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: Nick Ferguson
Age: 19 (b. 1990)
State: SA
Industry: Fitness
Company:Sustain Fitness
At 19 years of age, Nick Ferguson is our youngest 30under30 winner for 2009.
He is owner and founder of Sustain Fitness, a fitness advisory and resource development company he launched in 2007 while still in Year 12. During that year, Ferguson was hospitalised with a severe illness. He used the time to channel his drive and commitment into entrepreneurial ways.
Sustain Fitness involves so much more than Nick playing drill sergeant to sweaty clients. He offers public speaking and seminars, group fitness classes, fitness advising, goal-setting consultations and resource development.
“I whip people into a new direction to help them reach heights they never before thought possible,” says Ferguson. “From fitness, to career paths, to releasing entrepreneurial flair, I help people take action and plan out an approach to their goal, anticipating and eliminating their roadblocks and maximising their chance at success.”
After suffering a 75 percent cut to income in January this year, due to client budget cuts, he re-evaluated his product/service offerings as ‘luxury’ and tailored a condensed service into a ‘do-it-yourself’ step-by-step model that removed the need for a trainer and resulted in an extra $5k in its first month.
Currently in his second financial year in business, Ferguson and has had 100% revenue and profit growth in the space of one year. He’s forecasting similar healthy growth for this financial year.
According to Nick:
I started Sustain Fitness while studying Year 12, a personal training course and working at a gym.
Therefore:
(Study 1 + Study 2) x (Employment 1 + Business Building 1)
The nominations are coming in thick and fast, female involvement is close to reaching an all time high (as posted previously) and, next week, mobile billboards will be hitting major CBDs (thanks to your input). However, one or two trends have emerged that have surprised me.
Start-up hub and co-working community, River City Labs, recently revealed the names of the 20 young tech standouts selected to be part of the 2015 ‘Startup Catalyst’ mission to Silicon Valley which will run from 28 September to 7 October.
Taronga Conservation Society Australia has launched HATCH: Taronga Accelerator Program to drive innovative solutions to some of the world’s most pressing conservation and environmental challenges.
New tech startup StreetHubs is launching in Melbourne’s silicon-valley, Richmond, taking a grassroots approach to building a better society, one street at a time.
Future Females is launching an exciting free five-day challenge ‘5 Days to Start’, to support 2,000 entrepreneurs to take five active steps towards turning their ideas into a real business, from February 4th – 8th 2019.
Its promoters call Eric the Circle “the next generation of tweeting.” And maybe it will be someday. For now, we can say with confidence that this website and iPhone app, with which you draw and share simple cartoons, can be a colossal devourer of time. And we say that with a smile.
