The Hive » Podcast Feed

Who: Sal Malatesta from St. Ali Coffee When: 7pm, October 14th 2009 Where: The Order of Melbourne, 401 Swanston St, Melbourne. RSVP: melbourne@thehive.org.au or RSVP through the Facebook Event. Sal Malatesta opened his first cafe as a law student and at the age of 36, Salvatore has bought and sold over 65 cafes, his most recent new venture being the soon to be opened, Outpost in Yarra Lane, South Yarra. A specialist retail cafe powered by St Ali, Outpost is where customers can select their coffee profile of choice – Outpost will be a distillation of the ‘third wave’ concept, but located in the heart of South Yarra. Interior designers, Hecker Phelan & Guthrie (HP&G) collaboratively worked with Salvatore to capture the essence of St Ali’s reclaimed “Brooklyn dumpster chic theme” and translate it into a retail bean store with a South Yarra context. Outpost is scheduled to open mid September 2009. Internationally, the St Ali concept of coffee labs and fresh single estate coffee roasting outlets will launch in the United Arab Emirates and Singapore through an alliance with much loved Australian gourmet food brand, ‘Jones the Grocer’. A self described ‘third wave’ coffee guy, Salvatore believes: “Coffee should not be viewed as a commodity susceptible to the forces of the market but as an artisan high end product. Instead of buying low and selling high, we must buy higher and sell higher. We must also from start to finish, care from growers to cup which means building direct trade relationships with growers, hosting growers in Australia so that they can meet their end users, seasonality of crop, storage techniques, transport and so on. The list is endless.”

Started CarAdvice as a blog with $35 Now Employs 10 staff Largest Independent Auto website in Australia Having made his first $250 at the age of 12 from selling advertising on his hobby website, Alborz spent the next 10 years running over 20 different websites, a webdesign company and even an internet cafe. He finally came to the conclusion that in order to be happy and successful he has to mix his love of cars with his specialty in creating online businesses and hence CarAdvice.com.au was born. Three and a bit years later, CarAdvice now receives over 1,500,000 unique visitors per month and has become one of the largest independent Australian publications for automotive news, reviews and advice. The business has been independently valued at over five million dollars and continues to grow on a monthly basis. In that time Alborz has flown all over the world and driven the world fastest and most exclusive cars, having his videos aired on discovery channel and free to air TV in Australia, plus over 1 million views on youtube. The business currently has offices in Sydney and Melbourne with other staff also based in Brisbane and Perth. Alborz says his desire to do what he loves came from an underlying fear of being stuck in an office every day! He now spends his days further developing and expanding the business whilst also test driving his favourite cars. Mike Boyd, Nick McIntosh & Walter Haas The Hive Brisbane Team If you’re on Twitter make sure you tweet using the #hivebris hashtag.

David Handley started his working life as a commercial lawyer but quickly moved across into the arts, film and wine when he escaped the corporate world by moving to Prague in his mid 20’s, adopting the motto that he only wanted to do fun things which added something to the world. In 1997 David established Sculpture by the Sea with the idea of creating a free to the public event visual arts event for Sydney held annually along the Bondi to Tamarama coastal walk. The first show was put up, on and pulled down in just one-day and was run by volunteers working out of David’s lounge room with no budget – yet with a $400 marketing budget 25,000 people visited. This led to the Artistic Director of the 1998 Olympic Arts Festival, Andrea Stretton, to commission David to produce 5 Sculpture by the Sea exhibitions around Australia with Darwin (NT), Noosa (Qld), Albany (WA), Tasman Peninsula (Tas) joining the Bondi show. But the Olympic money was a one off and the early years were very hard as costs mounted with the need for full time staff and the show growing in length, size and complexity each year as the artists got more and more adventurous. Managing (just!) the financial tight rope Sculpture by the Sea, Bondi quickly became the largest and most popular sculpture exhibition in the world. Staged annually over three weeks in late October/early November the Bondi show attracts an estimated 500,000 visitors each year to view over 100 sculptures along the 2km Bondi coastal walk (www.sculpturebythesea.com). In 2003 Sculpture by the Sea Incorporated was established as a not for profit incorporated association listed on the National Cultural Register with tax deductible gift recipient status. This move was designed to provide a legal and financial entity suitable for the long term management of the Australian Sculpture by the Sea exhibitions. In 2005 Sculpture by the Sea, Cottesloe was established as an annual exhibition on the Indian Ocean at Perth’s most popular beach. Staged over three weeks in March the exhibition attracts over 140,000 people and is now one of Perth’s major annual events. The first international edition of Sculpture by the Sea was held in June 2009 in the City of Aarhus in Denmark. The Aarhus exhibition featured 60 sculptures by artists from across the world including 26 from Australia making it the largest international exhibition of Australian sculpture to date – and the Danes loved it with an estimated 600,000 visitors over 4 weeks. This year in Sydney, Sculpture By The Sea commences on 29 October through until 15 November with over 100 artists being represented.

