Sal Malatesta opened his first cafe as a law student and at the age of 36, Salvatore has bought and sold over 65 cafes, his most recent new venture being the soon to be opened, Outpost in Yarra Lane, South Yarra.

A specialist retail cafe powered by St Ali, Outpost is where customers can select their coffee profile of choice – Outpost will be a distillation of the ‘third wave’ concept, but located in the heart of South Yarra. Interior designers, Hecker Phelan & Guthrie (HP&G) collaboratively worked with Salvatore to capture the essence of St Ali’s reclaimed “Brooklyn dumpster chic theme” and translate it into a retail bean store with a South Yarra context. Outpost is scheduled to open mid September 2009.

Internationally, the St Ali concept of coffee labs and fresh single estate coffee roasting outlets will launch in the United Arab Emirates and Singapore through an alliance with much loved Australian gourmet food brand, ‘Jones the Grocer’.

A self described ‘third wave’ coffee guy, Salvatore believes: “Coffee should not be viewed as a commodity susceptible to the forces of the market but as an artisan high end product. Instead of buying low and selling high, we must buy higher and sell higher. We must also from start to finish, care from growers to cup which means building direct trade relationships with growers, hosting growers in Australia so that they can meet their end users, seasonality of crop, storage techniques, transport and so on. The list is endless.”

In 1997 David established Sculpture by the Sea with the idea of creating a free to the public event visual arts event for Sydney held annually along the Bondi to Tamarama coastal walk. The first show was put up, on and pulled down in just one-day and was run by volunteers working out of David’s lounge room with no budget – yet with a $400 marketing budget 25,000 people visited. This led to the Artistic Director of the 1998 Olympic Arts Festival, Andrea Stretton, to commission David to produce 5 Sculpture by the Sea exhibitions around Australia with Darwin (NT), Noosa (Qld), Albany (WA), Tasman Peninsula (Tas) joining the Bondi show. But the Olympic money was a one off and the early years were very hard as costs mounted with the need for full time staff and the show growing in length, size and complexity each year as the artists got more and more adventurous.

Managing (just!) the financial tight rope Sculpture by the Sea, Bondi quickly became the largest and most popular sculpture exhibition in the world. Staged annually over three weeks in late October/early November the Bondi show attracts an estimated 500,000 visitors each year to view over 100 sculptures along the 2km Bondi coastal walk (www.sculpturebythesea.com).

In 2003 Sculpture by the Sea Incorporated was established as a not for profit incorporated association listed on the National Cultural Register with tax deductible gift recipient status. This move was designed to provide a legal and financial entity suitable for the long term management of the Australian Sculpture by the Sea exhibitions.

In 2005 Sculpture by the Sea, Cottesloe was established as an annual exhibition on the Indian Ocean at Perth’s most popular beach. Staged over three weeks in March the exhibition attracts over 140,000 people and is now one of Perth’s major annual events.

The first international edition of Sculpture by the Sea was held in June 2009 in the City of Aarhus in Denmark. The Aarhus exhibition featured 60 sculptures by artists from across the world including 26 from Australia making it the largest international exhibition of Australian sculpture to date – and the Danes loved it with an estimated 600,000 visitors over 4 weeks.

This year in Sydney, Sculpture By The Sea commences on 29 October through until 15 November with over 100 artists being represented.

• 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

Originally named Urban Boomerang, the business started in a garage as a hobby in Tasmania selling a single product from a card table at Salamanca market. The business re-branded as haul in 2004 and now has retail outlets in two states, an online store with 5000 unique products and wholesales to design stores locally and afar.

In 2007 haul began making products for companies from their used advertising campaign vinyls. Corporate gifts ‘embedded with their brand’. Clients include SEEK, BP, Jetstar, AGL & Virgin Mobile. In August haul will spin off the corporate gift arm as a new business called RIVETING, which will also offer creative services & logistics for clients. It is the only company of it’s type in Australia to be Good Environmental Choice Certified.

Later in 2009 the company will open a new store – TOWNhaul in Melbourne’s laneway precincts. In 2008 haul kept 35 tonne of billboards, rubber and number plates from landfill. This year the projection is 51 tonne. In a past life Scott was a bouncer, personal trainer & ran a chain of bars in the USA. Having been lured into an entrepreneurial life he is now unemployable. Scott is @ScottKilmartin & the brand is @haul on twitter.