Maxine Horne: Changing the Way Australian’s Purchase Mobile Phones

Before Vita Group CEO Maxine Horne came into the picture, Australians relied on their mobile carriers to get access to the latest in mobile phones. This practice can be quite expensive and suffocating for consumers who would have to sign a contract with the carrier in order to get the best deal. Coming from the UK, Horne decided that she would change that by selling mobile phones in shopping malls. In 1995, she founded Fone Zone, a company which later became one of the brands under the umbrella of the Vita Group, another company she founded when she branched out into computing and electronics as well.

Horne took the risk when she penetrated the mobile communications market with Fone Zone. They went through rough times during the global financial crisis, but the company was able to recover and is now stronger than ever before. Under Horne’s supervision, Fone Zone is now the official distributor for Telstra in Australia and is now operating 85 out of 220 Telstra retail stores.

Dean Ramler: Taking the Furniture Business to the Next Level

When it comes to online furniture sales in Australia, the name Milan Direct is often the first company that comes to mind. Founded by its CEO Dean Ramler along with his friend Ruslan Kogan, Milan Direct has slowly, but surely, become a leader in Australia’s lucrative furniture industry.

Born into the furniture business, Ramler learned the ropes early on in life. As a teenager, he was able to work for the family business and learned everything he needed to know about it from manufacturing the furniture and selling them to customers. This experience helped him a great deal when he opened Milan Direct in 2006. During that time, buying and selling furniture online was relatively new and was considered a crazy idea by many. Luckily, Ramler had a good grasp of how technology works and the path it was taking the world of business through. Along with his business partner, Ramler worked extra hard to get the company’s name out in the market, and soon enough all that hard work paid off. Today, Milan Direct is the leading online furniture designer and retailer in Australia. They’ve also opened a site for the United Kingdom which is also doing quite well.

The secret to Ramler’s success is his passion for the industry and his hands-on work ethic. The furniture the company designs and sells are manufactured in several countries in Asia. He makes it a point to visit the factories often within the year to make sure that everything from the product to the packaging is created according to his standards which he attempts to improve whenever possible. Ramler also hires specialists to fill in key roles in the company to ensure a high level of passion and commitment to the job, making their processes run as smoothly as it can possibly run.

Mitchell Harper Proves Hard Work Pays Off

Mitchell Harper and Eddie Machaalani, co-founders of co-chief executive officers of Interspire, met via an Internet chat room – certainly, a sign of things to come in their joint endeavours to conquer the online retail technology sector. Harper co-wrote codes for the website and for its first software project, an application that made webpage creation faster and easier, for 18 hours a day.

The software was sold at $149, which the partners sold at 20 copies per day, on average. Harper was a millionaire within a few years but instead of resting on his laurels, he continued to develop follow-up products.

Bigcommerce was the product of such tenacity, said software of which has now become Interspire’s flagship product. Harper and his team designed the software as an ecommerce platform now used by over 10,000 online stores.

Today, Harper co-manages Interspire as a privately-owned company involved in the development of content management, knowledge management, and email marketing solutions. Its applications are used by both large Fortune 500 corporations and small digital businesses, thus, reinforcing that hard work pays off especially when you work 18 hours a day.

Jodie Fox Knows What She Wants and Knows What Her Customers Want, Too

Jodie Fox may only be in her early 30s but her curriculum vitae already has three major changes in career, two online retail stores for customized products, and one university degree. She was also a capable banking and finance lawyer as well as an advertising executive before launching her businesses – and killing the market niche by the looks of it.

Clearly, Fox is equally at home at both the corporate and business worlds but the latter benefited more from her clever mind. With such an intelligent head, she knows what she wants and what her customers want – customized shoes and spectacles.

Fox is the co-founder of Shoes of Prey, which she launched in 2009 alongside Michael Fox and Mike Knapp as partners. The two men previously worked at Google and the three met during her law school years.

Shoes of Prey, an online website, provides customers with the opportunity to design their own customized shoes from the shape, style and height of the shoes to their fabric, color and embellishments. Fox was inspired by her own experiences in ordering customized shoes for herself when she was younger.

Today, Fox and her employees work from an expansive headquarters in Surry Hills with the company earning several millions in revenues annually. The company employs approximately 50 people although there are talks of expansion.

Why stop with customized shoes when customized spectacles are also in demand? Fox then established Sneaking Duck, a company that allows customers to customize their spectacle frames. As with Shoes of Prey, orders are shipped directly to customers from around the world.

Fox does not stop with building thriving businesses. She also recognizes that happy employees make for happy customers and, thus, a happy business. She then strives to develop a positive working environment, a goal that she and her partners are succeeding at judging by the cheerful staff.

Comer Cottrell Started His Business Empire With $600

Comer Cottrell is a business leader whose empire started with a dream, a determination to succeed, and $600 in initial capital. In 1968, Cottrell started his black hair care business with a friend before he eventually founded Pro-Line Corporation in 1970, the company that will make him a multi-millionaire and with its first product being strawberry-scented oil sheen for Afro hairstyles.

In 3 years, he earned his first million dollars in revenues but he was not yet done. In 1979, he introduced Pro-Line’s Curly Kit, which increased sales to $10 million in just 6 months – and the rest is history in the hair care industry where Curly Kit is a buzzword and staple among men and women with curly hair even after decades in the market.

With his business savvy, he was soon the part-owner of the Texas Rangers, which saw his $500,000 investment reap $3 million in profits. He is also the founder of the FCC Investment Corporation as well as one of the well-respected leaders in the industry before his death in October 2014.

