How the founders of snowsports safety startup ANTI proved their product worked — and Steve Baxter wrong — by bashing each other over the head

Brisbane-based startup ANTI has taken home the title of Australia’s Emerging Creative Startup 2018 for its super-safe snowsports beanie, following a pitch that saw the founders bashing each other over the head with a wooden stake.

The startup won the title at the annual Creative3 event hosted by QUT Creative Enterprise Australia, and will now travel to London to participate in Virgin StartUp’s StepUp mini-accelerator, before heading to Copenhagen to compete in the Global Creative Business Cup finals.

Founded in early-2017 by Rob Joseph and Liam Norris, ANTI creates snowsports helmets disguised as beanies.

Medical engineering student Joseph tells StartupSmart the helmets are fashioned from a material that is initially soft but hardens on impact, which the founders have developed to bring up to snowsports safety standards.

“It took the best part of six months to have the concept really solid,” Joseph says.

“Nobody has done anything like it before,” he adds, and so there are a lot of “fiddly bits” to figure out that have taken some time to perfect.

Winning the Creative3 competition is “a massive confidence boost,” Joseph says. Read more

Stephanie Palmer-Derrien - Startup Smart - 17 Sep 2018