Blue jeans and billions

They’re young, they’re energetic and they’re fiercely ambitious.They’re also well on their way to becoming extremely rich.

The new generation of entreprenerial minds comes from a wide range of industries and interests but the one thing each of these rising young millionaires has in common is a drive to succeed – and make a mint. Whether it’s Nathan Tinkler, a former electrician with little more than a TAFE qualification who made his staggering fortune of $440 million in just eighteen months by leveraging his wealth through three impressive mining deals, or Ruslan Kogan who beat off bigger competition to secure the rights to launch Google’s eagerly awaited Android technology here in Australia this year, these savvy fast-starters are using their dreams and ambitions, their determination, their seemingly inexhaustable energy, their contacts and quite often their own dollars to push through the business pain barrier and create a space in the marketplace for themselves. They’re inspiring, they’re gutsy and they certainly deserve all the glory (and profits) they get. To all those blue jeans entrepreneurs out there, we salute you. Here’s a selection of the best.

The Google Guy: Ruslan Kogan

Founder of Kogan Technologies, 25-year-old Ruslan Kogan has pulled off one of the biggest deals any rising young entrepreneur could wish for: the right to launch Google’s long-awaited Android mobile technology in Australia. Kogan beat off the big mobile manufacturers to secure Android, which was only launched in the US in September last year by Google’s co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin. Google believes Android will become the standard operating system for mobile phones, although it has stiff competition from Apple’s iPhone and its irresistible apps. Like Page and Brin, Kogan also believes the future is in Android, and is planning to launch the platform in a Kogan phone, the Agora, this year. Google designed Android to be an open source system, which means others can adapt the software to their own products or needs.

The Cookbook Creators: Rachael Bermingham and Kim McCosker

The co-authors of the bestselling 4 Ingredients probably never imagined that their little cookbook would become an enormous bestseller – 800,000 copies and counting. Their initial impetus was to produce a cookbook that made making nightly meals easier. What could be easier than doing one based around dinners made of just four ingredients? The idea was simple, the name (4 Ingredients) simpler. Even the design of the book had a Google-like simplicity – a deliberate ruse to make the whole thing look accessible. The publication a chord with time-poor cooks everywhere. Sales went through the kitchen roof. Now reaching the 800,000 sales mark, 4 Ingredients has made a fortune for its authors.

The Mining Meister: Nathan Tinkler

He’s a big man with an even bigger bank account. And he’s also fast becoming famous for doing big deals. The 32-year old multi-millionaire maverick Nathan Tinkler made his money in less than two years doing three extraordinary mining deals. In 2006 he bought a coal mine in Queensland for around $30 million, sold it back to Macarthur Coal for $275 million worth of cash and shares, and then sold those shares to Indian steel giant Arcelor Mittal, netting him $441 million. Tinkler is now directing energies into his other big passion – horses. He has already invested an estimated $37 million into racing. All this is quite impressive for a former mining electrician whose only qualification is a certificate in electrical trade from Muswellbrook TAFE.

 

The Bridge Climber: Paul Cave 

Climbing entrepreneur Paul Cave (no pun intended) is a fine example of vision and persistence. In 1989, Cave came up with the idea of conducting walking tours of the Sydney Harbour Bridge. The idea seemed simple enough: open the bridge-climbing experience to the paying public. It would also be a fairly easy business to set up, thought Cave. Lease the bridge from public authorities and allow two years to get the whole thing up and running.

In fact, it took a litle longer than that; almost three times as long. In the end it took more than nine years of negotiations. And at times Cave wondered if the end result was going to be worth all the sweat and effort.

“If someone had said this was going to take 10 years, I never would have started it,” he says of his journey to the top.

But the persistence of Cave and his two white knights, Brett Blundy (founder of the retail chain Sanity) and Jack Cowin (owner of the Hungry Jack’s fast food chain), did pay off and the trio has now been rewarded handsomely for their risk. BridgeClimb paid dividends of $11.25 million in 2005 – 2006 on sales of $38 million. You could say Cave, Blundy and Cowin are now sitting pretty. Very pretty. Right on the top of the Harbour Bridge, in fact.

