The world we experience today is how it is because of the imaginative and inventive spirit of entrepreneurs. Entrepreneurs inspire millions of people around the world to seize hold of their chances and begin making their way in life. We have seen famous entrepreneurs shoot to the top through determination and bold business undertakings. However, entrepreneurship is certainly not for all, nor is it a delicate matter.
Making a fortune does not depend only on luck but more on an individual willing to risk everything and push forward regardless of what follows. It takes a specific mindset as well as a certain level of interpersonal skills to turn your talents into billions of dollars. So how did the world’s most famous entrepreneurs from Australia and around the world earn their wealth? Let us see their success strategies along with their entrepreneurial success stories.
Famous Australian Entrepreneurs
The following are the well-known entrepreneurs and the industries in which they achieved success.
Mike Cannon-Brookes, Scott Farquhar—Atlassian
Mike Cannon-Brookes and Scott Farquhar are the most known technology entrepreneurs to many Australians. Founded on a shoestring budget back in the year 2002, the company develops software to help different teams of various sectors in their project management, product development, and collaborative work. Today, Atlassian is one of the giants of the world’s software fraternity, helping millions of users find effective use for its flagship products, Jira and Confluence.
Carol Schwartz—Chair of the Trawalla Foundation and the Women’s Leadership Institute Australia
Carol had initiated programs like the Pathways to Politics Program for Women, The Panel Pledge and the Women For Media Database from her position as Chair of Trawalla Foundation and Women’s Leadership Institute Australia. She is an advocate for women in leadership across business, politics, and media, serving as Founding Chair of Our Community, serving on the Harvard Kennedy School’s Women’s Leadership Board, and on the Global Institute for Women’s Leadership Advisory Board at Kings College.
Melanie Perkins—Canva
Melanie Perkins is a popular entrepreneur from Australia who is best known for the graphic design platform Canva, which is convenient to use. Perkins saw a market void for non-designers who wanted to easily create professional-quality designs, so she and her team founded Canva in 2012. Since then, the platform has grown dramatically, with over 60 million users and earning Perkins a spot among Australia’s Most Successful Female Entrepreneurs.
According to Forbes, her estimated worth in January 2022 is A$9.21 billion, making her Australia’s second wealthiest woman after Gina Rinehart. Canva, which has raised billions of dollars in capital and is now valued at more than $40 billion, is one of the most successful technology companies in Australia.
Anthony Zaccaria, Alex Zaccaria and Nicholas Humphreys—Linktree
Linktree is a platform that connects your different social media profiles, utilized by more than 45 million users, including the largest creators and brands. After scaling back some of its staff last year, the company has made two acquisitions, those being Bento and Koji. It has extended into social commerce to let users set up shops that one could link to from their bio pages.
Lucy Liu—Airwallex
Another Australian name on the list of entrepreneurs is Lucy Liu. She co-founded Airwallex back in 2015, a fintech company that makes cross-border payments much easier for businesses. Today, Airwallex is a unicorn with a valuation of over $2.6 billion and does everything to make businesses global and free from financial constraints.
Ruslan Kogan—Kogan.com
Ruslan Kogan is the founder and CEO of Kogan.com, a leading consumer brand known for price leadership through digital efficiency. He founded it at the age of 23, in his parents’ garage in Melbourne, Australia. He is a serial entrepreneur with an estimated net worth of $575 million as of 2020.
At the age of ten, he started his first business by collecting lost golf balls and cleaning them before selling them to golfers on weekends. He launched many businesses in his teens before attending Monash University, where he worked in various areas of Bosch and General Electric (GE Money) while also working as a consultant at Accenture.
Xavier Orr and Chris Shaw—Advanced Navigation
Advanced Navigation was founded in 2012 by Chris Shaw and Xavier Orr to commercialize a revolutionary AI approach to navigation. Advanced Navigation manufactures the fully autonomous Hydrus drone and the LUNA sensor for NASA’s Moon to Mars Initiative. It recently opened a robotics manufacturing facility and secured $108 million in Series B funding, with ongoing research grants from the Department of Defence for photonic chip manufacturing.
