Following Australian Startups and Tech Trends

In our ongoing coverage of startups coming out of Australia and interviews with CEOs, Media Personalities, Philanthropists, and VCs, today we showcase a startup in the eCommerce segment from Manly, Tjoos.com - Compare Prices For Better Choice While Shopping. It is co-founded by Kim Chen and Bart Jellema. Let us explore how Bart, co-founder of Tjoos.com , is progressing with his venture. This is what he has to say: • Who are the people behind this and how it started? Back in July 2007 my partner and I were looking to purchase contact lenses online. Having done comparison shopping a few times I expected it to be easy to find the lowest price using one of the price comparison sites. We spent all day looking at every comparison site we could find and got some upsetting results. Shopping comparison engines rarely list the lowest price, and if they do it's merely a coincidence. Shopping comparison sites only list stores that pay them, making most sites nothing more than PPC product se...

In our ongoing coverage of startups coming out of Australia and interviews with CEOs, Media Personalities, Philanthropists, and VCs, today we showcase a startup from Melbourne, Australia, to be launched in October, 2008, Trickytix - an online event registration company. Trickytix allows a customer to create an account, set up and style their event page and then begin selling tickets without any manual intervention from us. This is all achieved through a self-service interface. Typical events include lunches, meetings, fun runs, cycling or triathlon events, dinners, conferences, etc etc. It will be running under a closed beta trial with a number of companies from July 2008. Let us explore what Scott, co-founder of Trickytix , has to say about his venture and innovation coming out of Australia. This is what he has to say: • Please tell us about yourself, your background and interests? My name is Scott Handsaker, and I am the Managing Director and co-founder of Trickytix, an online...

Today we showcase the story of another successful startup and entrepreneur, Phillip Kingston, Co-Founder & CEO, of  Flogd Flogd is an Australian-based company that allows anyone to create a shop to sell stuff anywhere you can paste code. Sell from blogs, websites, and social networking sites like MySpace. It provides its users with a shopping cart system that handles postage, taxes and processing of the sale. It also partners with other companies to offer Flogd services natively in other applications. Let us explore what Philip has to say about his venture Flogd and his thoughts on entrepreneurship and innovation coming out of Australia. This is what he has to say: • Please tell us about yourself, your background and interests? I am a 22-year-old student at the University of Melbourne studying a Bachelor of Science/Bachelor of Commerce. I am interested in human behaviour, social and environmental sustainability, and, I suppose, technology. I am a programmer by trade but m...

Today we showcase the story of another successful startup and entrepreneur, Stewart Whicker, Founder & CEO, of  NavSports Ltd NavSports is an Australian-based company focused on providing next-generation tools to grassroots sports clubs to promote to and communicate with existing and potential participants. Let us explore what Stewart has to say about his venture NavSports and his thoughts on Sports as an industry and Innovation coming out of Australia. This is what he has to say: • Please tell us about yourself, your background and interests? My name is Stewart Whicker and my background is in Sports Facility Management and Elite Sports Coaching. My interests include sports promotion and playing tennis when I get the chance. • Who are the people behind this and how it started? Dean Viglione is Navsports Chairman and a former Australian Junior Judo Champion. Marcelo Moraes is our Chief Information Officer lead software developer. Navsports also has a small team of graphic de...

In our ongoing coverage of startups coming out of Australia and interviews with CEOs, Media Personalities, Philanthropists, and VCs, to gauge the innovation and startup landscape in Australia, today we showcase our interview with, the co-founder of OurPatch - Regional And Rural Business Directory, Simon Wyk. I did this interview to learn more about OurPatch , its offerings, its progress and what it means to the regional and rural business of Australia. Let us explore what Simon has to say about the progress of OurPatch and the state of affairs in this domain in Australia. This is what he has to say: • Please tell us about yourself, your background and interests? I was born in South Africa and came to Australia in my mid-twenties. I started my career in marketing. Initially for a chemicals company and subsequently for a home improvements company. I then found myself in Interactive Communications and built the first commercial CD-ROM in Australia. We migrated from commercial CD-ROM...

Today we are showcasing another venture from Sydney, Australia, RAYV Founded by Anil Sabharwal, RAYV - a local business directory with recommendations , targeted towards Sydney customers, allows consumers to find, review, and talk about local businesses. It's a cross between a web-based social community an online business directory and a recommendation engine. We explored a bit further about RAYV from one of the founders - Anil Sabharwal. This is what he has to say in his interview with us: • Please tell us about yourself, your background and interests? I’ve always had a passion for technology. It started with hardware – computers, video game consoles, mobile phones – but as of late my real interest has been the digital space. There is so much information in the world today but it’s all useless if it can’t be filtered and delive red in a meaningful manner. To me, the Internet represents both our greatest opportunity and our biggest challenge – and this is what drives me day an...

Today we are showcasing another venture from Melbourne, Australia, Docoloco Co-Founded by Melbourne boys, Chris Mander and Johnny Cussen, Docoloco - is a community powered online recommendation engine that helps locals find, share and follow the best local businesses. In laymen terms, people can use Docoloco to find recommended local businesses and services, recommend the places they love (or love to hate) and ask friends and other locals to share their recommendations. Chris Mander, describes: Today local businesses use Docoloco to: list their business, features and products online free of charge, appear in the top web results on Google, use their loyal customer base to generate new business and attract new customers. Tomorrow businesses will use Docoloco to: find out a whole lot more about who their customers and competitors really are and deliver highly targeted ads to a local audience. Let us explore bit more about Docoloco and Chris's journey as an ...

Today we showcase the story of a woman entrepreneur, mum of 4 and 3 successful ventures under her belt, Meg Tsiamis , founder of dLook , Obits , Aussie Bloggers from Sydney, Australia. In a candid interview with us, she explained how as a mum and an entrepreneur she is managing and juggling. This is what she has to say in her interview with us : • Please tell us about yourself, your background and interests? I guess I’m a bit of a late bloomer. I married at twenty and had my first child at 23. My s tudies were haphazard, and I finally graduated from Uni when I was 31 and launched straight into graduate studies. A glutton for punishment. My earlier working life consisted of a range of accounting and administrative type roles. In 2000 I set up a finance brokerage which I grew until I started with the internet ventures. Interests? Blogging I guess! • How did you become an entrepreneur, tell us your thought process and how i t began? Quite by accident really! One night my husband was loo...