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/au
http://twitter.com/tomhoward
http://twitter.com/fennb
http://twitter.com/adioso

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.

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.

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.

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.

As CEO of tech startup Emue Technologies and Co-Founder of NinetyDays, Brendan is at the forefront of commercialising emerging technologies. Emue specialises in ground-breaking authentication technologies while NinetyDays provides entrepreneurial leadership and resources to emerging business ventures.

Brendan has built a number of IT and consumer businesses from the ground up. He has extensive international experience having established businesses in the USA, Canada, Japan, Korea, Hong Kong, UK, Germany, France and New Zealand.

Brendan was a founding member of the executive team one of Australia’s most successful Internet companies, Hitwise, with responsibility for establishing the company’s global footprint. Hitwise was purchased by Experian in April 2007 for US$240M.

Other businesses Brendan has founded include Revolution Brands, an apparel and footwear company that specialises in wholesale and retail distribution of licensed products, and Oxia, a unique recreational oxygen product that is distributed in luxury hotels in North America, Europe and Asia.

Brendan established NinetyDays in 2005 as a vehicle for himself and his Entrepreneurial peers to indulge in their passion of building businesses in high growth and emerging sectors.

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.

Read Nick Foster’s review of this event.

In 1983, Philip co-founded HiSoft, a software/hardware solutions business, which quickly became one of Australia’s fastest growing companies, employing 400 people in five countries. Within five years HiSoft grew to become Australia’s largest privately owned computer company with a turnover in excess of $300M.

In 1995, Philip founded CTS Travel and Events and four years later the company merged with Internet Travel Group, which then listed with a turnover in excess of $450M million. The Internet Travel Group was then acquired by Flight Centre.

More recently, Philip established Deasil Management Group, a company that seeks and invests in start-ups, existing private companies and under-performed/under-valued ASX-listed public companies in need of capital and/or management expertise. This company has already taken positions in a number of fast growing public companies and has a controlling interest in operational businesses including; Australian Leasing Group, Candidates Alive, Deasil Property Group, The Drilling Group, Goal Management Group, LaunchTwo People, MediaTag, Rosch Group, Something A Bit Graphic, and VitaminMe.

Among Philip’s many passions are his philanthropic activities. He has sat on numerous Boards, including The Crisis Centre and International Diabetes Institute. He currently sits on the Board of the Melbourne Jazz Festival, one of Melbourne’s major events, along with FBI Travel, a leading corporate and leisure travel and events group.

With his creative flair, management style and success, Philip also mentors some of Australia’s leading CEOs and elite sports people.

Domenic Carosa is the founder and CEO of digital media Investment company Dominet Digital Corporation Pty Ltd. Prior to this he co-founded destra Corporation in 1993, when he was in his late teens and then listed it on the Australian Stock Exchange in May 2000. At the time, Domenic was the youngest CEO of a public-listed company in Australia.

Under his direction, destra has branched out from its core web hosting and communications business to become one of Australia’s leading independent media and entertainment companies. The company had annualised revenues over $100m in 2008.

Domenic is committed to innovation, with other achievements including building Australia’s largest independent digital music website (MP3.com.au) and launching Australia’s first legal and commercial digital download service (destraMusic).

Domenic is currently Chairman of the Internet Industry Association and Chairman of www.MailingLists.com.au

Ryan Trainor started his first company, a retail security firm in 1997 at the age of 23. After three years he was servicing most major retail outlets in Australia, contracting more than 500 staff. He sold to a large multinational in 2000. Since then, Ryan has founded and grown several businesses including a National Training business which was sold to a publicly listed company in late 2003.

Ryan is now again in education and founded Franklyn Scholar Learning in March 2008, a workplace training company that provides government funded training. Ryan now employs more than 110 staff across all capital cities and will train more than 5000 people this year for clients such as David Jones, Boost, One Steel and Toyota..

