New kid on the insurance block Youi drew a few arched eyebrows when it took out the Big Kahuna Award at the 2009 Anthill Cool Company Awards. After all, how can an insurance company be cool? Youi wowed our judges with its fresh and innovative entry into a very stuffy, uncool industry.

Well now it seems that the marketers at Youi thought an insurance company winning a national business award for coolness was a pretty good point of difference. So much so that they have launched a national radio advertising campaign crowing about their cool triumph.

We think that’s pretty… well… cool.

Here are the two spots currently playing on national radio:

Spot 1

Spot 2

When K-Rudd launched the Stimulus Package ‘Investment Allowance’ – a 50% tax refund on business purchases of more than $1,000 by small businesses – I blogged about the idiocy of subsidising foreign purchases.

I don’t know about you but I struggle to think of a business asset that retails for more than $1,000 that is locally produced.

That’s why I was pleased to learn of a new website that aspires to make it much easier for consumers to search for Australian made products, and for local manufacturers to be found.

The website www.buyaustralianmade.com.au is not much fancier than a listing business – a directory. But it is being launched at a time when many manufacturers, especially in regional areas, are finding it tougher to sell their products through traditional retail outlets as the major chains cull their product lines.

“There is very strong support from the Australian public to buy locally-made products and source services from locally-based companies, but until now there hasn’t been an easy way of finding them,” said BuyAustralianMade managing director Stephen Gately in a press release.

“Over the past few years we’ve seen many thousands of local jobs lost to third world countries, and unless something changes, more local jobs will be lost. The loss of jobs has a large negative effect on our economy and our pride as a nation.”

The deadline to take advantage of the Investment Allowance was extended by six months in April. Purchases must be ordered by 31 Dec 2009, then delivered and installed by 31 December 2010, again a six month extension on the previous deadline.

That’s five months to get shopping and buy Australian.

Primary Sponsor

What is 30under30?

30under30 is an Anthill initiative that was launched in early 2008 to encourage and promote entrepreneurship among young Australians. Each year, we invite our readers to nominate young Australian entrepreneurs deserving of recognition for their outstanding entrepreneurial endeavours. Anthill’s editorial team then trawls through hundreds of applications and identifies and profiles the top 30 Australian entrepreneurs under the age of 30. The process culminates in an event held in Melbourne where the 30 winners will network and celebrate. We’ll be releasing this year’s Anthill 30under30 winners over the next couple of weeks via our Twitter account – youngest to oldest.

Name: Ross Hill
Age: 22 (1987)
State: VIC
Industry: Social Media
Companies: The Hive, Yabble, CoverHunt, Rentoid, Deloitte

Ross Hill doesn’t turn 30 for another eight years, but he’s crammed more entrepreneurial activity into his 22 years than many people twice his age.

Hill is a young gun of the social media space, having developed several prominent websites and blogs. His album cover site CoverHunt.com receives 1.4m page views per month (100k unique). His entrepreneurs’ networking community, The Hive, has reached over 2,000 members. He works part time in social media communications for Deloitte Digital and Deloitte Innovation and splits the rest of his time tending to his user-generated review site Yabble, renting marketplace Rentoid, an emerging public speaking career and, presumably, sleeping.

He has a series of awards to his name, including the RMIT Jacques Nasser Scholarship (two consecutive years), second place in the 2008 RMIT Business Plan Competition and the City of Melbourne Creative Industries prize.

Hill believes his greatest entrepreneurial accomplishment has been co-founding and developing The Hive. The entrepreneurs’ networking community is one of the fastest growing in Australia, with over 150 people now attending monthly Melbourne events, 100 at the recent Brisbane event and an imminent expansion to Sydney.

He certainly is a busy bee, and a thoroughly Anthillian recipient of 30under30 honours in 2009.

ENTREPRENEURSHIP AND WEALTH ACCORDING TO ROSS:

I don’t need much cash to support myself and prefer to focus on flexibility of working arrangements, location (remote work is great), and being able to create massive impact with small resources and simple structures.

Right now I’m getting better at saying no to new opportunities, to avoid overload. If anything, my commercial failure has been the opportunity cost of trying things – if I spent the time I spend learning and doing things working for the man full time for the last few years, I would have plenty more material wealth.

MULTIMEDIA

Anthill contributor Jennifer Kiely recently sat down with Ross Hill and recorded their conversation about his life and philosophy as a young entrepreneur.

Listen to the podcast.

I should preface this column with an admission that I don’t own an iPhone. Nor have I ever held one. However, it is my fervent hope that, if I work hard enough and stay focused, I might one day join the tribe.

