Kye Macdonald
Kye Macdonald founded Skye Recruitment with his wife, Sophie, in 2006 and found success by focusing on recruitment for the civil construction, building, engineering and oil and gas markets.
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Lee Corbitt
Lee Corbitt founded recruitment company Marble Group with business partner Gary Denton to create a level of professionalism he felt was lacking in the industry. There has been one ongoing challenge - to identify those with the talent and integrity Marble demands.
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Michael Rosenbaum
Michael Rosenbaum is at the top of Australia's largest online department store, DealsDirect, with revenue of $100 million and a customer base growing by the day.
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Michelle Hampton & Susan Wood
Susan Wood and Michelle Hampton launched Magnum PR in 2005 with the goal of providing large and SME clients with cost-effective PR, and have quickly built a client base that includes big-name brands including Red Bull, Nudie, Colgate-Palmolive, Quiksilver, Max Brenner, Wagamama and SumoSalad.
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Rupert Imhoff
Rupert Imhoff's premium SMS service 199Buddy works on a simple premise – text in a question, any question, and Imhof's team will try to answer it. The business, set up in 2006, now has revenue heading towards $2 million and Imhoff's team has grown to 95.
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Ruslan Kogan
If you can't buy it – make it. This is the premise on which Ruslan Kogan based his successful business, Kogan Technologies, and the experiment paid off.
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Saxon Mitchell
Saxon Mitchell started his work in events management from his bedroom when he was 19, dreading the possibility he may only earn standard hospitality wages. He built up the company, then called ICE Events, to earn over $1 million by the time he was 25, before selling it and moving onto Venue Management Services.
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Tristan White
Tristan White founded The Physio Co. when he was 24 after wanting to offer a service combining traditional rehabilitation programs with a type of customer service usually encountered in a retail environment. It has since exploded in popularity, generating $1.2 million in revenue and recording 52% growth last year.
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Wai Hong Fong
Shortly after graduating from university, Wai Hong Fong had two options: take an IT development job or have a go at building an online retail business. He chose the latter and with his business partners started approaching suppliers at trade shows to see if anyone was willing to give them anything to sell on eBay.
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Alana Chang
It's true all that glitters isn't gold, but it could be just as lucrative. Alana Chang, along with her sister Lauren, has transformed her Moi Moi jewellery chain into a million-dollar business by gaining the exclusive rights to sell the rare jewel moissanite.
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Up and comers:
Simon Goodrich
Age: 29
Company: Portable.TV
Sector: Internet, entertainment
Simon Goodrich co-founded Portable.tv in 2006 with Andrew Apostola with the idea of creating a film festival for portable devices, and has turned that into a full web design and eCommerce business. Portable recently opened an office in New York City to service clients in the global fashion industry.
Nick Holmes a Court
Age: 28
Company: BuzzNumber
Sector: Internet, marketing and advertising
Holmes a Court founded BuzzNumbers in 2007 to help companies understand how their brands are being discussed online. His previous boss didn't listen to his idea – and might wish he had as BuzzNumbers heads towards turning over its first $1 million next year.
Michael Fox, Jodie Fox, Michael Knapp
Age: 28, 28 and 29
Company: Shoes of Prey
Sector: Internet, retail
Former Googlers Michael Fox and Michael Knapp had wanted to work on a project together since becoming friends at law school, but it took Jodie Fox's passion for shoes to bring them together in Shoes of Prey, a site that allows women to design their own shoes. It launched in late-2009, and already more than 250,000 pairs of shoes have been designed.
Nick Crocker and Ben Johnson
Age: 26 and 26
Company: Native Digital
Sector: Internet
Nick Crocker and Ben Johnson set out to create digital campaigns that were thoughtful and engaging, and in 2009 launched the first music download chart, Wearehunted.com in conjunction with Wotnews. They also convinced the record label EMI Australia to launch the first ever blog from a music label.
Sascha Voevodin
Age: 30
Company: Votech Industries
Sector: IT
Sascha Voevodin saw a niche in providing flexible software for the hospitality industry that could take information from any system and let its customers know that they have a problem even before the customer does. Last year it won a client in Taiwan, whose software is rebadged by 50 different suppliers around the world.
Dan Joyce
Age: 30
Company: RedRoomDVD
Sector: Retail, entertainment
It was only five years ago that Dan Joyce and Nic Di Venuto spotted the potential for the DVD rental vending machines that were popping up across Europe to also work in Australia. RedRoomDVD opened its first pilot store in the Sydney suburb of Waterloo in 2005. Now it is in 70 locations and has an ambitious rollout schedule that aims to have kiosks in more than 1,000 locations by the end of this year.
Dean Gaylor
Age: 29
Business: Mance Design
Sector: Design
Gaylor's company, Mance Designs, focuses on architectural lighting for the residential, hospitality, commercial and government sectors. The company began when Gaylor and his business partner, Christopher Boutsinis, were asked to take over from the previous boss. Currently projecting revenue of $8.5 million for 2008-09.
Chris O'Brien
Age: 27
Business: Hungry Giant
Sector: Waste disposal
Chris O'Brien began Hungry Giant by providing a service no one wants – waste disposal. He built a machine that compacts polystyrene foam, (which is 98% air), and with just $300 and started working in a Chinese factory to put the gadget together. The company has since expanded, offering a full waste and recycling services. The business is currently turning over about $700,000.
Leon Hill
Age: 25
Business: uSocial
Sector: Information Technology
Twenty-five year old Leon Hill found himself in the middle of controversy last year when he advertised that his business, uSocial, would begin selling batches of Twitter followers to clients. While pundits may be outraged the company has seemingly gone against the theme of the site, Hill isn't sorry – the business currently turns over about $800,000.
James Griffin
Age: 25
Business: SR7
Sector: Internet
As social networking becomes a requirement for doing business in any sector, James Griffin hopes to cash in on that demand by providing reputation management services. SR7 finds where a company is being mentioned on the internet and recommends ways they can control their representation. The company intends to expand with risk advisory firm Aon in 2010.
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written by Martin Szakal, April 27, 2010
