Australia's Top 100 Young Entrepreneurs 31-40

31. Declan Kluver (32) and Blake Thompson (32)

xrecruiter

Brisbane

Declan Kluver and Blake Thompson were once competitors, but in 2022 they decided to join forces to create xrecruiter as a white-label platform for ambitious recruiters to establish their own brands and work for themselves.

“We're addressing the small business recruitment market which makes up 70 per cent of the recruitment market. There are 30,000 recruiters in the country and 70 per cent of them work for businesses with three staff turning $2 million or under,” Kluver says.

“We noticed a gap in the market, where many experienced and high-performing recruiters wanted to work for themselves, but found themselves not succeeding as they had to wear many hats as a small business owner.”

This empowering business model has tapped into the entrepreneurial instincts of these erstwhile employees, and in the process has made xrecruiter one of the fastest-growing businesses in the country.

From what began as a Queensland-centric operation, xrecruiter now operates all over the country, including a second physical office in Melbourne which is now its second-largest market, as well as rapid growth in NSW and WA.

“Our mission is to always get to 100 recruiters, and we’re super close to that,” says Kluver.

“Then we move to the US and invest heavily there as it’s a huge opportunity and the future of work is soloprenuers and micro agencies,” says Kluver.

“The state we will start with is Texas and ideally move to Austin, then Florida looks like the next best base.”

Related story: "10x in six months": Brisbane startup Xrecruiter opens Melbourne office

32. John Goleby (37) and Andreas Zhou (38)

Askable

Brisbane

From what began as a user experience (UX) matchmaking service, Askable has grown into a critical source of research and insights for leading companies when developing or rolling out products.

Bootstrapped for most of its existence, Askable draws on an extensive network of UX experts and survey participants worldwide, and provides its technology to offer actionable insights to more than 600 enterprise customers ranging from 7-Eleven to Toyota to Atlassian to Canva.

“Our first products got you participants so you could run your own research. Our newer products deliver you the research,” explains CEO John Goleby.

“For a lot of the brands using the agencies to do this, you can literally switch that whole agency off and use Askable Plus or Askable Continuous, depending on which works.”

John Goleby co-founded Askable in 2017 with his father Scott Goleby and university friend Andreas Zhou, with the project itself coming out of an internal incubator at their marketing agency Orange Digital.

Orange Digital was sold to Papua New Guinean buyer Brian Bell Group in 2021 and Zhou left the day-to-day operations of Askable that same year, although he maintains a shareholding in the company.

“Uncomfortable with being comfortable”, John Goleby seeks to keep Askable’s bootstrapped spirit alive even though it is a very different beast today after a $22 million capital raise led by Airtree, which was completed in late 2023 but was only formally announced at the end of 2024.

Askable had already been driving an expansion in the UK market at that point, but the capital injection has enabled it to grow more rapidly than its organic trajectory prior would have allowed, and importantly to make the most of an enormous opportunity in the USA.

Askable currently has offices in Brisbane, London and Chicago, and plans to expand further with 40 per cent growth in its team, specifically in product and engineering roles.

Just as Askable’s solutions aim to help companies build better products, Goleby’s philosophy as a leader is to be open to fresh insights that may lead to better outcomes than prior best-laid plans.

“One thing we learned when we did this shift from Orange to Askable was you can't get too wedded to your idea; get wedded to the outcome it brings,” he says.

“Don't get stuck on the actual idea and how it's executed, because there's likely a better way to bring that outcome about.”

33. Tom Willis (33) and Dominic Woolrych (38)

Lawpath

Sydney

Lawpath, Australia’s largest online legal platform for small businesses, grew its user base by a quarter in the past year to 500,000 businesses as it continues on a fast-scaling revenue trajectory.

This includes 5,000 uses per day of its Lawpath AI solution that promises to “unlock legal superpowers” for businesses, whose users can ask legal questions, draft clauses, review documents, simplify legalese and translate legal documents into 31 languages.