Ryan’s entrepreneurial reputation has seen him recognised in 2000 and 2001 as a finalist in the National Australia Day Young Achiever of the Year Awards and is the past President for the Entrepreneurs Organisation (EO) in Melbourne Australia.

http://www.ninetydays.com.au/

It all began with the bustling pizzeria he opened at 23. Since then Paul Mathis has been behind a long list of popular Melbourne restaurants including Transport, Taxi, Transit, Upper House and Lower House, Chocolate Buddha, Soulmama, Blue Train Cafe and Automatic. After relinquishing Transport Hotel and other Federation Square properties (for a reported $21 million) Paul vowed to put ecological sustainability at the core of his restaurants and in 2007 he opened 100 Mile Cafe, a concept restaurant in the CBD sourcing 95% of its menu from within a hundred-mile (160 km) radius. About 18 months ago Paul set up a firm that designs eco-buildings, and they are currently working on a compound-style home, supermarket and a commercial building.

The future will see Paul developing the oldest pub in Victoria; the Duke of Wellington on the corner of Russell and Flinders Street in the Melbourne CBD. The new venue will feature a pub, wine bar and a restaurant under the banner; The Dow.

Aaron Fyke from Starfish Ventures spoke about the role that Venture Capitalists play in the investment cycle, as well as the other methods that entrepreneurs can use to seek capital.

Aaron also spoke about some of the deals that Starfish have done and how they work with the startup to help them succeed. For those of you who missed the night there will be soon be an interview with Aaron on Hatchthat.

Simon Crowe spoke to a packed crowd of 110 entrepreneurs at FAD Gallery about his experiences. He has a background in corporate life but left to take on his own ventures. He places a huge emphasis on branding and that is clear if you have ever been to one of the stores.

The Grill’d company owns 50% of their stores right now and going forward they will own around a third – “I want it to be scaled, but not scaled to the expense of its soul.”

Cameron Brown spoke at Penny Blue on sustainable business and it was a real insight into how businesses can not only make a difference, but make big profits from going green.

We might think about changing out lightbulbs but potentially changing your business model is something that most of us haven’t considered at all.

Cameron Brown is the Chair of the Centre for Sustainability Leadership.

Our second event went really well, at Madame Brussels on Bourke St. When we migrated out to the back room to hear James Tutton speak the few people left out the front asked “Where did all the people go?” The medieval-style room justsqueezed the 68 of us in there, and I think everyone got a lot out of what James had to say about his experiences.

As a philosophy graduate, James Tutton was taking time off in New York after university and looking for commercial ideas to import to Australia when he went to watch an open-air movie in a Manhattan park. Inspired, he and his business partner Paul Chiodo launched Moonlight Cinema in Melbourne’s Royal Botanic Gardens in 1996.

The following year they expanded to Sydney, Adelaide and Brisbane. “The Moonlight audience is 18-35, tertiary-educated, a sophisticated urban audience,” says Tutton. Moonlight Cinema eventually sold to ASX-listed group Becker Entertainment in 2004 in a deal said to be worth about $8.3 million.

More recently James is turning his hand to property development with boutique property developer Neometro, who are best-known for the Luxe building on Inkerman Street in St Kilda, which won the Royal Australian Institute of Architects national award for commercial architecture in 2000.

“My focus in business has always been about working with brands.”

http://www.moonlight.com.au/

The very first Hive event for 2008 took place on the 5th February. Awesome way to kick off ’08! The Order of Melbourne, located at 401 Swanston Street, was kind enough to put us up for the night. Cracking location! Nestled in the heart of the CBD we could not have picked a better scene. The Rooftop Terrace was absolutely perfect! Nice work getting up all those stairs folks. And a massive thank-you goes out to all the staff there!

Hats off to all of you who made the effort to join us! And those of you missed out, make sure you’re there in March. Because it was well worth the effort! James Masini the exceptionally talented entrepreneur behind Hippo Jobs was our first special guest of 2008. And he set the standard extremely high. James spoke about the challenges he has faced as one of Melbourne most successful, up and coming entrepreneurs, the highs and lows of running his own business and being the face of Hippo Jobs.

http://www.hippo.com.au.