entrepreneurs
Vanessa Cullen, 2010 Anthill 30under30 Winner
“I dare to be different,” says Vanessa Cullen, owner of commercial interior design firm Forward Thinking Design. “I’ve been a new business owner, just like my clients, and so I service them from the standpoint of acute understanding, honesty and empathy.”
Betty Boustani, 2010 Anthill 30under30 Winner
Betty Boustani was only 26 when she started her law firm in 2007. Over time, Boustani realised her interests were leaning toward advising corporate clients. She reshaped the firm’s mission, becoming Emprise Legal & Corporate Advisory.
Mark Ross-Smith, 2010 Anthill 30under30 Winner
Mark Ross-Smith describes SMSfun is the first Australia-based social network. The service, which offers a multitude of text-messaging plans while providing a home for chat rooms, user profiles and addictive contests, now has more than 1.2 million members linked by mobile and web.
Andrew McKnight, 2010 Anthill 30under30 Winner
Andrew McKnight’s MIA is an evolution from two previous McKnight ventures — Limeworks, a website content developer and manager, and Shazam, an app that recognises the song playing on a mobile device and tells the user how to share it and buy it. When MIA finally did “emerge,” it was the continent’s leader in the mobile tech niche, he says, generating more than $15 million in annual revenue.
Lucy Thomas, 2010 Anthill 30under30 Winner
Since starting Project Rockit in 2007, the Thomases have worked with more than 150,000 Melbourne-area students. The website quadrupled its daily hits over two years. Most importantly, in post-event evaluations, 96% of students saw a decline in bullying at their school.
Kate McKibbin, 2010 Anthill 30under30 Winner
Naturally, McKibbin has a keen and enthusiastic eye for fashion trends. But she wouldn’t be where she is today without a fearless ability to take a leap. When she first started ddgdaily.com, she didn’t know the first thing about building a website. She Googled and taught herself. When the time required to run the site reached critical mass, she quit her regular job and took out a loan.
Dean J. Ramler, 2010 Anthill 30under30 Winner
Dean J. Ramler’s Milan Direct has sold more than 370,000 pieces of furniture to more than 100,000 customers. It enjoyed a turnover of $3.6 million in 2008-09, landing the company on BRW magazine’s Fast Starters list. Turnover for 2009-10 was close to $5 million. The company expanded into the UK a year ago, and is already a multimillion-pound business there.
Ruslan Kogan, 2010 Anthill 30under30 Winner
Ruslan Kogan, who has run more than 20 businesses since age 12, employs a canny marketing approach that attracts news media attention and plays up the David / Goliath aura. in 2008, he tweaked the government’s nose by putting out a “Kevin 37″ television and selling it for $900 — the amount offered to each Australian household under PM Kevin Rudd’s stimulus plan. Earlier this year, he stoked the fires of a verbal spat with Gerry Harvey, head of traditional electronics retailer Harvey Norman.
Don McKenzie, 2010 Anthill 30under30 Winner
Don McKenzie’s Stream Group is one of the biggest employers on this year’s 30under30 list, with a staff of about 110. McKenzie estimates the company will manage 25,000 home insurance claims this year, up from 2,000 in 2008, and total revenue is likely to exceed $80 million. Did we mention that he’s only 27?
Andrew Craig, 2010 Anthill 30under30 Winner
Andrew Craig’s company, Computer Empire, was started in his mother’s garage at age 18. Today, it runs out of a store in Brisbane’s central business district. Craig says turnover has surpassed $2 million per year. The biggest customer for his computers is the Vodaphone network in Papua New Guinea.
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