Startup & Entrepreneurship

We've held on to this latest manic instalment of Steve Sammartino's Creative Espresso series since he submitted it for inclusion in the July print edition, which didn't eventuate. Here it is, in all its super-charged, creative glory.

We've held on to this latest manic instalment of Steve Sammartino's Creative Espresso series since he submitted it for inclusion in the July print edition, which didn't eventuate. Here it is, in all its super-charged, creative glory.

Most people have a vague understanding of the various types of intellectual property rights, but few know exactly which rights relate to them and even fewer know how much this will cost. This new series takes readers through the ins and outs of intellectual property rights protection specifically for knowledge-economy businesses.

While most people hang out with mates during lunch breaks in Year 10, Samuel Yeats was negotiating with the receiver of a failed telco to acquire its hosting customers. Nine years later, Yeats is now the founder and CEO of Ultra Serve, a leading Australian managed internet hosting service provider.

It says much about the schismatic nature of Australia's economic strategy that the Federal Government invited public submissions on how to build a clever country in the same week that it signed a $50B gas export contract with China. Jordan Green outlines his vision for Australia's knowledge economy.

We all want the best for our families, and building successful companies is one of the best ways to provide for them. But while you're off establishing your empire, will your kids turn into spoilt ingrates?

Sad news this week that INNOVIC, the support organisation for innovative Victorian startups, will be restructured due to lack of government funding.

In part three of our series on the capital raising cultures in Australia and the US, San Francisco-based Steve Anderson explores the five things Australian and US venture capitalist must see before they will invest in an early-stage company.

A serial entrepreneur at only 24, Phillip Kingston is the embodiment of drive and ambition, spurned on by a desire to prove his sceptics wrong. With 3 start-ups under his belt while at university his current success story, Kingston development, is taking the Australian software and website development industry by storm.

Anthill contributor Dave Birchall recently caught up for coffee and an interesting chat with Sydney-based Tim Ayling, CEO of Platform 46, an internal online social network for businesses.

Spencer Maughan is an Australian expat based in California. When not consulting to Silicon Valley venture capitalists (including Top 10 VC firm Venrock), he spends his time attempting to free the world of Malaria. I caught up with Maughan three weeks ago, just as his Facebook application, Fight Malaria, was entering Beta Testing.

A little over one week ago, the Federal Minister for Innovation, Industry, Science and Research, Senator Kim Carr, issued a call for public comment to help inform the development and operation of the Commonwealth Commercialisation Institute. Over the past seven days, we have been pressing our readers to get involved and provide a 'private sector' perspective (after making the seemingly unpopular suggestion that commercialisation in Australia has been hijacked by public servants with MBAs). Today, we're turning our attention to the last section of SmartForm, which requests suggestions for the delivery of funding.

China might have surpassed Japan as Australia’s number one trading partner, but the land of the rising sun still represents a large market opportunity for Australian companies who produce products in demand. Steve Dowling reports on the recent boom in organic food in Japan, and the opportunity that lies therein.

These days virtually all industries and sub-industries are ripe for reinvention online. Take the ultra-physical world of dance, which 2009 30under30 winner Clint Salter is doing his best to jazz up online with his specialist directory and social network, DanceLife.

Jack Delosa, one of Anthill’s 2009 30under30 winners, begins a new series today about Gen Y and entrepreneurship. In this first column, he takes aim at an education system that is inadequate for 21st Century, leaving his generation with a reputation for preferring facebook and playtime to hard yakka.

It's not an easy game standing up in front of a crowd of 120 people and pitch to a panel of hard-to-please angel investors, as 11 brave entrepreneurial souls did recently at the Melbourne Pitch Club event (held 25 June).

Most employees can’t articulate the business mission statement. They don’t know what the business is trying to achieve. They come in every day and work in their own little world. Oh yes, and whose fault is that?

The Federal Government has just launched a new grant for third party service providers to help small and home based businesses with: • ‘free or low cost’ IT skills development • training and mentoring services • improved web presence and e-business capability Funding is available up to $500,000.

So while this $US32.5 million US Government funding for UltraBattery is certainly a tremendous validation for the technology and the CSIRO researchers who developed it, the international licensing option pursued means that Australia will, in all likelihood, only receive couch change from what stands to be an extremely lucrative venture for the foreign companies (Furukawa Battery Company and East Penn) that are actually doing the commercialisation.

Do you get your best ideas in the bathroom? If you answered yes, you're in the majority, according to research conducted by thinking expert and occasional Anthill contributor Ken Wall and three colleagues.