Twenty-one years ago this month, something happened in a small laboratory at Melbourne University that would reinvent the world as Australians knew it.
After initial tests of a satellite connection between the University of Melbourne and the University of Hawaii, computer scientist Robert Elz established the first permanent internet link between Melbourne and San Jose, California. At that moment, Australia was launched into cyberspace.
The subject line of the first email from Silicon Valley said simply: “Link up.” Elz did as he was asked and, on June 23, 1989, Australia officially became part of the global information revolution.
The world wide web has transformed commerce, culture and communications. For a generation of Australians who have known nothing else, embracing the digital age has become virtually second nature. For some, it’s become a platform to display their talents to the world.
Over those 21 years, the internet has expanded into a vast cacophony of many millions of voices speaking at once. So, how do you make yourself heard? How do you get the global online community to sit up and take notice? How do you generate “buzz”? How do you make a buck?
To mark the coming of age of the internet in Australia, The Weekly Review spoke to some of the Melburnians who, through their skills and ingenuity, have built online business models – or creative outlets – that are having an impact globally.
All are younger than 40.
Liss Winnel
EAMON GALLAGHER
Liss Winnel
Design Arts
daydreamlily.com
Liss Winnel spends a lot of weekends browsing the op shops of Melbourne, fossicking for things of beauty. When she discovers discarded treasures, she often photographs them and posts the images on her blog. This website, Daydream Lily, is winning international plaudits for its stylish and distinctive approach to the design arts.
In July, 2009, Google designated daydreamlily.com a “Blog of Note”. Of all the millions of personal blogs created since the internet went global, this has been an honour bestowed on only one blog each day for the past decade. That’s an elite group of less than 4000.
Five months later came another accolade, when The Times rated Daydream Lily among the top 50 design blogs in the world. Liss’ private passion had gone “global”. She was becoming blogosphere royalty.
Today, daydreamlily.com attracts 70,000 international visitors a month, from the US, France, Germany and Britain, through to India and east Asia. “It’s hard to say exactly what people visit for ... art, photography, life, love?” says Liss. “There is this concept around the blogging world of ‘inspiration blogs’. Others might just call it posting pretty pictures. I hope I’ve created this dreamy place where people can come and feel inspired to go create.”
Daydream Lily is something of a double life for the Elsternwick research scientist. An engineer and statistician, Liss specialises by day in the environmental sciences. By night, she indulges in her love of aesthetics.
Liss was raised in Albury and the Riverina town of Leeton. At 19, she became the first in her family to move to the city, to study engineering at Melbourne University.
“It was a bit scary at first. The family drove down to drop me off, and mum gave me a personal alarm
that I could set off to keep me safe on the streets,” she says, laughing.
“I shared a house in Brunswick, with friends from Albury. Once I was working, I encouraged my sister
to pursue her graphic arts career here as well. She moved in with me.”
Her sister, Bec, is an accomplished illustrator. Likewise, her brother, Jono, is building a reputation in still photography. “We were a very close family growing up. And we are a bit of a creative family, everyone feeding off each other’s ideas and interests.”
She created the Daydream Lily blog as an after-hours hobby. “My blog first took off once the Americans began to notice it. I had quite a few local readers up until then, but then a few Americans began to visit the blog, they put me on their blog rolls and, suddenly, I had this big influx of new readers.”
This included the restaurateur from Bali who wanted to fill his eatery with images she had posted.
One of Liss’ long-standing online pals is American Tina Daunt, a former Los Angeles Times journalist and now a contributor to the Huffington Post. “It began when I contacted her by email to seek some advice. She was very nice, really helpful, and we got along well. We have been in regular contact pretty much ever since.”
Most Australian bloggers have small followings compared to the US, Europe and Asia, where popular bloggers can make a good income through subscriptions and ads.
Inevitably, commercial offers are coming Liss Winnel’s way, raising the issue: would she want to make a career of it? Or is it better for her blog to stay a labour of love?
