Flynn McFarlane

But when Flynn first began his career in ecommerce, he was a little ahead of his time. “It was an interesting journey,” he says. “In the early stages I started my career building websites and setting up Facebook pages, which was very new back then. At least the first half of my career I spent trying to convince everyone the internet was this awesome thing they really should invest in.”

Flynn began his career while he was still studying for his Bachelor of Business/Bachelor of Arts double degree. “I started consulting, going around to businesses on foot and offering my services to build Facebook pages and websites and things like that,” he says. “At the start it was tough to get people to pull their $200 out of Yellow Pages and into ‘this weird thing called Facebook’.”

Initially working as a DJ while trying to put away money to support his growing marketing business, Flynn eventually had enough business to put down the headphones and throw himself into Arkhi full time.

Flynn began expanding the business by adding new skillsets as industry advancements called for them and now has about 20 employees working for him and has generated tens of millions of dollars per month for his clients.

One of the keys to his success has been jumping onto trends early. His business was one of the first in Australia to see huge benefits with ecommerce platform Shopify. “A lot of our success has been choosing the right partner early on,” he explains. “We’re a Shopify Plus Partner which is the highest tier. We started with them quite early on because we love their culture and the product—it was a really good fit for us.

“Then they absolutely exploded, and it proves we made the right choice.”

Flynn says it feels amazing to be able to help his clients’ businesses grow and thrive. “It’s the main reason I do what I do,” he says. “It feels so great to figure out what works and what doesn’t for them, and then once we crack the code we’re potentially scaling up to achieve million-dollar days. It’s pretty incredible.”

His hard work was rewarded in 2022, when Flynn won a Gold Coast Young Entrepreneur Award in the marketing category. “It was quite surreal,” he says of the win. “It was a great encouragement that yes, it’s working, keep going.”

The double degree graduate credits his studies for changing the course of his whole career. “My time at Griffith was everything, to be honest. The combination of arts and business was so amazing and enabled me to do the fundamentals of marketing that I use every day but also experiment with motion graphics and the first stages of website building all at once. My degree 100 per cent shaped my whole career.”

At the time, Flynn didn’t even know his job existed, but Griffith helped him consolidate his ideas and passions into a career he could thrive in. He says that Griffith was ahead of the curve, creating a new major that was aligned to what the future of ecommerce would turn out to be.

“Writing for the internet wasn’t really a thing at the time but Griffith started offering a major in digital writing. There were only about four people in it, including myself, but it was exactly where the industry was headed... way ahead of its time.”

When it comes to current and future students who want to get to where he is, Flynn has two pieces of advice: firstly, do a double degree in business and arts, and secondly get a mentor.

“The combination of arts and business activated the two sides of my brain and taught me so many foundational skills,” he says. “Plus, it was broad at the start and allowed me to figure out what I was really interested in.”

A mentor himself, Flynn advises students to learn the basics and then talk your way into an internship or mentorship to help guide your career. “I got an internship at Griffith with Coca-Cola Amatil and it was incredible,” he says. “I learnt so much and it changed how I thought about business.”

And as far as mentors are concerned, “I still have advisers and mentors to this day,” he says.

All in all, Flynn says that the foundational skills that students can learn through a degree are invaluable when it comes to succeeding in a career.

“The channels, like ecommerce, like the internet, like social media... they're always evolving but they’re just channels. We see people coming through who understand the tricks of the platforms but not the core fundamentals of marketing and the basics of how a business works.

“The fundamentals of marketing and of communication you learn at university really stand the test of time and will put you in a great position,” he says.