 

The Aussie Girl Next Door: Jennifer Hawkins

Winning Miss Universe kick-started her career but Jen sure has done a lot to it since – and most of it is due to her own business mind. When she tripped during a catwalk parade and tore off her dress to reveal a red g-string it could have been the end of it all. But Jen straightened up and pushed on through the ‘wardrobe malfunction’ (coining a new term in the process), and went on to secure lucrative deals with Audi, Myer, Covergirl, Lovable lingerie and the Seven Network on The Great Outdoors and Make Me A Supermodel. Then, to top it all off (or should that be to bottom it all off?), she released a line of swimswear, Cozi, through Myer. BRW put her earnings at $3.3 million, $2.1 of which was made last year. We think she’s priceless.

 

The Bootie Beauty: Kylie Minogue

Even after more than a decade in the spotlight, Kylie still seems to be everywhere. In the middle of her concert tour, she found time to perform at the opening of the Atlantis hotel in Dubai (for which she received a cool $2 million). She then did a series of European concerts, followed by a few more Australian ones. Having earned an estimated $40 million in 2008 from al these concerts and CDs, as well as a perfume range, she’s now only missing one thing: a hubby. Unfortunately, some things can’t be bought.

 

Motorhome Millionaires: Karl and Luke Trouchet

It’s not an obvious choice of business for two entrepreneurial brothers to do: campervans. But Brisbane brothers Luke and Karl Trouchet have made camping downright cool. They have also built their company, Apollo Motorhome Holidays, 

into a $60 million driving success.

The business began in 1985 in the backyard of the family’s home at Victoria Point, when their parents, Gus and Carolyn Trouchet, bought a pop-top campervan
that they began renting out at weekends. The company slowly grew with the purchase of more vans, and when their parents finally handed control of the business to the two brothers seven years ago, it had expanded to 50 vehicles and four staff.

Forward time on seven years and Apollo has literally exploded under the directorship of the duo. Karl and Luke Trouchet now employ 250 staff in Australia, New Zealand and the US, and oversee a fleet of 3000 vehicles, two-thirds of them based here.

“Our aim is not necessarily to be the biggest in any one market, but we do want to be the biggest in the world overall,” says Luke, who, at 32, still seems too young to be concerned with campervans, let alone running a multi-million dollar one based on them.

Now operating out of Los Angeles, the brothers plan to expand to Las Vegas and San Francisco next year. And they still love going camping...

 

The Man in the Bubble: Martin Hosking

Described by its founder Martin Hosking as an online marketplace for aspiring artists, RedBubble exploits one of the main strengths of the Internet: networking. It brings together, on a global basis, thousands of individuals who want to sell their services while allowing the site to make a profit at the same time.

Launched in February 2007, RedBubble works by organising the manufacturing and delivering of goods that showcase artists’ work, such as T-shirts, calendars and cards. Last financial year the site pulled in $1.2 million in revenue, although this only broke even. Hosking, however, is confident of the potential of the site, which is already generating a lot of media interest, and indeed predicts that revenue will reach $3 million this financial year.

 

The Coffee Queen: Jaqueline Arias

When former ABC journalist Jaqueline Arias was looking around for a new career – something else to sink her teeth into – she stumbled over the idea of coffee. It seemed a perfect business for a Columbian-born entrepreneur to do. Then she came up with the really good idea. She’d do fair-trade coffee. Coffee that had a conscience.

It was a magnificent light-bulb moment, albeit one that was probably inspired by a shot of double espresso.

“Thinking back on what I did at the ABC, everything was to do with giving a voice to those who didn’t have one, stories about indigenous issues and children in detention centres,” she says of the inspiration for her business idea, which eventually became Republica Coffee. “Now I ask people: ‘Do you know where your coffee comes from?’ Most of the people I talk to think coffee comes from Italy.

What I explain is the Italians actually import it from the Third World.”

To begin with, Arias worked with an international barista judge and speciality coffee expert, Emily Oak, for more than a year. Together, they sourced Fair Trade beans and created a roast profile for the three premium organic coffees, Republica Signature Blend, Timor and Peru Decaf. Then she went to work on the business model.

Fair Trade, says Arias, is based on a very simple premise: “A fair pay for a day’s work”.

“We all want to be paid fairly and have a dignified life, whether we are in Timor or Sydney,” she says.