The company attracted a $10 million investment this year from Westpac Banking Corporation (ASX: WBC), building from a “light marketing partnership” for referrals over the past couple of years to a higher-level, more formal arrangement.

Westpac’s investment, which takes Lawpath’s total capital raised to $24 million since it was founded by Dominic Woolrych and Tom Willis in 2014, will allow the group to “double down” on research and development of its AI technology.

Woolrych adds that it also comes with a five-year commercial partnership giving Westpac customers access to Lawpath products, and vice versa.

The co-founder had previously worked as a commercial lawyer at MinterEllison, where he realised only a “select handful” of businesses could afford legal advice.

“This experience and my subsequent work representing vulnerable people through Legal Aid gave me the insights and skills needed to disrupt and revolutionise the legal industry,” he says.

“Together with my co-founder Tom Willis, I witnessed how other industries moved their services online and applied this principle to the legal sector.

“With the automation of tasks and cutting-edge technologies, including AI, I bridged the gap and made gaining legal advice accessible to everyone, especially small businesses.”

Related story: Westpac invests $10m in Lawpath as small-business legal platform doubles down on AI

34. Thomas Fu (25) and Thomas McPherson (25)

Motor Culture Australia

Brisbane

Thomas Fu and Tom McPherson have taken their love for cars and turned it into a movement.

The impetus for founding Motor Culture Australia in 2020 was the friends’ experience at other car events characterised by “negativity, exclusivity and toxic behaviour” with dangerous and erratic driving, often with traffic bottlenecks and the police showing up.

What they wanted was to redefine the automotive community by fostering a safe, inclusive and family-friendly environment for car enthusiasts with in-person events, education and give-aways through a membership platform.

The group has now grown to more than 450,000 members and continues to expand. Last year it attracted more than 190,000 attendees across 30 major events, many of whom are dedicated members.

Such a large audience makes the platform a compelling partnership opportunity for brands looking to target its market, having secured deals with major global names in the sector.

“MCA has evolved into a thriving community where anyone can feel welcomed, inspired, and connected,” says Fu.

In November, the company announced a partnership with one of the country’s most iconic auto retailers, Super Cheap Auto, part of the Super Retail Group (ASX: SUL).

35. Tony Chan (36)

Wagepay

Brisbane

Like buy-now, pay-later but for wages, Wagepay allows users to access payday advances ahead of time with a short and easy three-minute sign-up, promising to make funds available in the space of 60 seconds.

The service now has more than 400,000 customers globally, as well as almost 1,400 businesses registered with Wagepay for Business that allows employers to link in to the same system for free, helping staff to stress less when unexpected personal expenses arise.

“We envision a world where individuals are compensated in real-time for their work, liberating them from the constraints of traditional pay cycles,” says Tony Chan, who founded the business in 2020.

He says the company addresses the problem of wage payment delays by using bank transaction and payroll data to analyse a user’s income cycle and spending patterns, before making data-driven decisions and assessments.

“Our unique approach involves dynamically setting prices for customers based on their risk profile,” Chan explains.

“This is crucial to our vision of serving all wage earners, as we need to accurately identify low-risk and high-risk customers and price them accordingly.

“Customers of Wagepay can interact with us through the web, iOS, and Android apps and request a portion of their wage with just a few clicks in under a minute, anytime and anywhere. Additionally, we help users understand their financial health by providing them with our proprietary bank transaction score and free access to their Equifax credit score.”

Wagepay is funded by a $15 million debt facility from institutional investors, and in the first half of 2024 it launched in the Canadian market where it now processes more than 10,000 applications per month.

Emboldened by its success at home and in Canada, Wagepay now plans further global expansion in 2025.

36. Dr Kent Tan (35)

My Implant Dentist

Perth

With Australian adults missing 6.5 teeth on average and the number being much higher at 13.7 for over 65s, Perth-based dentist Dr Kent Tan saw a market opportunity to make dental implants more accessible.

