Friday 11 November

Many great businesses are formed from a simple chance meeting.

Steve Jobs met his Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak after taking a casual summer job at Wozniak’s company.
eBay founder Pierre Omidyar realised the potential for an online auction site after somehow coming across someone who collected the broken laser pointer he was optimistically trying to sell.

Judging by the spiralling number of networking groups for start-ups in Australia, budding entrepreneurs shouldn’t be short of such opportunities.

Today, we run through Australia’s 10 best start-up meet-ups. The Hive may have shut its doors this week, but there is no shortage of other options for new ventures.

Elsewhere, mentor Colin Benjamin has some direct marketing tips and Yvonne Adele explains how to use an “ideas filter.”