Tom Howard and Fenn Bailey are the entrepreneurs behind Adioso.com, the world’s only fully-flexible, natural language flight search tool, making it simple for travellers to find cheap flights and cool destinations. With the backing of some of Silicon Valley’s finest they are determined to make Adioso the world’s leading flight search and destination info site for backpackers and casual travellers. Want to find the cheapest flight from Melbourne to Sydney on an evening next? How about escaping from Melbourne to “anywhere” in October for under $150? Or where can I go overseas for $500? If I take some time off in late January can I get to Thailand for under $420? Or maybe you just want to find the cheapest fairs to a nice beach? Tom Howard and Fenn Bailey met as colleagues in the helpdesk at the pioneering Australian ISP OzEmail in 1999. A common bond was formed over their interest in internet piracy, outlandish business ideas and the Hurstbridge train line. They launched their first startup together in 2002, a billing system for ISP’s called “Hostexchange”, leaving the safe confines of full time work in 2003. The business soon diversified into website development for a range of businesses from rock festivals to motorsport tracks and Christian TV evangelists. In late 2006 Tom and Fenn took a trip to Thailand just as the age of discount airline price-wars was gathering pace. The experience opened their eyes to the inadequacies and opportunities in flight search for budget travel. Tom was yet to be sold on the concept but Fenn took it upon himself to build a working prototype for a new style of flexible flight search engine in his spare time through 2007. In January 2008 Adioso was launched from an internet cafe in Hanoi, Vietnam, quickly establishing a loyal following of backpacking enthusiasts and grey nomads, and building just enough traction to make the idea worth pursuing seriously. Cut to earlier this year where after being accepted to a startup funding & mentoring program in Mountain View, California, Tom and Fenn moved the USA for three months to work on Adioso full time. At the end of the program in March they presented the second beta version to a room full of leading Silicon Valley identities, quickly securing a further round of seed funding from a range of prominent angel investors. Now back in Melbourne they continue to develop the site and prepare for a full public launch and a return to Silicon Valley later in the year. You can follow the exploits of Tom and Fenn in building Adioso here and book that next holiday now. http://adioso.com/auhttp://twitter.com/tomhowardhttp://twitter.com/fennbhttp://twitter.com/adioso

Scott Kilmartin started and runs haul, the innovative streetwear label making accessories from recycled materials. Turning used vinyl advertising billboards, truck inner tubes and printer blankets into messenger bags, macBook sleeves wallets & bean bags. How do you re-route landfill destined industrial waste into design stores? How can a business go from being in dire financial straits with the owner taking a night job delivering donuts at 3am & sleeping on the floor of the factory, to winning City of Melbourne Business of the Year in 2008? Is manufacturing in Australia a romantic fiction novel or scaleable reality ? How being green is no longer enough. And why every entrepreneur should get a dog. Originally named Urban Boomerang, the business started in a garage as a hobby in Tasmania selling a single product from a card table at Salamanca market. The business re-branded as haul in 2004 and now has retail outlets in two states, an online store with 5000 unique products and wholesales to design stores locally and afar. In 2007 haul began making products for companies from their used advertising campaign vinyls. Corporate gifts ‘embedded with their brand’. Clients include SEEK, BP, Jetstar, AGL & Virgin Mobile. In August haul will spin off the corporate gift arm as a new business called RIVETING, which will also offer creative services & logistics for clients. It is the only company of it’s type in Australia to be Good Environmental Choice Certified. Later in 2009 the company will open a new store – TOWNhaul in Melbourne’s laneway precincts. In 2008 haul kept 35 tonne of billboards, rubber and number plates from landfill. This year the projection is 51 tonne. In a past life Scott was a bouncer, personal trainer & ran a chain of bars in the USA. Having been lured into an entrepreneurial life he is now unemployable. Scott is @ScottKilmartin & the brand is @haul on twitter.

Mike O’Hagan – Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year 2004 & 2007. Started MiniMovers with just $200 and a Ute. Annual turnover now exceeds $30million employing 400+ staff. After being raised on a Dairy Farm in New Zealand, at the age of 18 Mike arrived in Australia with a few hundred dollars in his pocket and a pack on his back. Over the next 8 years he worked for 35 different employers. In his words “I’m a product of the many really bad, and the few good, employers I worked for”. This background helped to influence Mike to “do it differently” in business. His business career started with buying and selling goods as a second-hand dealer. Four years later the entrepreneur in Mike surfaced when he launched a short distance furniture removal business. This evolved into MiniMovers. MiniMovers has evolved into an innovative market leader, growing from an initial investment of $200 and a Ute, to an annual turnover exceeding $30 million with over 400 employees. Now 22 years old, MiniMovers currently moves over 1200 homes and offices a week in Southeast Queensland, Melbourne and Sydney. Through various government sponsored assistance/mentoring programs Mike has helped many hundreds of businesses. As a result Mike has developed some very alternative views of the success factors that drive people and businesses. Mike sees his strengths in his basic commonsense approach – “out of the box” thinking, leadership, systems, marketing, people management skills, workplace culture, innovative products, and creative customer service strategies.

