After realising that many businesses still use paper-based and time consuming processes for work schedules, Ashik Ahmed came up with an idea to shake things up.

A TV show about NASA spacesuits inspired Christian Le Loux to start his tech company, Fourteen92, which is releasing products under the registered trademark name of SurfaceScreen.

There are five founders behind the Brownie Points enterprise, who bring a huge level of experience across sales, marketing, information technology, creative design and branding.

While running their recruitment agency, Patrick Flaherty and Matthew Hughes realised that the hiring process could be enhanced with a healthy dose of video.

The terms “Noozers” and “Grabbers” might sound a bit bizarre, but Melbourne-based start-up Noozgrab is making a name for itself by linking one with the other.

All it took was talk of a Melbourne bar to prompt Simon Walker and Damon Garrett to launch Taylor Ventures, which is “a radar for the events taking place around you”.

After attending a Google conference, Justin Babet became inspired to launch an information resource on employers, providing the “inside story” on what it’s like to work for them.

Founded by Jack Fitzgerald and Michael Teasdale, Ship 2 Anywhere claimed not one but two titles at the 2012 StartupSmart Awards last week.

C Coconut Water claims to be world’s only organic coconut water brand. It was created by Sydney young guns Adam Abrams, Julian Tobias and Zac Jex.

Social search start-up Wajam was born out of Quebec-based start-up accelerator Bolidea in 2009. It was founded by Martin-Luc Archambault, Magali Janvier and Olivier Cabanes.

Raging at the incompetency of a large, faceless corporation via their outsourced call centre is an experience that most of us have had to endure.

After completing a $1.5 million seed funding round, Airtasker is hoping to make itself known in its hometown of Sydney and then right across the country.

After selling his successful start-up Stayz, Chris Sharkey was looking for another idea to get his teeth into.

Invention Evaluator launched last year but is already finding success in the university sector – both here and overseas – in addition to servicing corporate clients and mum-and-dad inventors.

Art and business don’t always marry well, but the founders of crowdsourcing website Artchu have found a way to combine business acumen with their love of art.

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.