Smart 100 2010

Having worked on insurance claims as a carpenter, Brian Siemsen identified the need for a better way for insurers to conduct repairs. He was surprised at the attitude of tradespeople who would charge anything because it was an insurance job. He had heard of minor jobs taking as long as 180 days to complete. He believed these attitudes had developed due to the limited ability of insurers to monitor and quality control the repair work. So he set out to develop IntelBuild –- an online system that gives insurers the power to monitor each job, regardless of where it is.

This innovation initially came to life when my business partner and I recognised that Australians had almost no flexibility when it came to the use of gift card vouchers. We soon discovered that the market was worth about $1b and that 1 in 3 cards were never redeemed, representing an incredible waste. We wanted to provide a service that gave people the option to use gift cards as they wanted to. A market study demonstrated that similar services existed in North America but not yet in Australia.

We used to be an outsourced sales and marketing organisation conducting campaigns for SMEs right up to large brands such as 3 mobile. We now use this ability of putting in place a sales and marketing division, in order to acquire a large equity stake in the businesses we work for. We have now become a hybrid blend of a private equity firm and a sales and marketing organisation, implementing sales systems and structures in exchange for up to 40% ownership in the business. A model such as this is a world first.

We saw the need for Business to be able to access simple, clear web strategy consulting + planning, and thence order 'best of breed' related site/s and systems, for a low cost (less than half that of traditional processes), get it fast, and then access ongoing support and an ever expanding library of member's only 'how-to' content on Web Marketing (and anything that touches it), along with the usual 'how to use the system' type stuff and direct support. This is the advanced (revised) version of something I've been working on (albeit slowly) for 3.5 years.

Paul, Southern Innovation’s founder, was researching new technologies for the detection of antipersonnel landmines. Landmines, which lie active for decades after a conflict, are one of the most insidious artifacts of conflict, severely restricting communities getting back on their feet. Paul was investigating technology which could detect the explosive in the landmines; however, the detectors were so inefficient that detecting a single landmine could take 20 minutes. Paul and his PhD supervisor Prof. Rob Evans came up with a data-processing algorithm which would provide a twentyfold improvement in the efficiency of radiation detectors.

Our NPD team started to dream about a way to take Australia's rainwater collection experience to the world. As people globally begin to see how they can contribute to the water cycle through the collection of rainwater we asked, "How can we get Australia's learnings over the last decade, put it all in one product and make rainwater simple? Let's make a product that people won't need to worry about, will find easy to use and will let them contribute to our water system."

Stuart was managing Contract1, a Contractor Management company. He was extremely experienced in payroll and all the software solutions available at the time, and found himself continually frustrated at the lack of attention to detail and the appalling user interfaces. If there was a way to make the job of a payroll person more difficult, they would have found it. About the same time, Xero entered Australia and declared that they wouldn’t be offering a payroll solution with their product. That was the epiphany moment. Stuart had lunch with John (his former boss at AusAID), and Paycycle was born.

The following SMART 100 profile and the information it contains is a duplication of content submitted by the applicant during ...

AutoCarLog was created as a result of a challenge, a challenge to build a successful technology startup in just seven days and for less than $500. It was born from the need to modernise paperback vehicle mileage logbooks with a convenient, fast, environmentally friendly and tech based approach.

One founder employed the other to complete an application development project for a large financial institution that was already over time, over budget and in serious risk. When the entire app was completed in 3 months instead of the expected 9 months, it was obvious there was something special invloved. The secret was a platform that transforms app development in a similar way to how assembly lines transformed manufacturing. The founders joined together to productize this unique approach and extend it further to leverage the emerging "cloud computing" technologies.

A bright idea in response to a customer’s need to analyse multi-dimensional data, led to the development of a new type of business intelligence (BI) software by QlikTech in Sweden in 1993. They called this new software QlikView because it provided a point-and-click simple way to view data. QlikView is now a global phenomenon and delivered to Australia by Inside Info since 2003. The founders of Inside Info could see that the time, cost and complexity of traditional BI software was underwhelming. They chose to change this, developing QlikView applications that greatly simplify how businesses measure and analyse business performance.

This innovation initially came to life when two of the founders, Mike and Michael, were looking for a new, innovative online retail product to launch in Australia. The third founder, Jodie, had been designing her own shoes and having them made in Asia for a while. The three co-founders figured this could be done online and the idea for Shoes of Prey was born.

The initial system was developed for a third party in order to replace reversing sirens on large mining trucks. It was soon realised that there was a huge requirement for a system such as this across many industrial sectors (mining, logistics and warehousing, freight terminals, gantry cranes and more) as a system to help reduce risk of collision between any moving machinery and personnel. The current system has been developed over several years of research, development and testing to the point that it is now ready for full commercial release with the aim of saving lives in the workplace.

The inventor, Henk Van Harselaar, is Dutch born, came to Australia at 18 and has been a trainee pastry chef, car salesman, property developer in Hervey Bay and a pilot. The Aurora System had its genesis, in the great Australian tradition, under Henk's house and on his kitchen table. Henk is an incorrigable tinkerer and has invented a few other things along the way. The spark for the germ of the idea occurred in Henk's mind 20 years ago when he saw pictures of 15th-century windmills and initial prototypes looked very very different.

I was watching TV and the subject was a Singaporean ship had become stacked on the beach at Caloundra Qld. To refloat the vessel two Chinook helicopters were used to take containers off the ship, some with a weight of over 7,000 kgs and out of the blue the following crossed my mind: "If a 7,000 kgs-plus container can be easily lifted by a Chinook, a water tank can be easily lifted as well...If the biggest fire chopper can lift only 6,000 litres or kilograms...Bingo! I got a new idea and long research begins."

From dealing with a number of international brands such as Red Bull, Toyota and Microsoft we realised that Australian subsidiaries have a challenge in identifying local content. Customers had to deal with ‘noise’ as they tried to determine what conversations are local and what they should care about. We needed to work out a way of pinpointing where conversations were happening beyond a domain basis (all the main social media sites are .com so would be attributed to the US). Our technology can now take a conversation sat on any domain and pinpoint the creator down to a suburb level.

I conducted research into human organ donation, procurement and transplantation in Australia. The research identified the archaic methods used in organ preservation in transit and also identified the heart as the most time-critical organ in the transplantation process.

Causium...The new freemium Australian software maker, Atlassian, has pioneered a new customer acquisition strategy called Causium that merges cause marketing with the popular freemium business model. Instead of giving away a teaser product, Atlassian charges a nominal fee of $10 for its starter 10 user licenses and then donates all the proceeds to charity. The results have been an astounding win-win-win for all parties. Over 14,000 customers now have software that they couldn't previously afford, Atlassian has earned over $2M in upsell revenue and Atlassian's selected charity, Room to Read has received over $500,000 for literacy programs in developing nations.

A sales manager asked his employers for fast information on other sales regions performance. In discussions with other people in other jobs, he noticed that every person wanted fast information without being bombarded with email, and the concept of SBI was born.

I was 24 and doing a program called Slingshot, which helps young people in the West realise a business. I noticed that there was very little available for Muslim women and the scarf they were wearing was always held in place by pins. I wanted to create something comfortable and without any pins.