Starting out in WA in 2019 where he now has five My Implant Dentist clinics, and a further two in Brisbane, Tan is constantly striving to find ways to “lower treatment prices without any sacrifice on quality”.

“Unfortunately, it is a sad reality that dental implants are inaccessible to many within the general Australian population, with costs being out of reach to many due to being excluded in the public health system, being non-Medicare funded and the high-cost reach of even getting the treatment done privately,” he says.

The entrepreneur has his sights set on further expansion both interstate and in Western Australia, where My Implant Dentist has acquired additional commercial properties.

“We plan to further increase our footprint in Brisbane by acquiring additional clinics, while simultaneously exploring opportunities in other key regions across the country,” he says.

“In Perth, we will continue expanding our existing locations and investing in cutting-edge technology to enhance patient care.”

37. James Mutton (32)

Motorcycle Trading

Brisbane

James Mutton’s Motorcycle Trading became one of the country’s largest privately-owned motorbike dealership operators after acquiring Sydney City Motorcycles in 2022, but the gears did not change smoothly.

Having successfully built up dealerships in South-East Queensland, Mutton faced new challenges with the Sydney business that required hands-on solutions as the newly incorporated operation racked up heavy losses.

As Mutton brought across his proven dealership management systems – including an in-house software platform he hopes to someday commercialise – fortunes started to turn around in the Sydney division which is now back in the black.

Meanwhile, in Brisbane the company is on track for record profits in FY25.

“We’ve really moved past the challenges we had two years ago when we first came to Sydney,” says Mutton.

“Since I started back in 2019 it was all about taking on debt, then paying it down, and then immediately taking on more debt to grow.

“We’d always had debt to fund the growth, whereas now we’ve got no debt – it's a year’s break from expansion, consolidating the business, to build up a cash reserve that has made things easier.”

Whilst the company’s proprietary dealer management software has brought productivity gains across Motorcycle Trading’s dealerships, Mutton says it was a hard sell to pitch a fully integrated system as an “unknown”.

“We realised that we could split off just one of the features that is within the dealer management software and brand it as its own feature, which is digital signatures for our vehicles contracts,” he says.

Still in its early stages, the DealerDocs offering now has thousands of monthly active users in 20 countries, marking a start for this small Brisbane company which has an enormous market opportunity if it succeeds in the technology space.

38. Myrrah Balasabas (34) and Joshua Spurway (35)

Vision Made Co

Brisbane

After helping Youfoodz grow from its infancy from a footprint in 13 stores to thousands of locations as a business development manager, Josh Spurway learnt the ropes about how to rapidly scale – a skill he has applied deftly as a co-founder of contract supplement manufacturer Vision Made Co.

Established with his now-wife Myrrah Balasabas, Vision Made Co is responsible for the local production of more than 25 well-known brands in the health and sports supplement industry, underpinned by substantial investments into its Brendale facility.

This investment – all funded by free cash flow - allowed Vision Made to increase its weekly output capacity from 30,000 units to 50,000 units.

Founded in 2021, the company was able to get a big break when onshoring became fashionable and Vision Made was able to secure contracts with a major US brand that was shifting to Australian production for its Australian market customers.

“The customer will come to us with an idea, we then work on a formula together, and then move on to the sampling stage to get the taste, colour and texture right,” Spurway says.

“After everything is approved, we formalise the product and create finished product specifications for the client to design their retail packaging with.

“We then assist the client to ensure their product is completely compliant with the legislation before moving to mass production and delivering them a finished product ready for retail sale."

In 2024 the company also branched out to work with local drink manufacturers to co-pack an energy drink for its clients, with eventual plans to bring that operation fully in-house.

39. Rob Hango-Zada (40) and William On (40)

Shippit

Sydney

It has now been more than a decade since Rob Hango-Zada, frustrated by the fragmented delivery experience that followed otherwise seamless e-commerce experiences, teamed up with management consultant William On to establish multi-carrier shipping software Shippit.