It may seem like a brilliant idea but it’s turned into a huge success. Republica Coffee is now a well-known brand, and is as admired for its principles as it is for its flavours. As for Arias, it’s a good thing she went into the coffee business –
she now needs a lot more coffee to keep her going.

 

The Agent turned Author: Garth Nix

A former literary agent with top firm Curtis Brown, Garth Nix jumped ship to write books, never imagining that his novels would make him a millionaire. Now billed as the new Matthew Reilly, Nix is raking in the royalties from his bestselling series Keys to The Kingdom and The Seventh Tower. He has also signed a six-figure deal with his former employer HarperCollins for the North American rights to another three books. Showing off his background and experience as an agent he signed a separate deal with Allen & Unwin in Australasia, and HarperCollins for the UK rights. His books are now translated into 36 languages. BRW put his estimated net worth at $1.3 million.

 The Exotic Apothocary: Dianna Burmas

When Dianna Burmas, founder of MOR, was trying to find a point of difference for her cosmetics company, she realised that she wanted to create a business that was personal, rather than one that was, well, all about business. She realised that she wanted MOR to be intimate; an experience that was so wonderful people would feel compelled to return to it time and time again. That’s when she realised she had the seed of a great idea; an idea that turned into the multi-million-dollar company, MOR.

“MOR was conceived on a trip to India and the name came from India as well – it actually translates to peacock in Hindi,” explains Burmas. “The range is all about providing a personalised sensory journey. It’s all about taking time out for you, and indulging and creating rituals to recharge the body, the mind and the soul.”

Inspired by exotic places and ancient bathing products, MOR’s range of
innovative luxury skin care, body care and pampering products company has expanded to include more than 500 products. It has become so popular worldwide that it is now stocked in some of the best beauty, lifestyle and department stores around the world. In recent months, MOR has also garnered a strong celebrity following with famous customers such as Law & Order’s Mariska Hargitay,
Oprah Winfrey, Kim Basinger and even Barbra Streisand.

The Shoemakers: Cindy Gilbert

Staring at the ground is not a good way to start a business. Unless you’re Cindy
Gilbert, co-founder (with husband Daniel) of edgy Australian shoe retailer Hype DC. Gilbert, who’s rather fond of shoes, felt herself being inspired on a trip to Europe, where she spent much of the time watching the feet of those walking past. After much sole-searching (sorry for the pun), she decided that the one thing that was missing from the Australian fashion market was an edgier style of street shoe. And so a retail concept was born.

Gilbert’s company, Hype DC, is all about emerging trends. It aims to be the
first to feature tomorrow’s shoes fashions,at least in Australia, and displays them in a store that looks very much like an art gallery, only one where shoes are the pieces of art.

Glibert and her husband started with one store in 1998. These days, they have
23 stores across the country – and they’re still counting.

And yes, Cindy Gilbert still travels – and she stares down at all the shoes that
walk past.

 

The Communications Visionary: Vanessa Stoykov

Broadcasting is old and boring. Narrow-casting is new and cool. Why watch programs that appeal to the general public, when you can watch programs that appeal to your own personal interests?

Vanessa Stoykov picked up on this trend when she first saw it starting to emerge. She picked up on it and ran with it. And she picked her timing perfectly. Her company Evolution Media, pioneered narrowcasting (or slivercasting) in the Australian financial services market. Now Stoykoc and Evolution are launching evoTV, an online TV portal for all things money – related. “The new model of publishing is fragmenting,” says Stoykov, “and niche sites like evoTV are now able to deliver to interested viewers quality coverage designed specifically for Internet consumption at every desired level of depth of content.”

 

The Bag Designer: Melinda Lawrence

Sometimes business ideas appear as a grand vision. Other times, they take a little to refine. For Melinda Lawrence, the idea for a company came when she couldn’t find a proper bag to pack all her toiletries. She knew coming up with the perfect design would take a bit to do. But she also knew she had the beginning of a great idea; one that has become a company called Uchi.

“It dawned on me one day that I couldn’t find a decent toilet bag,” she says of her ephiphany. “So I started doing some market research.”

She did her research and then she went into production. But she didn’t quite realise the next step would be so big. Or so risky.

“I nearly had a nervous breakdown”, she says in retrospect. “I’d put my entire life savings into toiletry bags!”

However, the risk paid off, with retailer David Jones quickly picking up the brand.

