Anthill Magazine
What is Anthill?
It's a business magazine.
What’s it about?
It's about innovation, entrepreneurship and rapid business growth.
Until Anthill was launched in September 2003, the bulk of existing business titles in Australia were mainly concerned with issues of relevance to small/micro businesses or large corporations (one or the other).
Anthill was developed to bridge this gap, appealing to highly innovative and ambitious ‘fast’ growth businesses - SMEs with rapid growth potential and larger companies that realise the value of reinvention to stay ahead.
It does not focus on the traditional ‘nuts and bolts’ of business development (although this is a key element of editorial content), but instead it highlights the inspiring thrills, spills, trials and tribulations of business development and rapid commercial growth.
Business can and should be fun, right!
JMango Mobile Development Platform (SMART 100)
Duc Ngo, inventor and CTO of JMango, got tired of re-writing every app he made to work on multiple mobile devices. Traditionally, developing apps for multiple operating systems took way too long and required specialist skills resulting to mounting costs. He found this to be inefficient and too expensive, not to mention tedious, repetitive and just plain boring. So he set out to create his own solution and the result was the JMango Mobile Platform.
Creature Kit for Insect Life Cycles (SMART 100)
This innovation initially came to life when I was working on my butterfly and insect farm. I wanted people to be able to experience various insect life cycles in their own home or at school, so that I could share something special with them. I chose a few of my favourites and came up with a prototype for an enclosure that would meet the housing requirements for all of them.
Fit2Buy (SMART 100)
Thinking about the lack of a working online fitting room, we reaslised that although shoppers can’t describe their body's shape/size, they actually don’t need to as the clothes in their wardrobe do that for them; people only buy and keep clothes that fit well. Fit2Buy lets shoppers compare the size/shape of items online to the items in their wardrobe; because they know the items in their wardrobe fit, if the clothes online are a similar shape and size then they will fit the shopper too.
MYOB Atlas (SMART 100)
In 2009, we decided to find out what was happening inside Australian small businesses that was holding them up from getting online and participating in the digital economy. Our research showed us that for the majority of SMEs, getting a website was all too hard... too technical, too expensive and too time-consuming. We decided to change all that.
Beanhunter.com (SMART 100)
Whilst in my hotel room at night I would search Google for "The best coffee in..." the city where I was staying. I found this process exhausting and it usually came up with mediocre results. So a couple of years ago upon arriving back in Melbourne I had a chat with coffee-loving friends James Crawford (Web Developer) and Adam Lowe (Psychologist) and the concept of Beanhunter was born.
Indie Hub (SMART 100)
We were writing a news article on an indie game developer and noticed that their official website was a total mess. It had very limited pictures and no videos, and provided no effective ways to communicate with its existing and potential customers. Having browsed around in the iTunes marketplace we discovered a similar problem shared by many indie game developers: one- or two-man teams spend all of their energy on making a kick-ass game, and they don’t have the resource to build an awesome website to showcase the game. This inspired us to develop the Indie Hub.
iMinds Digital eAudioBooks and eBooks (SMART 100)
Olivia Wood was driven by what she saw as emerging trends in "Education/Entertainment" consumer products and the proliferation of personal technology in all aspects of modern life. iMinds has carved a strong niche in the new publishing space, securing all major eBook and eAudioBook distributors and having strong sales uptake from the new information consumer...dedicated to getting the most from their tech devices.
Customisable Eyewear (SMART 100)
Daniel He, an optometrist, first worked in an optical store in the late 1990s selling eyewear. Too often a customer was dissatisfied with one or more aspect of shape, colour, material or size of the glasses they purchased. Most compromised and settled for something that was mass-produced. Now, a decade on, this problem was a recurring theme. So he out to change this, in an industry dominated by multinational companies.
