starting Queensland Computers in the December of 2005, Geoff was in university during his first year out of high school. He was 18 and Luke – who is four years older – was working for a little computer shop in town.

“Our whole business model was based on, ‘Luke’s boss is an idiot and he still makes money’,” Geoff shared.

“Imagine walking into a bank and saying, ‘please give us money because if his boss made money then we definitely could make money’. But with the greatest of respect to his boss, we didn’t know anything about anything.”

It’s natural for outsiders to size up businesses and make judgements. Always easy to be a back-seat driver.

“The beautiful thing about business is that it’s a meritocracy,” Geoff expanded. “You can tell who’s winning and losing and nobody can hide from it.”

After meeting with 10 banks and asking for seed capital, the fledgling brothers were tasked with writing a business plan. There was no ChatGPT, only Google.

“It was a bullshit business plan, the first and last one we’ve ever written,” Geoff said. “This 100-page document answered everything they wanted to know such as our addressable market and our niche value in the industry.”

The response? Hell no.

“Looking back, it wasn’t very well done,” he acknowledged. “But mum had recently split up with our dad so she gave us $20,000 to make a go of the business.

“Luke and I saved up the same ourselves – he continued working his job and I worked at an IGA supermarket. We needed at least $150,000 to get it off the ground but we had $40,000.”

For the budding computer repair shop, trying to secure a premises was challenging.

As one real estate agent bluntly put it, “if I want to lend to someone who isn’t going to pay their bills and will go broke, then I’ll give you a call.”

Undeterred, the bruised brothers secured a 12-month lease at a “disgusting old building” on 12 Bourbong Street. They stayed there until 2023.

Launched as Bundaberg Computers, the start-up was powered by a couple of supplier accounts, a few trestle tables and a reception desk. Oh, and about five or six computers.

“The next five years was a blur of survival,” Geoff summarised. “Luke and I didn’t take anything from the business for the first two years and kept working other jobs. There was no vision or plan just a focus on responding to whatever customers were asking for when they walked through the door. It was all muscle and feel.”

A decade in, the realisation dawned that JB Hi-Fi and Harvey Norman would send the business broke. The market had moved on from billable hour techies working from the formula of hourly rate x how many hours they wanted to work.

“We had zero business maturity and stupid business practices,” Geoff stated. “I always thought because we were regional and in IT that we were special and unique – none of the data on businesses applied to us.

“Nobody could possibly understand what we do and they couldn’t possibly get their head around what’s going to work in my market.”

Since then, Geoff has read over 100 books – including Good to Great – and came to the realisation… “we’re not unique at all.”

With the final repair shop closing two years ago, the company is flying high as a leading supplier to government, education, business and enterprise customers. Revenue is fast approaching the $50 million mark.

“What advice would I give to my younger self?” asked Geoff, who is guided by an indisputable North Star.

“A big focus for us is people and culture. I was told that if you don’t set a culture for your business then your team will determine your culture. Do not let that happen because it’s not their business, you have to drive the ship from a culture standpoint.”

Such is Geoff’s commitment to unfiltered honesty, the story continues…

“When we only had 10 staff, I hijacked a weekly meeting and outlined that culture was our number one priority,” he shared. “If we lose a customer because it goes against our values, I’m cool with that.”

Wait. The story continues…

“In isolation that sounded good but then I went further,” Geoff added. “From now on, if you’re an under-performer, I will sack you. If you breach our culture code, I will sack you.

“I went through this big list and outlined in no uncertain terms that this wasn’t optional. This is our bus and we’re heading in this direction so either get on-board or fuck off.”

The business proceeded to lose almost the entire team over the next 12 months.

Two or three quit within a few weeks of being held to account. A few were managed out, a couple hung on for six months before succumbing and the rest simply exited stage left.

“Long story short, we started the year with 10 staff and finished the year with 10 staff but only Ashley stayed,” noted Geoff, in reference to long-time company CFO, Ashley Job.

“I would never recommend that approach to anyone. Humans can change but they don’t like knee-jerk change. I went way too hard, way too fast. Instead, perhaps I should have introduced one change a month during the next 12 months.”

It was a brutal lesson in leading people.

How to Lose Friends & Alienate People – directed, produced and starring Geoff Augutis.

“We lost good people,” he recognised.

On the day that one team member quit, Geoff was offered some parting words of wisdom.

‘The view from the bottom is very different than the view from the top. We’re down here like grunts working our asses off, trying to do whatever we think you want us to do. But you never told us what you want us to do, you never set a clear direction, you never set a clear vision. You’re expecting us to achieve something that we didn’t even know we were working towards.’

This advice informs company decision-making today.

“I always keep this in my back pocket because he was 100% correct,” Geoff understood. “I don’t regret losing him but this point allowed us to reset and filter new hires through our culture from the start.

“We don’t hire smart people and tell them what to do, we let them run free. But if you’re not capable of running free and need to be micromanaged – you’re the problem, not me.”

The seasoned Geoff nearing 40 – who is now fuelled by two decades of hindsight – is naturally more subtle, supportive and strategic than the young-gun Geoff approaching 20.

His biggest strength is self-awareness, however. This was a conversation littered with internal critique and examination.

“We’re humbled to be changing lives in education, particularly through our work in the digital literacy space,” highlighted Geoff, when pressed to share the positive changes that Queensland Computers continues to make in the market.

“We get to hire young people and mentor them to help build them up into someone they’re proud of. Kids as young as 20 message me on LinkedIn asking for advice and my response is always, ‘buy me a coffee and let’s sit down for an hour to chat’.

“Some think I’m just a Boomer talking nonsense but some of our best hires have actually came through those conversations. It’s nice to bump into someone a few years down the track and see that your advice helped make a difference.”

Exactly a year on from his diagnosis, Geoff is powering ahead with unlimited reserves of enthusiasm and execution.

Naturally, many have suggested selling the business – likely at a valuation as high as $15 million – and using the money to go travelling. Tick off the bucket list and spend quality time with loved ones.

“Why? I really enjoy what I do,” Geoff argued. “Luke and I know we’re running a very good business, we’re happy doing it and we’re making money. So, why would you want to get out of that?”

When Geoff moved to Melbourne for treatment, his eldest child stayed home to finish high school as he was 18. The two youngest joined him and are set to enter their teenage years.

That detail is important.

“Sitting with people at the Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre in Melbourne, some had two-year-old kids at home,” Geoff said. “If they have a life expectancy of eight years then that poor child will lose their mum or dad at the age of 10.

“I’m grateful that even if I get 10 years – and I’d like to get more – then at least my kids will all be adults. You don’t ever want to plan your death but it’s nice to know there’s a pretty good chance that I won’t be leaving my kids without a dad at a tricky time in their life.

“But unfortunately, there’s plenty of people who are not in that situation. That makes me feel pretty grounded and pretty appreciative of my circumstances.”