Young entrepreneur of the year crowned

At the awards ceremony held at Surfers Paradise Marriott Resort and Spa on the Gold Coast the founders of multi-channel retail business New Aim, Fung Lam and Werner Liu, took out the title of Australian Young Entrepreneur of the Year 2019.

New Aim was lauded for maintaining the consumption economy, despite the recession being experienced by the Australian retail sector.

A product-agnostic business founded in Melbourne, New Aim operates on a multi-channel strategy, rapidly engineering products based on data.

“Our business is based on data and we simply look at the demand based on data,” Lam said. “Based on data, we can sell anything. We know something even if we don’t know why. The data tells us to sell it and we can sell it.”

Liu added, “We base everything on buyer behaviour. We only sell on websites where people are going to search for specific things. People will buy our products from a marketplace, for example, but never Facebook. Because we can’t control buyer behaviour 100 per cent we just go where people are going. It isn’t possible for us to control everything.”

This year, the Young Entrepreneur finalists turned over approximately $1.03 billion. Between all nominees into the Awards, this figure balloons to $1.3 billion.

According to the Young Entrepreneur judging panel, this year’s event was hotly contested between ASX-listed businesses, impressive scale-ups and fast-growing start-ups.

And yet, Young Entrepreneur Awards founder Camilla Jansen said that the initiative has always been about camaraderie rather than competition.

“This is more than an awards night, it gives young Australian entrepreneurs a chance to connect and elevate their businesses onto the global stage,” said Jansen. “The Awards presents an opportunity for the best and brightest young leaders in Australia to come together. Through this initiative, we’ve seen many collaborations as well as life-changing partnerships being formed. Ultimately, everyone who has come through the awards is better for it.”

The other winners of the 2019 Australian Young Entrepreneur Awards 2019 are:

• Australian Young Entrepreneur Trailblazer Award – Karl Brown, Instyle Solar and Rokkit Performance Marketing
• Australian Young Entrepreneur of the Year Social Award – Amelia Gow, Active Opportunities
• Australian Young Entrepreneur Arts & Culture Award – Michael Huxley, Huxley Group
• Australian Young Entrepreneur Fashion Design Award – Tammy Hembrow, Saski Collection
• Australian Young Entrepreneur Marketing Award – Nic Blair, Search Factory and Brus Media
• Australian Young Entrepreneur PR & Media Award – Naomi Spies, Ruby Communications
• Australian Young Entrepreneur Property & Construction Award – Brett Boulton, BOLD Group of Companies
• Australian Young Entrepreneur Legal Award – Sacha Kirk and Warwick Walsh, Lawcadia
• Australian Young Entrepreneur Professional Services Award – Carlos Ferri, Zapala Corp
• Australian Young Entrepreneur Startup Award – Jackson Meyer, Verus Global
• Australian Young Entrepreneur Food & Beverage Award – Drew Bilbe and Troy Douglas, Nexba
• Australian Young Entrepreneur Hospitality & Tourism Award – Justin Hales, Camplify
• Australian Young Entrepreneur Fitness Award – Aaron Smith, KX Pilates
• Australian Young Entrepreneur Health & Medicine Award – Dr Tanya Unni, Amtan Medical, Amtan Health, Amtan Health, Australian Skin Lab and SkinLab & Beauty
• Australian Young Entrepreneur Manufacturing, Wholesale & Distribution Award – Jeff Yu and Anson Zhang, One Stop Warehouse
• Australian Young Entrepreneur Specialist Services Award – Jonathan Dwayre, Orbitz Elevators
• Australian Young Entrepreneur Finance Award – Daniel Wessels, Jacaranda Finance and Jacaranda Loans
• Australian Young Entrepreneur Technology Award – Christian Pacheco, Virtual IT Group
• Australian Young Entrepreneur Digital Disruptor Award – Ben Bradshaw, Disrupt Digital, SponsoredLinX and Get More Traffic
• Australian Young Entrepreneur Retail & Services Award – Fung Lam and Werner Liu, New Aim