Jody Murray

Laurence Escalante, who suffered a crushing financial and personal blow with an earlier business, has a phoenix by the tailfeathers with his latest venture. Virtual Gaming Worlds might still be an early stage startup, but its concept of combining online games with online gambling has attracted some serious venture capital.

Want to work in construction or serve some cold ones from behind a bar? Well, you need certification for that. And Sergei Sergienko is here to help. His company, Edway Training, offers the courses necessary for people get work in the construction and hospitality industries.

Armed with a corporate background, Jan Vydra leaped into the herb industry with determination to build a better basil. By any measurement, he has been wildly successful with his 3-year-old company, Australian Fresh Leaf Herbs. Recently, the national government named him Young Farmer of the Year.

Dean Ramler probably can't wait for the end of the 2012 London Olympics. Because when the flame is snuffed out, things will really start to heat up for his company, Milan Direct, which is contracted to sell 800,000 pieces of furniture used during the Games.

Onur Kece left a cushy job in advertising to co-create Found Organic Juices, which boasts selling the world's first carbon-neutral juice. That's just one facet of a relentless, imaginative marketing push to make Found stand out in a crowded market.

There's something liberating about being a self-described nerd. Chris Baxter is comfortable with the label, especially since it falls easily alongside his bigger, more powerful moniker -- international patent law attorney. Baxter says he started his patent-law firm, Baxter IP, because he wanted SMEs and entrepreneurs to have the same access to protection of intellectual property that big R&D companies do.

Sean Richards was doing his own web development business and collaborating with a couple of friends and their entrepreneurial, online endeavours. A couple of years ago, he convinced them to put everyone under one roof. The result is Alaress, a multiservice digital agency.

In 2009, Marcela Christy was planning her own wedding. At the same time, she needed an outlet for her desire to write. The two things came together, forming a wedding blog that today is a full-blown, nuptial-laden website called One Stylish Bride.

Aileen Bautista is the founder and CEO of DinoRoar Interactive, which creates games for mobile phones and social media. Founded in 2010, the company recently nailed down seed money from the NSW government that will allow it to roar even louder in 2011-12.

The burgeoning world of online retail is steadily finding support companies that speak the same language. One of the most hard-charging examples is eStore Logistics, a warehousing and shipping company founded in 2009 by Leigh Williams.

In 2009, Michael Mironowicz brought a background in retail sales into a partnership with longtime friend Andrew Yang, who was running an online consumer-goods seller called The Storehouse. Mironowicz's sales savvy was just the tonic The Storehouse needed -- and The Storehouse gave him the vehicle to reach out to charitable causes.

For Chad Yesilova, it's been one heck of a journey -- from being a stockbroker wiped out by the global financial downturn to becoming the co-founder of Innovative Beverage, which sells an "anti-energy drink" called Esc. Not bad for a guy with no previous experience in the beverage game.

We had a few minutes to kill here at the 'Hill and chose to waste it with some genealogical research. Expecting to find nothing of import, we were instead floored by the discovery is a distant yet ingenious cousin. Enjoy this rare video record of their fortitude.

Josh Rimmington has a lot of room to store all those "it couldn't be done" admonitions. As the founder/owner of BuyAShed.com, one of Australia's top sellers of storage buildings, he's proved 'em all wrong -- you can sell this stuff strictly online.

Here at Stately Anthill Manor, we cast far and wide for inspirational words that will lift you from that cash-poor, idea-bereft funk and propel you once again on your entrepreneurial path. And as this clip of Johnny "The Greek Mystique" Sarhanis proves, we also have no shame.

Matt Leeburn says his greatest sales feat was convincing friends and family it was smart to leave a promising career with Deloitte Digital to start his own marketing consultant business. Today, he is CEO of Interaction Dynamics, a firm that strives to help companies shatter conventions about customer interaction.

James Greig knew he had a powerful web-development product. The problem was how to stand out among hundreds of boutique-y competitors with more marketing muscle. So he took the "white label" route, setting out a network of resellers who put their own brand on the product. And Greig's Bloomtools, well, bloomed.

Here's a military blow-'em-up video game with a couple of intriguing talking points. One, it's being developed completely with Australian talent. Two, it puts the player in the role of a journalist who films the carnage and edits the footage into a report -- all while struggling to stay alive.

In the cutthroat business of telecommunications, Melbourne-based IF Telecom has carved out a solid chunk of the Australian market, catering to the needs of small- and medium-sized businesses. Andrew Branson and older brother Richard founded the company in 2005 (that's right; Andrew was only 20).

In 2006, Nicole Kersh found herself frustrated that Australia didn't have an online wholesaler for electronic cables and associated products. So Kersh, still in her early 20s, did what any entrepreneur would do -- she started her own -- 4Cabling, which today has 11 employees working out a 1,600-square-metre warehouse.