Zoe Condliffe—She’s A Crowd
Zoe Condliffe is the founder of She’s A Crowd, a movement using crowdsourcing and data analytics to challenge gender-based violence. She’s A Crowd uses survivors’ stories to inspire social change and raise awareness.
Condliffe’s approach to activism and technology earned him a spot on Australia’s list of famous entrepreneurs, demonstrating how a tech-based platform can have a profound impact on social justice movements.
Mark Woodland—Kismet
Mark Woodland is the entrepreneur of Kismet, a software platform that has begun revolutionising care services to the elderly and disabled in Australia. After making over $100 million selling his initial venture, Xplor, Woodland dedicated himself fully to Kismet.
The portal serves thousands of NDIS members with digital check-ins and appointment booking. His entrepreneurial success reflects patience and a desire for innovation.
Tom Brumskill and Pasha Rayan—Forage
Tom Brumskill and Pasha Rayan established Forage—a democratised workplace with virtual work experience—which kick-started an entrepreneurial venture in 2017. Today, the company partners with over 400 universities and 150 companies to offer students from disadvantaged backgrounds to get industry-specific work without geographical or financial barriers.
Their innovation thrust them into international fame, demonstrating that success as entrepreneurs can indeed rise from a cause, working to redress the imbalance.
Kayla Itsines—SweatApp
Sweat is a fitness app for women that features various workouts that can be done at home or in the gym while giving its users a supportive global community. Kayla Itsines, one of the top 10 most famous Australian entrepreneurs, an already energetic girl who finished her studies at the Australian Institute of Fitness at age 18, started her career as a trainer and drove popularity by sharing client transformations on Instagram.
This eventually got her selling workout guides as e-books, and later, with money from brand deals and ad revenue, she created SweatApp. The app now averages 1 million active users per month. Itsines sold the company in 2021 for $400 million but continues to manage her personal brand through books and social media.
Naomi Milgrom—CEO of Sussan Corporation
Naomi Milgrom is a transformative businesswoman and philanthropist who managed to develop Sussan Corporation into one of Australia’s leading retail companies, consisting of more than 400 stores with 1,200 employees. Innovation and creativity have been the reasons for the company’s growth.
Dean Mintz—Cettire
Cettire, an online luxury retail marketplace founded by Dean Mintz in 2017, has faced scrutiny over customs duties but defends its practices amid a recent decline in share price from record highs, maintaining a valuation significantly above its 2020 IPO. The company reported a 65% year-on-year sales increase in the December half, with repeat customers accounting for half of its gross revenue.
Paul Stovell—Octopus Deploy
Octopus Deploy, founded by husband-and-wife team Paul and Sonia Stovell, is one of the largest privately held companies in the DevOps space. The company was headquartered in Brisbane until it received its first capital investment of $172.5 million from Insight Partners in 2021, after nearly a decade of organic growth. Since then, the workforce has tripled to 270, and two software companies, Dist and Codefresh, have been acquired.
Lessons from Successful Australian Entrepreneurs
These successful entrepreneurs from Australia show how hard work, passion, and dedication influence success, making them important role models for young future business leaders.
They highlight the value of innovation, strategic thinking, and community service; they prove that everything is possible with effort and determination.
Listening to their stories provides us with additional insights and strategies for managing our own route to success.
In Summary
Being an entrepreneur is full of ups and downs and, at times, feels like running uphill all the time. Fortunately, we have the finest entrepreneurship legends in the world to look up to and take advice from. Australia has some of the most wide-ranging business leaders who are creating ripples both at home and overseas. These famous entrepreneurs are role models for the next wave of Australian young entrepreneurs and will undoubtedly continue influencing industries in years to come. To learn more about one such inspirational figure, check out Mark Aiston’s story.
