Andable
Friends Melissa Dean and Rupal Ismin had absolutely no start-up experience when they launched Andable last year, but they may well have devised a business model that resonates both in Australia and overseas.
Andable is a standard online marketplace for handmade sellers with twist – 10% of the sales price goes to Kiva, a micro loans organisation that provides credit to small businesses in the developing world.
When a product is sold through Andable, the seller receives 85% of the sale price. Andable gets a 5% commission and Kiva gets 10%.
Andable guarantees to sellers that it will repay the 10% to them after three months. In theory, all sellers are ultimately left with 95% of the sales price.
Ismin explains: “Our mission is helping small businesses help other small businesses. There’s a really great community around this, which is quite rare to find.”
“We have to balance our message – the primary focus is on the product but there’s a secondary social mission.”
International expansion is planned for 2013, with the business targeting 10% growth each month over the coming year. We’ll be interested to see how this model of ‘loaned giving’ catches on as online retailers seek new points of difference in an increasingly crowded market.
7pm Anywhere
At first glance, the last thing we need is another dating website. But Melbourne venture 7pm Anywhere is aiming at success by finding a fresh angle on this tired market.
The idea for the business struck Amir Nissen as he was on the couch, watching The West Wing. He thought of how the selection process could be done in real time, from 7pm onwards.
Women can ask a group of matched suitors a series of questions, in order to filter out those that aren’t suitable.
“Our approach is pretty novel,” he says. “It’s closer in experience to the old school TV dating shows than it is to most other online dating services.”
“Online dating at the moment works like online shopping, but we don’t think people can be broken down into categories. Our approach is more like the unravelling of a mystery as opposed to ticking something off your grocery list.”
After teaming up with Vita Smid to launch the business, Nissen’s idea has received approving nods from elsewhere, to the extent that 7pm Anywhere was chosen as one of the eight teams to take part in this year’s Startmate accelerator.
BiNu
When Google’s executive chairman makes his first-ever investment in an Australian business, you tend to sit up and take note of the recipient.
BiNu, founded in 2008 by Gour Lentell and Dave Turner, is a mobile app platform that dramatically improves internet access speed, usability and social connectivity of mobile phones.
It works on the thousands of Java-enabled and Android devices, with rapid adoption rates in emerging economies where mobile phones are the primary internet access device.
In November, it snagged $4.3 million from investors including 500 Startups, having already received funds from Google’s Eric Schmidt and Seek co-founder Paul Bassat.
The funding will be used to continue the rollout of the platform in emerging markets including Africa, Latin America, Asia and Europe.
“This is Eric’s (Schmidt’s) own money we’re talking about, so he’s reviewed it all,” says Lentell.
“I haven’t met him in person yet, he’s a busy guy, but I look forward to doing that soon.”
This article first appeared on StartupSmart.