Back in 2006 we ran a story on Michelle Matthews, founder of the Deck Of Secrets publishing empire that began with a 52-card deck Melbourne bar guide in 2003 and now includes 22 guides to life’s pleasures in locations across Australia and around the world.

Deck of Secrets is a successful print business, largely insulated from the carnage other print media sectors are experiencing in this digital age.

A few months back, Matthews teamed up with software developer Shaun Ervive to turn the Deck of Secrets guides into iPhone applications.

There aren’t many products better suited to being reinvented as an application in your pocket than Matthews’ DRINK, EAT and PLAY decks. You’re out and about, as a tourist or in your home town, and you’re looking for a well-curated selection of restaurants, bars or places to stay. A few taps on your iPhone and you’re in the know, with the added benefit of the selection being tailored to your GPS location.

“The iPhone app versions are, if anything, longer than the physical deck of card secrets, because we’re not limited by space,” says Matthews. “We’ve updated the London bar guide and we’re about to update and add content to the other apps as well.”

Matthews likes iTunes as a sales channel, because the majority of her potential customers are already familiar with Apple’s iTunes store. “They have a relationship with it, and iTunes has their credit card details,” she says. “We can release these apps and if people want them, all they need to do is… elect to buy them, which means entering their password. And then Apple pays me. I don’t have to negotiate with anyone. I don’t have to chase up the money. It’s a seamless process from the iPhone to iTunes to payment and reports.”

Currently, eight of the 22 physical guides are available as iPhone applications, with another – FIND Melbourne (culture) – scheduled for iTunes store approval in a couple of days and PLAY Ibiza (resorts) expected to go live in a few weeks.

According to Matthews, app sales have been strong, particularly for the Melbourne and Sydney guides. Things were certainly helped along when Deck of Secrets was featured at the top of recent Apple television commercial for the iPhone. The guides have been downloaded more than 10,000 times. This figure includes downloads of the free preview version of DRINK Melbourne, though Matthews says the free app doesn’t seem to have led to any corresponding sales improvement since it was released.

I ask Matthews whether she can see the iPhone (and smart phone) applications, and not the deck of cards, becoming her primary business at some stage in the future.

“It’s certainly possible,” she says after some thought. “It’s hard to imagine that everyone will have an iPhone. I’m not sure that it will happen particularly soon. And I’m not should we would kill off the physical decks off altogether. The two businesses can grow together and I’ll learn from each of them.”

The internet has produced a culture – a generation – that that expects many things to be free. Rupert Murdoch is wrestling this beast at the moment, and he’s not alone.

For Matthews, whose business is admittedly much further from the precipice than newspapers, it’s a question of perspective.

“I’m quite open to paying for an iPhone app,” she says. “I think the most I’ve paid for an app is $23, but I’ve bought others for $10 or $12. We’re talking about such small payments. Nearly every app I’ve bought has been less than the price of a cocktail. You don’t usually question that when you go into a bar.”

Paul Ryan is Editor of Anthill Magazine.

Marketing is war, anyway you look at it. You are battling the enemy, your competition. You are battling to dominate the market. Marketing is combat, and for every combat you need a strategy. Tighten your helmet as Jordan Mullen guides you through the trenches.

Listen to Jordan Mullen’s ’Marketing is War’ podcast.

Read the full feature article, Marketing is War, originally published in the December ‘08 edition of Anthill Magazine.

Domenic Carosa,
Dominet Corporation (former CEO, destra Corporation)

Domenic Carosa founded destra Corporation (then called Sprint) with his sister Anna in 1993. By 1998, destra ran a number of the leading entertainment websites in Australia. In 2000, the company reverse-listed on the ASX a matter of hours before the tech crash on Wall Street. After diversifying into web hosting to survive the dot-com recession, Carosa took the company back to its digital media roots in 2005 and built it into a $100m company with 300 staff nationally. Earlier this year, Carosa became a casualty of the Opes Prime collapse, which resulted in him losing his equity in destra and his departure from the company he built and loved.
 

To listen to Paul Ryan’s podcast interview with Domenic Carosa.

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.

Listen to the full interview with Lisa Gorman below.

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.

Listen to the full interview with James Tutton below.

In the final days of September 2005, Anthill editor Paul Ryan caught up with five of Australia’s leading early-stage venture capitalists. The meeting turned into a feature story. The feature story turned into a networking event, which we offered as a fly-on-the-wall audio CD. Now you can download/listen to it as a full podcast, which includes the previously unreleased Q&A session.

The Buck Starts Here – 23/02/06 (MP3 – 95mb, 1hr 43m)