“DJs really appreciated the products,” Lawrence says. “I had obviously identified a gap in the market.”

Lawrence is now working on expanding the product range. You could say that big things are expected for these little bags.

 

The Bar Tsar: Justin Hemmes

There’s a lot to be said for the entrepreneurial vision of Justin Hemmes. He’s certainly a man who thinks big. Once described as an entrepreneur “who presides over an empire of cool”, the 36-year-old property developer and CEO of the Merivale Group is arguably Australia’s most famous bar tsar, and perhaps also this country’s most ambitious. He has turned his family’s retail clothing business into a business goose that lays the golden egg, churning out one entertainment success after the other, and still he keeps the hits keep coming. He recently made (more) headlines by opening his grandest vision yet, a behemoth of a bar known as The Ivy, which is grand as, well, Sydney itself. Featuring a high-glam, Hollywood Regency-style interior reminiscent of another hip joint, the Viceroy hotel in LA, The Ivy is the Emerald City of nightclubs,and there’s no doubt it’s very Sydney. It’s also very Justin Hemmes.

There are various stories of how Hemmes started. Some say he began as a dish hand at his parents’ old Potts Point restaurant, learning the ropes as a barista. Others say he really began his meteoric rise when he put time in at The Angel Hotel in Sydney’s CBD, which had been one of his parents’ high-end fashion stores, Merivale and Mr John. On the second level there was a restaurant and before long Hemmes had opened the ground level as a reception area for the restaurant. Once he’d glossed up The Angel, he and his family turned their sights to more hotels, eventually opening Hotel CBD, Slip Inn, Hemmesphere, the restaurants est and Lotus, nightclubs Chinese Laundry and Tank, and Establishment, Hemmes’ version of a private club.

Along the way he established himself not only as a business name to watch but also a name to know. He was like the Pied Piper; wherever he went the A-list followed. Of course, it didn’t hurt that it was at one of Hemmes’ places, Slip Inn, where Crown Prince Frederick bumped royal quarters with Mary for the first time You couldn’t get better PR.

But it was The Ivy that would prove to be Hemmes’ biggest venture – and perhaps his riskiest. Launched in 2008, the $180-million development on Sydney’s George Street comprises a maze of entertaining spaces, including nine restaurants, 18 bars, a ball room, a swimming pool that transforms into a night club, two penthouse apartments and retail spaces. Hemmes once describes it as “revolutionary, a holistic experience”. He planned it to be the largest bar precinct proposed in Sydney’s history, but the controversy of it (it can cater to 3000) meant that the project took years to gain approval with the Council. He finally opened last year to a storm of publicity – and tried to ignore the sliding economy. But such hurdles don’t seem to phase this man. He adopts the Field of Dreams mantra: if you build it, they will come.

“I didn’t build Ivy to make lots of money and retire; I built Ivy because I wanted to create something phenomenal,” he told website propertyoz.com.au in an interview late last year. “And then when I’m 50 or 60 I can look back on it and say, ‘man, look what I did, wow that’s cool.’” However, he concedes that the money does help. “The money follows. Thank God it does, otherwise I wouldn’t be able to do it.”

Several years ago, he became more serious about business and began hiring older, highly experienced managers instead of ambitious young things. “I got the best chief financial officer, the best manager of operations,” he explained. “People who could teach me.”

Despite the change in attitude, he’s still fond of a good time. “I never want to get to the end of a day and say, ‘God that was a waste of a day.” As for success, he says it’s a state of mind rather than a bank balance. “If you’re proud of something, that’s success.”

For a man who once said that he wasn’t an intellectual and that his business acumen was simply being “streetwise,”  Hemmes isn’t doing too badly. Indeed, he is fast showing that you don’t need a MBA to run an empire. You just need a few friends. And perhaps a few drinks to go with them.

 

The Rising Media Mogul: Rove McManus

This year marks the 10th year of Rove McManus’s chat show Rove. It’s a significant milestone for McManus, who started out as a stand-up comedian telling jokes on stage to an unappreciative audience. Now, he makes more than $150,000 a week, or $3 million a year, according to BRW, and oversees a thriving media empire and TV production company that just keeps getting bigger by the week. His company, Roving Enterprises, produces Rove, Before The Game, Are You Smarter Than A 5th Grader? and the ARIA Awards. He’s also behind Hamish Blake and Andy Lee’s Real Stories.  He has withstood both the test of time and the test of critics (his
US prime time TV debut late last year flopped and then, to add salt to the wound, he was voted Australia’s most annoying celebrity). Yet despite the failures he continues to crack jokes and win fans as if he were a 21-year-old trying his luck at the Edinburgh Comedy Festival.