“I remember back (in 2007) when I started, looking at my blog and seeing I had 300 readers and saying, Wow! Then it’s great when you push up to 1000. But it’s more about how influential you are. People say ‘traffic’ is important. But more important is how engaged your readers are.”
In any event, Liss still loves her day job and, for all the glamour and temptations of the global design industry, is reluctant to give up that side of her life.
“A lot of companies today are wanting to work with bloggers.
“But there is always that line between what do we say yes to for a bit of extra money and what would come across as ‘selling out’. On anything I do, I have to ask myself whether my readers would be into it. That’s the main point of the blog, really – it’s about enjoying pretty things.”
Collis & Cyan Ta’eed
Marketplace
envato.com
Only four years ago, Collis and Cyan Ta’eed were running their internet start-up out of a basement garage at Cyan’s parents’ home in Sydney’s Bondi Junction. Today, their company, Envato, operates out of a swish office space in the heart of Melbourne’s CBD.
A pool table occupies one end of the open-plan office. Several guitars and amps clutter an informal lounge area. There are no suits, no ties – the dress code is an edgier version of what the Japanese call “cool biz”.
Twenty-five people work in the Melbourne headquarters, with another 25 full-time staff in North America, Europe, Africa and Asia. The business is overwhelmingly global. “We have people everywhere, in every time zone, so that’s a bit of a challenge,” says Cyan. “Our German site manager has to do conferences at 3am his time, but he handles it with good grace. They really are a fantastic team.”
Two of Envato’s online offerings, Tutsplus and ThemeForest are ranked in the world’s top 1000 most-visited sites. Australians constitute only 2 per cent of page views. In total, Envato’s businesses attract 9.5 million page visits each month.
“There are only 899 sites in the world that are bigger than us,” says Collis. “Now, I should point out, there is a big difference between number 900 in the world and number 500 in the world – as the sites get bigger, the gaps get larger. But we are very happy with how things are going.”
This amazing trajectory is largely the work of 30-year-old Collis, Cyan, 28, fellow web designer Jun Rung, and older brother Vahid Ta’eed. “It was all a little bit scary because the four of us had very little business experience,” says Collis. “And the bigger you get, the more things come up.”
For two years, the Ta’eeds didn’t take pay themselves out of the business. They lived on freelance earnings, and reinvested income from their websites in development. “We went through our savings,” says Collis.
Adds Cyan: “Somebody once said our greatest asset has been our naivete. We didn’t really know what
we were going into until we did it. But we’re getting better at it.”
The rise of Envato is founded predominantly on success in building a global audience and a
global market.
One part of the company’s business is online publishing, notably its very popular “tuts” – or
digital tutorials.
The bigger profit generator is Envato’s cluster of “marketplaces”. Operating on a principle similar to eBay, these specialise as a trading post for consumers of technical digital wares – as an example, offering as many as 700 different themes for web-design templates.
The designers work all around the world, from North America and eastern Europe, to India and Australia. “They are sole vendors, and we connect them to buyers and then take a percentage on every sale,” explains Collis. “One single guy in Austria makes $US30,000 a month, so he does better than most of us.”
This year, the company will host, in Chicago, its first overseas get-together for staff. Collis and Cyan are accustomed to taking the business on the road. For a year, they ran the company from laptops while travelling to the US, Canada, Europe, Hong Kong and Singapore.
“But it can be hard to run a business from different locations, so we had to centralise,” Collis says.
A year ago, however, they decided on Melbourne for their headquarters. “We began with seven or eight designers in Melbourne, so we set up here. There’s been strong growth, and we have tripled our staff here,” says Collis.
He is impressed with the energy and creativity driving the growth of online entrepreneurialism in Melbourne and hopes the next phase of Envato’s business growth will be expanding its provision of online educational resources.
“We already do a lot of creative fields, but we would like to branch out there ... we’re only just beginning to see the value of the internet as an education platform.
“How many people in Africa have laptops? Not many. But almost everyone has access to a mobile phone. So I suspect online learning will become bigger and bigger.”
