Startup & Entrepreneurship

Like many growing businesses, technology is our greatest friend. But it can also be the cause of enormous frustration. You may have already noticed that...

Like many growing businesses, technology is our greatest friend. But it can also be the cause of enormous frustration. You may have already noticed that...

Lisa Gorman has been designing and running her own clothing label since 1999. She was so dedicated to the concept of simplicity that she refused to hire any employees for five years. Now, with 32 staff and five stores along the eastern seaboard, Gorman is an established presence in the Australian fashion industry. But she never forgot those early lessons.

James Tutton, founder of the hugely successful Moonlight Cinema, knows a thing or two about simplicity. After all, there aren't too many things simpler than watching movies with friends and family under the stars. After taking the business national and finally selling to an ASX-listed corporate group in 2005, Tutton has now turned his sights to simplifying the medium-density property development sector, as director of Neometro.

If the simplest ideas are often the best, it stands to reason that simplicity is the essence of successful business. Growing companies are confronted with complexity every day. We asked three busy professionals to weigh in on the art of simplicity.

< Check out Cool Mobility's the YouTube video MOVING AND GROOVING COMPANY NAME: COOL Mobility Pty Ltd FOUNDERS: Colin Johanson & Moira McEwan ORIGINS: Company set up 2007 after five...

According to the Australian Bureau of Statistics, just one-tenth of one percent of business pitches secure venture capital investment. Yet despite the odds, many...

Graeme Wood revolutionised the travel industry when he created the concept for Wotif.com, which he co-founded in 2000, an online booking service that links...

It’s tough to change the world from inside a middle-management corporate cubicle. So Cameron Reilly dropped out and tuned in, creating the world’s first podcast network. Having turned down venture funding, the only thing that Reilly wants to lend is your ears.

Life is rarely predictable. So why would business be any different? Paul Ryan and Jodie O’Keeffe square up to a meteor shower of corporate Kryptonite and figure out how to dodge commercial doom. Cyber-attack, idea theft, competitor outsourcing, cash-flow crises, disruptive innovation and fraud. Take a deep breath, assess risk, consider your options…and never turn your back on a clear blue sky.

Peng Choo has a dream. He dreams that one day soon, almost anyone (even school children) will be able to program microchips. But this...

James Tuckerman reviews THE GOOGLE STORY and HOW TO TURN YOUR MILLION-DOLLAR IDEA INTO A REALITY

For Anne-Marie Birkill, CEO of i.lab technology incubator, life has been rather serendipitous. Graduating with a science degree, she fell into plant biotechnology, where a short-term secondment to Brisbane transformed her into General Manager and 25 percent shareholder within two years. So began a twenty year career spanning management, consulting, lecturing and new technology incubation.

First off, let's be clear. We have to kill the phrase 'online classifieds'. At best, it has the weary note of strained metaphors, like moving staircases and horseless carriages. At worst, it's symptomatic of a dated way of thinking about the world. These days, winning in classifieds really means winning in markets. And that, dear readers, is a much tougher job.

Everyone knows that business is all about cycles. What goes down must go up, and vice versa. With my dot-com scars so recently healed, I am loathe to be trumpeting another technology boom. But things are certainly afoot.

The similarities between start-ups and film projects are even greater in the US, where venture investors are likely to install their own people into a business for a short period of time to help get it moving.

About four years ago I took a break from my day job and went to Hollywood to chase Australian actors and filmmakers. The idea was to write a piece for Rolling Stone Australia on the lives of Aussie expats working in the entertainment industry. It was a similar project to one I had done a year earlier looking into the lives of expats in the technology equivalent of Hollywood - San Francisco's Bay Area.

It's been a tough ride for the online crowd, but things are finally moving again, thanks to broadband uptake, new technologies and a bootstrapping ethos that never really died. We chatted to four of our leading internet entrepreneurs about the state of web 2.0 in Australia.

It's been a tough ride for the online crowd, but things are finally moving again, thanks to broadband uptake, new technologies and a bootstrapping ethos that never really died. We chatted to four of our leading internet entrepreneurs about the state of web 2.0 in Australia.

Some companies are built to be sold. The intellectual property and business processes are bedded down and bundled into a transferable package. Find a market gap, identify potential buyers, build it, drive home the value and make the trade sale. And then, if you enjoyed the ride, do it again.