The impetus for his media empire – and possibly the motivation that sustains him – is a desire to be in control of his life – and what goes to air.

“It wasn’t money, it wasn’t fame [that I wanted].” he told The Age of his determination to be in charge, “I wanted to have a say in the show. This was really important to me. This was my first step in getting my career started and I just wanted to make sure it didn’t fall over before it had a chance to really hit its stride.”

While Rove still faces the audiences as host of Rove, he’s spending just as much time on the other side of the management desk now, nurturing a steadily growing production outfit. His passion is to discover talent – just as he was discovered all those years ago – and he encourages anyone who wants to give it a go to do so.

“I want to be the one who, when someone is sitting across from me telling me what they’d like to do, isn’t laughing in their face,” he told The Age. “[Instead] I’m going: ‘Sounds great, let’s do it’.”

Surprisingly, he says he has no business acumen. Most of his decisions, he says, are based on instinct.

Perhaps so, but he also has a definite knack for picking the right talent, the right show, and the right lines at the right time. And using the whole lot to make the right amount of money.

 

The Beauty Queen: Jo Horgan

Out of all the indicators for assessing the state of the economy, perhaps the most unusual is the Leading Lipstick Indicator. Coined by Leonard Lauder, the chairman of Estee Lauder, it refers to the curious relation between the economy, consumer confidence and lipsticks. When times were tough, claimed Lauder, lipstick sales went up. Since he offered this curious observation, economists and trend watchers have found it to be true. (In the months following the September 11 terrorist attacks, for example, lipstick sales doubled.)

Few people know about the relationship between lipsticks and confidence in Australia more than Jo Horgan, the founder of Mecca Cosmetica stores. The former marketing executive with L’Oréal followed cosmetics, trends and even fluctuations for years as part of her job. Realising that beautiful cosmetics gave women confidence – and there would always be a demand for quality products, boom-time or not – the glamorous entrepreneur decided to step out from behind of the safety of L’Oreal and create her own company. Mecca Cosmetica began with a concept store in 1997 and rapidly grew into an empire of more than 26 Australian outlets. Horgan’s idea was to showcase the world’s most innovative boutique beauty products, including famous niche brands Kiehl’s, Nars, Stila and Philosophy and Shu Uemura, but to do them in a sophisticated candy-store-for-adult way. The idea has not only worked, it has taken the retail world by storm. Designed like intimate department stores (only ones devoted solely to glittery, gorgeous things), each has fast become a cult destination for beauty addicts. In short, Horgan’s enthralling Meccas have become ‘mini meccas’, and Horgan herself fast became one of the business world’s ‘names to watch’. Mecca was even named by WWD magazine as one of the beauty industry’s top five international retailers, alongside Henri Bendel, London’s Space NK and Paris’s Colette.

But ask Horgan why she thinks Mecca Cosmetic has been so successful and she’s endearingly humble.

“We’ve tried to make beauty easy,” she suggests. “We’ve tried very hard to ‘demystify’ products and take away the jargon.”

It’s also due to the cosmetics, she says.

“Customers love the concept of ‘boutique-ing’ in cosmetics. People are craving individuality. They don’t want to look the same as everyone else. They want a unique signature.”

It’s a trend that she’s followed for many years, and one that’s now being seen in fashion, too. But Jo Horgan is always one step ahead of the cosmetic crowd. Having been one of the first to introduce ‘cosmeceuticals’ to Australia, she’s always setting her sights on stocking the hottest or most innovative new products. “One of Mecca’s goals is to be the ‘portal’ to everything that’s going on internationally, both in terms of products and trends,” she says.