Raymond Weil Stuck to Tradition, Took a Big Risk, and Enjoyed the Rewards

Luxury watches are a sign of good taste, sophistication and elegance among men – and Raymond Weil and his luxury watches are the forefront of the industry. His Raymond Weil Geneve watches are well-known among watch connoisseurs for their excellent quality of craftsmanship, elegant designs, and accurate timekeeping, thus, making the brand one of the leaders among Swiss luxury watchmakers.

But Weil started his company at a time when it seemed like it was foolish to do so. In 1976, after he worked for 27 years at Camy Watch SA in a variety of roles including its chief executive officer, he decided to establish his own watch company. This was at the height of the so-called Quartz crisis when inexpensive electronic watches were eating into the watch market and when many Swiss manufacturers adopted new technologies instead of the traditional mechanical movement.

Weil persevered despite the challenges that came his way. Under his leadership, Raymond Weil Geneve established an international network of distributors worldwide including the Middle East and China with sales averaging 2,000 watches annually with the affordable yet still luxurious watches priced at £1,000 and up.

While many Swiss manufacturers decided to adopt newer technologies to adapt to the new market trend, Weil chose to stick to traditions and, thus, took a huge business risk. His company continued to manufacture the luxury watches according to the traditional methods although he was also open to the newer technologies. His decision to stick to the traditions of Swiss watchmaking while also adapting newer technologies made his company one of the most successful in the industry today.

His company is also one of the few that have resisted acquisitions and mergers into larger groups. Today, Raymond Weil Geneve is an independent family business owned and operated by three generations of the family, with his son-in-law, Oliver Bernheim, now at the helm.

Not bad, indeed, for a business that started in the middle of a crisis and, thus, a match made in watch heaven especially for watch connoisseurs who want affordability and sophistication in one package.

Jimmy Iovine Makes Music Production His Career

Mention the name Jimmy Iovine and it will immediately be recognized especially in the music industry for good reasons. He is, after all, one of the most well-known music producers in the world as co-founder of Interscope Records as well as chairman of Interscope Geffen A&M. He is also a successful entrepreneur as co-founder of Beats Electronics, which was purchased for $3 billion by Apple Inc in May 2014.

His career in the music industry started with his job as a utility man in a recording studio as a teenager. By 1970s, he was already working as a studio professional and his streak has yet to end and his legacy is cemented in stone, so to speak, thanks to his production work on over 250 albums to date. He has worked with many of the big stars in the industry, such as John Lennon, Bruce Springsteen, and Stevie Nicks, among others.

He is also a well-respected film producer with his most notable film being “8 Mile”, the Academy Award-winning Eminem movie. He is also the executive producer for “More Than a Game” and “Get Rich or Die Tryin’”.

Sheryl Sandberg Makes Technology Her Life’s Work

Few women, even men, can say that technology is their life’s work but Sheryl Kara Sandberg can say it for herself. Her impressive resume says it all – technology executive as well as author and activist.

Born 28 August 1969, Sandberg was an academic achiever, class president, and member of the National Honor Society during her high school years. In 1991, she graduated summa cum laude with a B.A. Economics degree from Harvard College and recognized with the John H. Williams Prize. She worked with Larry Summers, her mentor and thesis adviser, as his research assistant for a year at the World Bank.

In 1995, she earned her MBA at the Harvard Business School where she once again gained the highest distinction. Her advanced education certainly serves her well in her many capacities as technology executive in global companies like Facebook and Google.

Sandberg was worked as the chief of staff for the United States Secretary of Treasury. She then transitioned as Vice President of Global Online Sales and Operations for the global giant, Google, where she was instrumental in the launching of its philanthropic arm (Google.org).

She has another distinction to be proud of. In June 2012, she was elected into Facebook’s board of directors, thus, becoming the first woman to do so. Since September 2014, she was appointed as the social media giant’s chief operating officer (COO), thus, continuing her streak of influence in the technology industry.

But Sandberg is not just another uber-successful technology executive either. She is also an author and an activist with her most notable work being as co-author of “Lean In: Women, Work, and the Will to Lead”, which was co-written with Nell Scovell. Her book inspired the so-called Lean In movement that assists women in the achievement of their professional and personal goals.

For her work, Sandberg has been recognized by various bodies, such as one of the 100 Most Influential People in the World by Time magazine; one of the 50 Most Powerful Women in Business by Fortune Magazine; and one of the 25 Most Influential People on the Web by BusinessWeek.

Joshua Dziabiak Zips Through Businesses And Makes A Killing

Many serial tech entrepreneurs hit the big-time leagues even before getting their driver’s licenses – and Joshua Dziabiak is one such entrepreneur. He was a millionaire before his 18th birthday, thanks to his entrepreneurial ventures in web design and development. He may well revolutionize the automobile insurance industry via The Zebra, his fourth company that he co-founded with

His first company, Media Catch, was the result of his passion for website design and development when he was just 14 years old. He first designed his personal website and then the websites for small local businesses before venturing into website hosting. He soon had 14 full-time employees before Media Catch was purchased by a Canadian executive for an undisclosed amount although he became a self-made teenage millionaire.

While his investment in a record company did not pan out, he had the makings for ShowClix that increased his net worth as its chief executive officer. But he wanted the challenges of creating a successful company, thus, his decision to step down from ShowClix and join The Zebra as its chief operating officer.