Darren Rowse
Master Blogger
problogger.net
Darren Rowse is praised by friends and rivals alike as one of Australia’s internet icons. The rest of the world agrees.
Working from his Blackburn home, the three websites Darren produces attract 3.5 million visitors a month. “I do really target a global audience,” he says.
Darren is known to the wider world as ProBlogger. Of all the blogs in Australia, his is the most frequently visited. The secret to his success is a large body of work – blogs, emails, videos, e-books – providing how-to guides on making the best use of the internet.
After setting up his own blog eight years ago (“really as a hobby, something to do of an afternoon”) it evolved slowly but surely into a treasure trove of handy hints about creating an identity in cyberspace.
Today, Darren is widely recognised as a master blogger. Sixty per cent of his readers are from the US online community. His advice is sought on how to set up websites, how to generate good content and how to present information attractively and effectively. One website offers expert instruction on digital photography.
“I don’t run classes as such. But the biggest and best websites tend to be those that produce useful content,” Darren says. “If you are helping people, they tend to pass on word to their friends. Those friends then find their way to your site and become subscribers themselves.”
For the former Baptist preacher, the rewards go beyond that of a successful business. “One of the things I found inspiring very early on was getting an email from a young guy in India who was able to take the lessons he was learning from ProBlogger and create a little business that fed his family. He was only making a few dollars, doing it from a public-sector network, but that was exciting.”
As his brand continues to build, Darren recognises ProBlogger cannot remain a one-man show indefinitely. “The next step is looking to hire a few people,” he says.
Darren is one of only a handful of full-time bloggers in Australia. There are many more in the US, Europe and Asia. But, according to the blogger’s blogger, it is no picnic. “I think a lot of people are quite happy to have a day job and to do this on the side. It’s nice to have a few extra dollars. But there has to be long-term commitment to make a success of it.”
Arnold Aranez
Super Geek
mrgadget.com.au
Although some might recoil at the title, Arnold Aranez was proud to step up to a podium in Singapore last December to accept his award for running the Asia-Pacific’s “Best Geek Blog”.
For Arnold, the description “geek” is not only a badge of honour, it has also proved a highly effective platform for business. “I think the days when it was considered derogatory to be called a ‘geek’ have passed,” he says. “Today it’s cool. I’m certainly not unhappy to be called a geek.”
Known to most of the internet world as Mr Gadget, Arnold has built a prolific following and highly successful retail business by catering to the hunger of computer nerds for new devices that make technology work better for them.
The son of Filipino immigrants, Arnold started his online retail business from Melbourne’s western suburbs in 2004. Business flourished, in Australia and overseas. “So we started doing more and more products, sourced mainly here in Australia, and offering the best price in town, and it took off from there,” he says.
Today, Mr Gadget has 33,000 customers on its database. Arnold now leaves the day-to-day
business largely to three colleagues while he runs a consultancy supplying technical IT expertise to major corporate clients.
But his websites, particularly his Mr Gadget blog, remain a passion. Although his other professional commitments have meant Arnold now gets to blog only once a day, first thing each morning, he still attracts up to 4000 unique visitors daily from Australia and overseas.
“We are extending the focus to leading-edge tech news,” he says. “I blog every day and, because of my personal experience in the IT field, readers seem to find it a useful read.” It keeps Mr Gadget firmly on the radar as one of Melbourne’s most successful home-grown
online brands.
Domenic Carosa
The Good Mail
dominet.com.au
Domenic Carosa spent the first years of the 21st century mixing it with the big guys of the global digital-media industry. The internet wunderkind had built an online giant, Destra, that, in just the first six months of 2007, hauled in revenues of $60 million. Carosa, as chief executive, was all of 32.
Raised in Melbourne’s inner-city Richmond, Dom started the company at the age of 18 with his sister, Anna, importing video games. When the company listed in May, 2000, he became the youngest-ever CEO of a publicly listed company in Australia. His first challenge was to steer the company through the dotcom crash.
