Tag: entrepreneur

The dedication of Halliday and his staff is well-illustrated by a tale he tells when asked about his biggest entrepreneurial setback. His says a recently hired technician managed to crash the server and destroy the backups of one of Mercury IT's biggest clients. Halliday and his business partner worked non-stop from 5 p.m. Friday to 12:30 p.m. Sunday rebuilding a network for 200 users. "It was all working Monday and the client knew no different," Halliday says. "Thank you, caffeine!"

A few years ago, a young investment banker named Stephen Dash was in JFK airport in New York. He needed to access his email to learn the name and address of his hotel. But -- horrors -- his iPhone was dead. Dash paid $45 for a charger at an airport convenience store. And out of that angst came an idea that hurled Dash out of banking and into the entrepreneurial multiverse.

In 2007, at age 23, Steve McLeod parlayed a background in emergency response into a company that became Fire and Safety Australia, which offers workplace training in every state and territory on the continent. Today, Fire and Safety Australia has 11 full-time employees and six casual staff, and McLeod serves as managing director. He also has 16 co-providers who run safety-training business as licensees of his company.

Polka Dot Bride, started three ago by a now-25-year-old entrepreneur, is an online marketplace and inspiration clearinghouse for Australian couples preparing to say "I do." The business was started in 2007 by a Sydney-area woman who is now 25 years old and and who carefully maintains her anonymity on her site and on this profile (Dorothy Polka -- Dot Polka ... get it? On her site, she goes by Ms. Polka).

"I bring a new era of business ethos," says Dwayne Martens, owner of the health-food company Amazonia. "I am absolutely passionate to show conscious business is more powerful and more effective than the dollar-driven business." As for the bottom line, Amazonia moved $300,000 in product in August, and totaled $2.4 million in sales in 2009. Martens hopes to crack the $3 million mark soon.

What truly sets apart the 23-year-old Jack Delosa is that he's driven to bring more budding entrepreneurs into the fold. His latest venture, The Entourage, aims at inspiring and developing up-and-comers while linking them to mentors and potential investors. In Delosa's words, it "connects Australia's best entrepreneurs with Australia's next entrepreneurs."

At age 23, Jack Fitzgerald is well on his way to never having to call someone "boss." And for that, he rejoices. "Working for someone else sounded like a jail sentence. I had to create a business or join the 9-to-5," he says. The result was Ship 2 Anywhere, a website that allows people to compare shipping costs of top couriers.

Mini-motorcross has been a driving force for Brad Smith. Over five years, starting with his own money and funds from his family, the 23-year-old Tasmanian has built an offroad motorcycle empire that includes four stores, his own bike design, four tracks, a race series, 40 employees and a United States distribution deal.

Twenty-one year-old Tarik Houchar says his Sydney store Muslim fashion is "committed to the modern, fashion-loving Muslim girl. It provides fashionable, modern hijabs and Islamic fashion in a fun, exciting retail environment." Some of these words might seem at odds with hijab. But Houchar clearly knows where the lines are drawn and what young Muslim women want.

Yeo's startup OrionVM sells computing infrastructure as a service through the Internet -- the cloud. The result? Here's Yeo's assessment: "We have spent $30,000 to $40,000 building up a system that others spend hundreds of thousands on. Australian companies using an Australian platform don't have to deal with the 250-millisecond delay from hosting content in the United States." Hey, that's a computing eternity.

Marita Cheng's drive to energize young girls about engineering and science has lost not one erg of energy since 2009, when she was added to that year's 30under30 list. If anything, her drive has kicked into another gear.

Fitness trainer and personal-health businessman Dane Mitchell is on a fast track. Mitchell employs six people at Peak Health, and figures he's within a year of being able to step away from day-to-day operations so he can focus completely on growing the business.

In his final year of high school, amid preparations for his Higher School Certificate exams, Sacha Krjatian's home life crumbled. He was forced to live with family friends for nearly months, and shifted to different homes four times. Krjatian's biggest opportunity would be one of his own making.

At the tender age of 19, Ravi Moerman runs his own freelance sound-editing company. He provides sound design, editing and mixing primarily for government-funded short films and advertising agencies. In fact, the South Australian Film Corporation recently tapped Moerman for a project to support feature film "The Dragon Pearl," starring Sam Neill.

Nikki Durkin, 19, harnessed the power of Facebook to spread the word of the 99dresses concept. She held a Facebook event that described the idea and asked who might be interested. Within two weeks, 20,000 women had been invited. She then launched a fan page for 99dresses (which still didn't exist as a website) with 2,000 fans.

Aonghus Stevens is the sole owner of UAVs Australia, a two-year-old company that provides all manner of remote-controlled aircraft clients that range from farmers to the Australian Federal Police. And he's only 17!

It seems that Anthill has, somehow, gained a reputation as a fertile source of Australian entrepreneurs with TV appeal, much to our bemusement. You could say that we've unintentionally found ourselves with the role of Australia's casting couch for the entrepreneurial community (without the traditional perks).

What happens when a clothing swap takes up shop in your company's break room? The Clothing Exchange, a five-year-old Melbourne-based company, is selling the idea by promoting swaps in corporate environments. And while the concept itself may not be revolutionary, it could give employees a creative outlet for expanding their fashion and social consciences.

A few months ago, when her partner was having trouble finding work, Jasmine Costello encouraged him to learn chess as a way to take his mind off the job rejections. Rich loved the game so much that it led to an entrepreneurial brainstorm that recently earned the couple the 2010 Commander Business Grant. They call it Chess-Nuts.

An on-the-go device that measures several body functions at once and a technology that turns laptops and mobile phones into e-book readers are among the seven innovative ventures named finalists in Enterprize 2010, the University of Queensland's $100,000 business planning competition.