Peter is an entrepreneur. But it took him a while to get there. To find his calling Peter spent seven years at university, six years in the Army and two years at Ericsson. Peter’s first start up company was Southern Innovation – a company established to commercialize land-mine detection research from The University of Melbourne. RedBubble is Peter’s second start up company – which he co-founded in April 2006 with Martin Hosking and Paul Vanzella. Peter is a graduate of the Royal Military College (Duntroon) and has Bachelor and Masters degrees in Engineering and Masters of Business Administration (with Distinction) from The University of Melbourne (he likes to learn). RedBubble is an online community for artists, but it doesn’t stop there – RedBubble take the artist’s digital files and take care of the production, shipping and customer service for them. In the last two years they have shipped 232,800 items of art to over 71 countries.

June 9th 2009 As she set about establishing her home office, Kristina struggled to find beautiful and stylish products which she had grown used to in her native Scandinavia. So she designed her own. From first identifying a gap in the home office market, Kristina’s journey included a buying trip around the world, and extensive market research. Findings overwhelmingly revealed that Kristina wasn’t the only one having trouble combining form with function in her home office. While decorating one’s home in stylish products and furniture was a priority, the home office was so often forgotten. This was about to change. By 2005 there were kikki.K boutiques in Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane. The following year saw incredible growth with eight new boutiques opened, including the first foray into the international market in Auckland, New Zealand. And the business continues to expand each year. kikki.K’s success has not been lost on the Australian business community. Kristina has twice been a finalist in the Telstra Business Woman’s Awards, has been named Young Entrepreneur of the Year by Women Chiefs of Enterprise International, was named Most Successful New-Comer in the Swedish Business in Australia Awards, and was recently named Best Small Business in the Ethnic Business Awards. So seven years after her original idea, Kristina has her home office sorted. Download the podcast of the event here.

May 12th 2009. Have you ever wondered: Can you make millions – and still help save the planet? Can you build an successful business – from a garage? Can you partner with the big guys – when you are only a little fish? And can you play like a girl – in a boy’s industry? Green transport entrepreneur Monique Conheady, has shown that you can. Monique will share insights that you can apply to your business, gained during her journey to date as co-founder and CEO of Flexicar. Launched in Melbourne in 2005 with just three cars, Flexicar now has 70 vehicles in inner-city Melbourne and Sydney, over 2,000 members and boasts record performance despite a recession. Beyond running the successful Flexicar business, Monique is a key player in the sustainability industry, including being a Committee Member of the Moreland Energy Foundation and a Fellow of the Centre for Sustainability Leadership. In addition to sharing her story, Monique will provide insight on how to gain government support for a business, how to attract grant funding and angel investment, how to partner with the big end of town, and how to educate a market about an entirely new concept. If you’re on Twitter make sure you tweet using the #hivemelb hashtag. You can find Monique at @moniqueconheady and @flexicar. Download the podcast of the event here.

April 21st 2009. Have you ever wondered: How do you go about building a cool consumer brand? How does it feel to have only 10 days worth of cash left in the bank and lots of bills to pay? Is it better to have smart investors, dumb investors or no investors? What do you do when you realize that your business model and strategic plan are stuffed? Sahil Merchant has perspectives and experiences around all of these questions, and more. While he is likely to be wrong about many things – which is why he is more broke than you could ever hope to be – he is happy to share his experiences of starting and building his company, Mag Nation. After giving up a budding corporate career at consulting firm McKinsey & Company, Sahil now enjoys juggling being a dad to 3 kids, working 27 hours a day as the head of Mag Nation (which, in addition to six stores sells magazine subscriptions online), and living life with no financial security. But boy does he have some stories… If you’re on Twitter make sure you tweet using the #hivemelb hashtag. You can find Sahil at @sahilmerchant and @mag_nation. Download the podcast of the event here.

February 10th 2008. Pete Williams is recognised as a global thought leader on Innovation. A Chartered Accountant by background Pete moved into the Web space in 1993. He has a unique perspective on how business can profit from using web technology. Pete is CEO of Deloitte Digital, which is a new business that delivers professional services online. Prior to his role in Deloitte Digital, Pete was CEO of Australia’s largest web development firm, Eclipse. Pete has worked with many high profile clients such as BHP, Telstra, AFL, NAB, ANZ and the Federal and Victorian Governments. Over the last five years Pete has been voted by his peers and staff as the most inspirational partner at Deloitte.

March 31st 2009. The Hive Brisbane is very excited to be kicking off the year with guest entrepreneur Richard Eastes from Vroom Vroom Vroom! Richard took a risk when he spent his life savings on VroomVroomVroom – a travel startup that was booking a mere 20 online car rental reservations per day. He quickly grew it from his Brisbane bedroom into Australia’s fastest growing travel company. Winning various business awards such as Deloitte FAST50, it now generates close to $5m in sales each month. The company is expanding globally and is poised to becoming a great Australian export. As a project to compliment VroomVroomVroom.com’s carbon neutral car rental, Richard started GreenLogo which has calculated that the internet produces approximately 1200 tonnes of CO2 per hour. GreenLogo reduces this by tracking the CO2 produced by a website and then pays for its carbon credits using sponsors. Richard loves networking nights, innovative employees, touch rugby, social media sites and is addicted to Twitter. Follow him on twitter at @eastes Read Ross Hill’s review of the event here, and watch the podcast on Youtube.