After all, it was only four years ago he was pounding away on his laptop in his bedroom in Hampton, a suburb in Melbourne’s classically suburban southeast where he had grown up.

Now, his neighbours include Seek, carsales.com.au, and REA Group, and among his customers are Mecca, Cotton On and Lululemon.

These are among the 8500 clients who have flocked to Jordan’s nascent packaging empire, inke., which he founded at the ripe age of 22, having worked in a packaging factory after school, observing the widening gulf between customers and sales.

He made the leap after deciding he could be the one to plug the gap.

Jordan, now 26 and living in South Yarra, has certainly achieved that with inke., which with a predicted revenue of $8m, has demonstrated that even in the seemingly inert business world of packaging, it is possible to affect dramatic market changes.

“When you’re disrupting, there’s always going to be some background noise,” Jordan told NCA NewsWire this week.

With ASX-listed companies inquiring into inke, and global expansion planned, Jordan is set to become one of Australia’s next start-up success stories.

His pathway, he told NCA NewsWire over a lengthy interview, wasn’t always straightforward, but always had the advantage of common sense as the wind beneath its sails.

Working as a packaging salesman after university, Jordan saw customers confronted with high quantity minimums and jargon-filled discussions.

His business idea was to give clients a simple online platform, allowing them to access branded packaging regardless of size and get a quote with ease, the success being in what Jordan refers to as “the core simplicity of the offering”.

Deciding not to go to university after graduating Brighton Grammar in 2014 and having no notable expertise in technology or marketing, Jordan has relied on old-fashioned virtues to guide him at inke.

“You need to retain your passion and your vision of what you’re doing,” he said.

“You’ve just got to put your head down and go.”

Jordan said he started out “wearing every hat in the business” – a mentality which has remained with him.

He considered Covid-19 “pretty timely” for inke., which back then was only entering its second year, and said with all of inke’s production happening in Australia, while vulnerable, his industry wasn’t as affected as other businesses to supply chain issues.

“We were there for businesses to help them keep those touch points for customers,” Jordan said.

With significant responsibilities thrust upon him at a young age, he said while never turning off (it didn’t seem from the tone of the interview that Jordan’s laptop gets tucked away too often), he was a man of simple routine.

But while he gets up at the same time most mornings and exercises to clear his head, Jordan has acknowledged he won’t be joining his contemporaries on work-free holidays surfing in Sri Lanka, riding motorbikes in Vietnam or partying in Croatia.

“The brain doesn’t really turn off,” he said.

“You don’t have the luxury of taking that extended time off.”

“You never really go, ‘Cool – we made it.’”

And now he’s in charge of a business, and people’s incomes, livelihoods and future plans depend significantly on him, what kind of boss is Jordan Shreeve?

Laughing, Jordan said: “I don’t think I’ve lost the elements of being 26.”

“I’ve certainly got both sides.”

He said he invested “heavily” in inke.’s Cremorne HQ in order to create an “amazing space” while also relying on the tried and tested work lunch to keep up morale.

Interviewing Jordan, you don’t get the impression he’s a painful boss with a mouth full of modern HR cliches – just a nice guy who doesn’t need to try too hard for people to enjoy working alongside him.

Lastly, Jordan remained tight-lipped on his plans for the future, although inke., has dangled the prospect of a “highly anticipated” announcement for early next year.

He did say that inke., which for now only operates in Australia, had global ambitions, and for a company known to have attracted interest from publicly listed companies, that could mean anything.

Either way, it’s difficult not to feel that Jordan Shreeve is a name to remember.