But, in March 2008, the bubble burst. Dom had taken out margin loans to fund expansion of the company into film and television production, and to build his personal stake in the company. When the lender Opes Prime collapsed, Dom took a massive hit. “I lost my shares in Destra, which were held by Optes Prime.” Ultimately, Dom lost control of the company.
“Our vision was always in the media space, not just as a web-hosting company. But to build the business was going to take five years. I was only two years into my five-year road map,” he says.
Gutted, Dom flew off to Thailand and Bali. He spent four weeks at a yoga retreat. “I think everything happens for a reason, and I learnt some valuable lessons,” he says.
Two years later, Dom is back in the saddle.
His new company, Dominet Digital Corporation, has a portfolio of interests, in partnership with new entrepreneurs such as Lauren O’Reilly, with whom Dom is providing electronic mailing lists for small business.
“There is a whole swathe of great companies in Victoria, and Melbourne in particular, who just need some extra capital and some assistance to help their growth, to take them to that next level. That’s the expertise we provide.”
He calls these emerging companies internet “upstarts” rather than internet start-ups, and believes his company is filling a vital gap in helping to finance the growth of these businesses.
“Your ‘angel’ investors are prepared to put at risk maybe 100 grand or less,” he says. “The venture-capital people are not that interested in investing anything less than a couple of million bucks. So we’re looking at that funding gap, say a quarter of a million up to two million dollars.
“But we won’t invest in business plans. What we are looking for are companies who have gone through that initial gestation period and have revenue and customers … they have proven that already.” These days, Dom Carosa knows the pitfalls. At 34, he has time on side to rebuild.
Phoebe montague
Fashionista
ladymelbourne.com.au
Lady Melbourne is as close as it comes to a celebrity blogger in this town. If you haven’t yet heard
of her, it’s just that she happens to be a far bigger celebrity in Singapore and other parts of Asia than at home. Phoebe Montague, aka Lady Melbourne, was awarded Best Fashion Blog at last year’s Asia-Pacific Blog Awards in Singapore. When she returned to there in early May for the Audi fashion festival, she couldn’t quite believe the reception. “It was surreal. I had minders and a driver. I was treated almost as if I was a VIP. It blew me away.”
It was a heartening experience for a young and aspiring fashion journalist attempting to turn her online journal into a full-time job. “It cemented for me the fact that I must be making a mark somewhere.”
Phoebe emerged as an 18-year-old from Northcote High School determined to become a fashion journalist. She completed a fine-arts degree, ran her own fashion accessories label, spent some time in the design arts in London, then went on to a postgraduate degree in journalism at RMIT to round out her training.
But newspapers and the print industry are in tough times. It is harder than ever to make a start in the business – ironically, for Phoebe, this is in part because of the impact of the internet as an alternative medium for advertising.
Rather than abandon her career plans, Phoebe has chosen instead to try to turn the Lady Melbourne blog she has been developing for four years into a small but effective multimedia brand of its own.
Phoebe produces a fashion blog that is certainly distinctive – even eccentric in a gentle, soft-pastel English sort of way. It has a professional layout and all the usual visual features, but Lady Melbourne lives on personality.
On offer is fashion advice, hints on etiquette and guidance on other matters of style to an audience predominantly of teenage girls and younger women. Phoebe documents fashion shows and arts events in Melbourne. She has now extended her repertoire to include cosy chats over a cup of tea on Lady Melbourne TV.
“I was a bit apprehensive about producing the video. But friends in the online community in Singapore insisted I had to get it up and running. They told me, ‘People don’t want highly stylised, highly edited stuff. They just want you. They want to see you, hear you, engage with you’.”
The unique style and sensibilities of her blog attract 70,000 visitors a month.
“I’m not for a moment idiotic enough to present myself as some sort of society figure calling herself Lady Melbourne. Jesus, I’m from Coburg.
“But my readers get it, and most of them think it’s pretty funny. So I thought, why not?”
Phoebe believes this interaction is part of the attraction of Lady Melbourne.
“People like to feel they are part of a community and that, if they invest their time in visiting, they get something in return for it,” she says. \