Home Anty-Climax Anthill’s 30under30 winners revealed (2010)

Anthill’s 30under30 winners revealed (2010)

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This year, Anthill’s 30under30 proved to be our biggest ever, attracting hundreds of nominations and applications from young gun entrepreneurs right across Australia.

This made the judging process extremely difficult.

As such, in addition to our Top 30under30, we have extended the program, this year, to recognise three new sets of young business builders:

  1. Top 3 Real-Estate Renegades;
  2. Top 3 Artistic Innovators; and,
  3. Top 10 Emerging Digital Doyens

Along with the addition of 14 Honourable Mentions, we are proud to present a whopping 60 young Australian entrepreneurs this year, each worthy of encouragement, recognition and your attention!

30under30 Roll-Out 2010

But, before you get too excited, we’re about to throw you a curve-ball.

This year, rather than release the 2010 30under30 ‘massive’ in one hit, we’ve decided to release the names of this prestigious set, three a day, for the next 10 days, starting from youngest to oldest.

Why do this? Well, aside from the unplanned loss of a laptop, containing our deliberations and winner profiles (which you can read about here), this suspense filled, masterfully manipulating, traffic-fueling tactic just seemed too attractive to pass up.

Can you feel the ant-icipation?

The Top 30 Revealed! (kinda)

The Top 30 are listed by age.

NAME BIRTH YEAR STATE GENDER LATEST VENTURE
Aonghus Stevens 1993 NSW Male UAVs Australia
Nikki Durkin 1991 NSW Female 99dresses
Ravi Moerman 1990 SA Male Freeform Sound
Sacha Krjatian 1990 NSW Male Sachas
Dane Mitchell 1990 NSW Male Peak Health Yamba
Marita Cheng 1989 VIC Female Robogals
Sheng Yeo 1988 NSW Male Orion Virtualisation Solutions
Tarik Houchar 1988 NSW Male Hijab House
Brad Smith 1987 TAS Male Braaap!
Jack Fitzgerald 1987 VIC Male Ship 2 Anywhere
Jack Delosa 1987 NSW Male The Entourage
Simon Jay 1986 VIC Male 199-JERRY
Dwayne Martens 1985 NSW Male Amazonia
Dorothy Polka 1985 VIC Female Polka Dot Bride
Steve McLeod 1984 VIC Male Fire and Safety Australia
Stephen Dash 1984 NSW Male Quickcharge Media
Luke Halliday 1984 QLD Male Mercury IT
Hugh Whalan 1983 Male ACT Energy in Common
Andrew Craig 1983 ACT Male Computer Empire
Don McKenzie 1983 QLD Male Stream Group
Ruslan Kogan 1982 VIC Male Kogan Technologies
Dean J. Ramler 1982 VIC Male Milan Direct
Kate McKibbin 1982 VIC Female DropDeadGorgeousDaily.com
Lucy Thomas 1982 VIC Female Project Rockit
Seb Eckersley-Maslin 1982 NSW Male AutoCarlog
Andrew McKnight 1982 NSW Male MIA International
Mark Ross-Smith 1982 QLD Male SMSFun
Betty Boustani 1981 NSW Female Emprise Legal & Corporate Advisory.
Vanessa Cullen 1981 NSW Female Forward Thinking Design
Ben Neumann 1981 VIC Male Liquid Infusion

Top 10 Emerging Digital Doyens

This year, we received an unprecedented number applications from ‘digital natives’ responsible for the creation of digital advertising firms, social media agencies, CMS and software services, IT support centres and a host of other outfits that have embraced this thing called ‘the interwebs’. We received so many, in fact, that we decided to create a a separate category, a Top 10, to specifically recognise these online innovators.

CLICK HERE TO READ THE LIST!

Top 3 Real-Estate Renegades

Real-estate entrepreneurs have never featured strongly in the 30under30. This is because we don’t necessarily think that owning 127 properties by the age of 22 is particularly entrepreneurial. In our opinions, entrepreneurship is not about personal wealth creation. It’s about the process of creation itself! This year, three ‘real-estate’ entrepreneurs grabbed our attention, not because of the number of torrens titles stashed under their beds, but because each has built a business around the real-estate industry, at a tender age

CLICK HERE TO READ THE LIST!

Top 3 Artistic Innovators

Entrepreneurship and artistic endeavours have much in common. They involve imagination, following your dreams and creating something from scratch designed to make the world a richer place. These three ‘artistic’ entrepreneurs may not have made it into the Top 30 but we decided they deserve a place in this year’s broader gallery of entrepreneurial finesse anyway.

CLICK HERE TO READ THE LIST!

Honourable Mentions

They narrowly missed out on a place in the Top 30 but are still hot in our books. Introducing Anthill’s 2010 30under30 Honourable Mentions.

CLICK HERE TO READ THE LIST!

How were these young guns picked?

The 30under30 awards begins with nominations, followed by a process of self-application. Why? Because we believe that one of the most important traits any entrepreneur should have is the ability to win friends and influence people. The self-application process gave our judges a direct line to the personality of each applicant entrepreneur.

Commercial success is not everything…

The 30under30 program rewards traits beyond pure successful venture creation. While some applicants wowed us with their, sometimes instant, commercial successes, others demonstrated their ability to learn from the school of ‘hard-knocks’, embrace unexpected opportunities, harness the skills of others and build buzz beyond their sometimes meagre budgets. All these factors, were considered ‘in the mix’.

Benchmarking success by age…

We’re often asked, ‘How do you measure the achievements and entrepreneurial traits of a 19 year-old against those of a 29 year-old?’ The simple answer? We don’t. Rather, during the judging process, the successes, the skills, the attributes of each applicant are measured against other entrepreneurs their age. So, if you’re a 28 year-old entrepreneur wondering why someone else made the cut while you didn’t, perhaps stop comparing yourself to the 18 year-old and look to your age bracket. As the older you get, the higher the bar.

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