 

The Body Corp: Elle McPherson

he may turn 45 this year but there doesn’t seem to be any signs of age in The Body. If anything, the idea of racing toward 50 appears to be galvanising Elle Macpherson into a second career. Or perhaps it’s that she has more time on her hands now that she’s separated from her former partner, financier Arpad ‘Arki’ Busson. (Maybe she just wants to follow the old adage ‘living well is the best revenge’.) Whatever the reason, Elle is embarking on a whole new business chapter: Elle Mark 2.

In the last year she has agreed to be the face of the new Australian success story Invisible Zinc (and, despite shying away from modelling in her later years, has stripped off for this product to show she’s still got it), she’s launched her own skincare range, The Body, into the Australian market (originally launched in Britain in 2005) and she’s signed a three-year global ambassador deal
with Revlon. Not bad for a 44-year-old model. As well,
her lingerie range, Elle Macpherson Intimates, continues to rake in millions, partly from being stocked in US stores such as Saks Fifth Avenue and Nordstrom. Nothing can stop The Body, it seems. Not even time.

According to BRW, Macpherson is estimated to be worth $70 million but Forbes puts her wealth at closer to $130 million. Whatever the figure, there’s no doubt she’s made a lot of money. In fact, she is perhaps as famous for her shrewd business sense and entrepreneurial vision as she is for her impressive measurements. You could say she has switched her focus from one figure to another. The Body has become The Body Corporate.

But according to Macpherson, it hasn’t all been dollar signs.

“When I first started working with Bendon I was making about $50,000 a year,” she told The Age.

But her pay slips soon went up. Macpherson negotiated a smart deal with Bendon. Instead of the company paying her to be the face of the lingerie brand, she told them to put together a special collection. She would then allow them to use her name and likeness for a period of time in exchange for a royalty fee. It was a business trick she had learned from her earlier Tab Cola commercial when she’d received residuals. “That’s when I understood the power of the commercial side of the modelling industry,” she told the BBC’s Money Programme.

Elle Macpherson Intimates now generates $87 million a year.

She’s also shown business acumen in other areas. Early in her career she fired her modelling agency, Ford Models, and set up Elle Macpherson Inc. in order to produce her own work, including annual calendars and work-out videos featuring herself. (The company still serves as her financial base.) While pregnant, she initiated a maternity bra line for Bendon. She has also recently been appointed to the board of surf-wear company Hot Tuna, a role that’s paid in shares and options. Hot Tuna’s chairman, Ranjit Murugason says it’s a way of using
her “skills as a business woman, as a brand manager who’s built an amazing fashion brand”. For Elle it’s a way of securing her financial future even more. “I end up with a globally successful brand that I own a big chunk of and that is not just licensed out to other companies,” she told the BBC’s Money Programme.

It’s Macpherson’s Body range of skin care products, however, that will really show her strengths (or weaknesses). The first business on her own – although it’s produced and developed in partnership with Meller Design Solutions of Britain – it has been priced at a low to medium price point and has already been selling well in Britain’s Boots stores.

Such has been her success that the BBC series The Money Programme chose her for the subject of a documentary, which followed the entrepreneur through her day-to-day business diary, showing how she’s making the transition from model to businesswoman. Macpherson was in full support of the doco, even funding some of it when the BBC couldn’t afford to send a camera with her to Dubai.

There’s no doubt about it. Elle Macpherson is a shrewd businesswoman. As Melanie Griffith’s character Tess said in the film Working Girl, “I have a head for business and a bod for sin. Is there anything wrong with that?”

Well no, actually there’s not.

The very model of a business minded model: Miranda Kerr

ike Elle Macpherson before her, Miranda Kerr has made the transition from modelling to businesswoman with a few shrewd moves. One of a handful of models who have embraced commercial opportunities to leverage their career, Kerr choose to do less catwalking and more promotions, becoming the ‘face of’ or main model for companies such as Portmans. Then she signed international contracts with Levis, Seafolly and Maybelline, among others, followed by a lucrative deal with David Jones rumoured to be worth $1 million. She also became one of the ‘Angels’ for Victoria’s Secret (US lingerie company renowned for its shows), reportedly earning $1 million for that deal as well. Her total earnings in 2008 were in the vicinity of $3.6 million, according to BRW. Last year, Kerr bought an apartment in Manhattan’s Chelsea district, worth $1 million, and is looking for more property in Australia. “I’m smart about my work and save my money because I know modelling is a short career and won’t be there forever,” she’s said of her strategy.