With three children aged six-years-old or younger and an unemployed husband who was studying to be a teacher, Natasha Hawker’s start-up timing was interesting, to say the least.

Paul Goodsell takes his eco-warrior role very seriously, even using a cargo bike rather than a car to transport his eco-friendly cleaning gear to and from jobs.

Keen to start their own business but seemingly at a dead end, Georgia Nicholls and Shannon McNamara stumbled across what seemed an ideal start-up idea.

Finding a suitable site in the heart of Sydney’s pricy CBD to house an entire co-working community might sound laughable, but Steven Grant and Paul Page made it a reality.

Sydney-based start-up Soundbooka is aiming for 1,000 bookings per week, as it seeks to make its voice heard in the music scene.

All it took was a lost book for Julian Leach to launch Parcel Champs, a service for the growing number of Australian consumers who have trouble with missed deliveries at home.

Being based in the NSW regional centre of Broken Hill hasn’t prevented entrepreneurs Josh Cowdrey and Steven Johansson from dreaming big.

The idea for Vinspi came to Ivan Lim over a cup of coffee with a friend, during a discussion about the difficulty of purchasing affordable tailored suits in Australia.

The recruitment market is overflowing with Australian and multinational giants, as well as a sizeable number of plucky start-ups.

New IT recruitment site CrowdHired used the YOW! 2011 Software Developer Conference to raise its profile, and hasn’t looked back since.

Sydney-based Gamer Institute is an educational platform for competitive gamers, founded by Bosco Tan, Daniel Grzelak and Semin Nurkic last year.

The health and cosmetics markets are so saturated with different brands that it seems almost impossible that a start-up could stand out from the crowd.

Jolly Solo taps into the idea of the annual corporate Christmas party, but is aimed exclusively at solo business operators and very small firms.

A long-time music performer and producer, Tim Meyer spotted a gap in the market four years ago for an online DJ community resource.

Connect2Field is a field service software for service businesses, hosted in the cloud. It allows business owners to schedule work to their staff and dispatch the work to their mobile phones.

A band of surf photographers have carved a niche along Sydney’s shores, taking early morning surf shots and emailing them to large numbers of subscribers.

Pascale Helyar-Moray returned to Australia with a desire to leave her career in the City behind her.

PaperAct – Electronic Filing Cabinet is an online filing solution that lets users store, organise and access documents from any device anywhere in the world.

After relocating from Sydney to Adelaide, Guy Sewell was looking to go it alone by starting his own business.

PricingProphets.com is an online service designed to help businesses answer the age-old question: what price should I charge for my product or service?

While working as an executive assistant, Lisa Regester realised that she could do just as good a job on her own. While saving small businesses money at the same time.

AdviDeals is a Brisbane-based group-buying website offering advertising deals to small and large businesses on a daily basis.

Attending a festival in Melbourne, Georgia Beattie was struck by an unusual idea – why not try to sell single-serve portions of wine to consumers?

StudioProper, dubs itself “Australia’s first home-grown tech accessory design studio”.

Project PowerUp is the brainchild of Ryan Wardell, a 20-something entrepreneur based in Sydney. The business bills itself as Australia’s first crowd-funding platform for start-ups.

Regular StartupSmart readers will know Michael Giles from his “Aussie in the Big Apple” blog, where he describes his experiences as a start-up in New York.

Tapit utilises near field communications (NFC) technologies to market brands via mobile phones, describing itself as a pioneer of NFC location-based marketing across Australia and Asia.

Carlie and Ronnie McKenzie don’t initially appear to be natural online entrepreneurs – Ronnie is a trade-qualified carpenter and Carlie is a trained physiotherapist.

Bubble Gum Interactive is an independent virtual worlds and games studio, founded by Phil Mason and based in Sydney.

Luke Wright and Kelly Irving, journalists working in the publishing industry, recently launched Good Globe Media, a communications agency with a greenish tinge.

A group of four budding entrepreneurs have just launched Navy Design, a digital consultancy with a difference.

Following an extensive career in the real estate industry, Lauren Staley realised there was an opportunity to launch a new sort of property service.

Kim Miller and Michael Frizell are the founders of Paws for Life, a Sydney-based business aiming to change the way consumers purchase pet food.

Coming up with a start-up idea that you feel is strong enough to base a business upon is one thing. Convincing others to back your concept with their money is an entirely different proposition, however.

Determined to take on the major players in commercial property marketing, Brisbane entrepreneur Grey Rogers has launched multimedia website Space Hero.

Entrepreneurial duo Matthew Maks and Kristy Gibbs are aiming to take the hassle out of busy people’s lives with their new business.

Johanna Klaus and Mandie Spooner, two Sydney-based graphic designers, recently launched Emagine, a business that offers interactive digital publications to clients.

BizzBuzz.com.au was launched in May this year by Marcus Layton, former owner and founder of dry cleaning business Pinstripe.

Scottish-born, Brisbane-based Richard Steven launched OnTheMenu.com.au a month ago.

Carlo Santoro had started a business, RetailCare, before deciding that he wanted to take the plunge again.

Two years after selling their last start-up FindABabysitter.com.au to Fairfax for reported $3 million, Jeff and Delia Timms have been bitten by the entrepreneurial bug again.

While working as a band manager, Rebekah Campbell came up with a new and innovative way to connect music artists to their fans.

Joe Button is an online business combining new technology with the age-old tradition of shirt-making, allowing customers to design their own shirts and have them custom-made.

With a deluge of group buying websites saturating the Australian market, entrepreneur Sebastian Langton has attempted a twist on the model.

Despite being only 23-years-old and having no experience in business, Chanel Costabir was so determined to launch her own lingerie retailer that she jumped on a plane to Paris to speak directly with designers.

Frustrated by his own retail experience, budding entrepreneur Geoff Measey recently launched Fashion File, a site that acts as an online directory for other brands.

RecruitLoop is an online recruitment platform, giving employers flexible recruitment support, including innovative new technology for recorded video interviews.

Noticing a gap in the market for a network of service-based businesses run by stay-at-home mothers, Danielle Price launched Clever Mamma in June.

Socialwizz is an online media and technologies outlet, designed to promote creative projects across contemporary literature, social networks, videotainment, apps, gadgets and gaming.

Ex-Microsoft employees Peter Ostick and Josh Iselin teamed up last year to launch The Video Network, an internet TV sales platform.