The KhaoLarmAtorium (SMART 100)
I became fascinated by Khao Larm when living in Taiwan. I wanted to try my own recipes in it, but never saw it being prepared. Moving to Thailand, I am fortunate to have a neighbour, a lovely old lady we call Yai Yu (Aunty Yu), who prepares Khao Larm by the traditional method. Having observed Yai Yu making Khao Larm by the traditional method for some years, I wanted to use my industrial design and ethnotechnology studies to solve some of the apparent problems.
GoldSwap (SMART 100)
With the state of the stock markets, economic turmoil and inflation, GoldSwap helps people preserve their purchasing power. Gold is the best protection in terms of financial preservation, and passing wealth from one generation to the next. A dollar today is not necessarily going to be a dollar tomorrow...but an ounce of gold will always be an ounce of gold.
T-Line Safety System (SMART 100)
I was working as a Graduate Engineer on the construction of an onshore LNG Gas facility. We had to maintain extremely high safety standards whilst working at height during construction. I was surprised by the lack of innovation in the safety products available at the time. None of the existing products were able to provide the levels of freedom and safety that we required. I couldn't help but think that there must have been a better solution, which is when I came up with the fundamental concept for the T-Line -- a concept that remains today in the current version.
Brain Wave (SMART 100)
We had all worked in some really brilliant organisations as well as some terribly uninspiring organisations and the one thing we knew was that workplaces that make an effort to understand and love their people are the places we have all loved to work in. Our question was how could we bring this culture of participation and crowdsourcing to life within workplaces.
R4i BuildPoint (SMART 100)
Absolute Data Group's Product Development Manager, Michael Halter, believed he could hugely expand and extend ADG’s military-grade technical maintenance and training systems, which were being successfully used by Australian and international defence and aerospace clients. Michael wanted to integrate ADG’s software with product lifecycle, configuration management and asset management tools, to help ‘civilian’ companies benefit from the same superior tools as used in Defence.
MapWheel (SMART 100)
Russell Bolden of Glenbrook, NSW, had one those light bulb moments after a visitor to his home asked what direction the township of Katoomba was as they looked out over their spectacular view of the Blue Mountains. This was a question he had been asked by others too many times before without ever being able to give a satisfactory answer. The eureka moment was thinking of a direction plaque (as commonly found at lookouts) and then Google Maps and how the two could be brought together.
ServiceM8 (SMART 100)
We were working closely with one of our clients, a locksmith, who was having difficulty managing the day-to-day activities involved in a do-and-charge business: providing quotes, booking jobs, using staff effectively, and remembering to invoice. We saw that the issues with our client were not locksmith issues, but issues almost every small business faces. We knew that through the power of the iPhone and a clever web app, we would completely change how small business operated. ServiceM8 was born.
I Do Gowns (SMART 100)
We were planning our wedding and I was looking for a wedding gown with a very strict budget in mind. I shopped at home using the Internet, but was unable to find any website that dealt specifically with wedding attire. eBay was an option but was overruled because of the large number of wholesale importers with poor quality gowns.
VendorPanel (SMART 100)
I was responsible for managing access to a "preferred supplier panel" for one of the big banks. It was a debacle. Suppliers worked really hard to get onto the panel and got little for it. Staff just used the same suppliers as always because they didn't have time to do a better comparison. Procurement had little visibility of what was going on. When I realised these issues were common, I started Magnetized Markets. Our goal: make it easier to do business with preferred suppliers with less time and risk.
What is the Entrepreneurs’ Night Out
The Entrepreneurs' Night Out is your opportunity to mingle, learn from peers, make new friends and get inspired!
Building a business at any age can...
Anthill launches Melbourne incubator
Does your startup need professional digs? Do you want to work alongside equally passionate business builders? Do you want access to mentors, investors and the ear of Anthill? We're launching our own incubator!
Entrepreneur’s Night Out is coming back to Melbourne!
This is a chance for Entrepreneurs to meet and learn from other business builders. Share a drink. Have a laugh. Gain insights from a panel of business builders who have ‘been there, done that’ and created successful ventures. Benefit from the experiences of other attendees. Click the headline to register to attend.