Together they developed the technology and industry relationships to now empower more than 4,000 retailers across the Asia-Pacific region, including prominent e-commerce players like Kmart, Cotton On, Myer, Sephora and Temple & Webster.

The software seamlessly integrates online shopping carts with its advanced carrier allocation engine, automatically identifying the best carrier for each job, saving cost and time for the retailer while making deliveries more reliable for end customers.

“Shippit empowers retailers to take full ownership of the entire customer journey, from purchase to delivery,” Hango-Zada says.

“Through our enterprise-grade platform, retailers can pack faster and ship smarter. With automation and intelligence, we streamline processes such as documentation, label generation, and dispatch activities, ensuring efficiency at every step.”

Within two years of its launch in South-East Asia through the acquisition of Luwjistik to give Shippit a presence in Singapore and Malaysia, in July 2024 the company announced its official launch into the New Zealand market where it already had clients such as Kathmandu, Spotlight and Freedom.

“This new market launch allows retailers to ship to New Zealand customers with reliable services, market-leading rates, and logistics consulting from in-house experts,” adds On.

He says that while the company has already been working with retailers that have NZ operations, the launch signalled greater coverage of over 95 per cent across the North and South Islands, alongside preferential rates with carrier partners.

Technological and product upgrades are a constant focus for the group which in 2024 relaunched an improved analytics and delivery insights platform, and integrated with Apple Wallet order tracking as a means to legitimise consumer communications in an environment where there is increased scam activity.

“Building off last year's strong foundation, this year's focus is deepening our relationships with merchants and carriers to provide the best experience in the market,” says Hango-Zada, adding the company also recently announced greater international shipping capabilities into North America, Europe and the Asia-Pacific.

40. Shannan Gove (36), Bennett Merriman (38) and Chris Grant (35)

Rosterfy

Melbourne

Starting out as an internal resource to manage staff scheduling for their company Spark Event Group, Shannan Gove and Bennett Merriman enlisted Chris Grant to expand the technology’s horizons with what would become Rosterfy.

Now with more than three million users, the volunteer management platform is used in 35 countries, with clients ranging from nonprofits to governments to sporting federations.

“Rosterfy allows organisations to recruit, screen, schedule, train, report, communicate with and recognise volunteers,” Gove explains, noting significant time savings for customers compared to traditional manual processes for managing volunteers.

“Our end-to-end solution offers organisations cost efficiency, scalability and compliance whilst enhancing the volunteer experience.

“Revolutionising the way organisations interact with their volunteers, our user-friendly, secure and engaging platform has allowed clients worldwide to invest in their volunteers, with tangible results reflected in high recruitment, engagement and retention rates.”

Gove adds the Rosterfy volunteer app was launched last year as an extension of the desktop product, resulting in 10,000 downloads to date.

“By putting volunteer opportunities in the palm of volunteers' hands, we are thrilled to be connecting more communities to events and causes they're passionate about,” he says.

In FY24 alone the company signed up such clients as the Salvation Army, Habitat for Humanity, St John Ambulance UK, Perth Children’s Hospital Foundation and OzHarvest.

In FY25 the company has received a funding boost of $8.5 million from existing investor Bailador and OIF Ventures, and has grown its team by 30 per cent in the past three months including key executive hires. 

Recently, the platform played a critical role at the Super Bowl, where it assisted the host city New Orleans to manage approximately 7,000 volunteers across more than 13,000 shifts. This success led Rosterfy to be enlisted by the Bay Area Host Committee for 2026 Super Bowl in San Francisco, which will be the 10^th Super Bowl it is involved in.

Merriman and Gove are no strangers to high-profile clients. They started Spark Event Group in their 20s, which went on to become a leading event operations and workforce providers with customers such as the Australian Open, Grand Prix and many more.

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