20-something boys start a company. 20-something boys get given millions. 20-something boys can’t make business model work. 20-something boys meet their first girl and pivot to … *drumroll* “A WOMENS ONLY CLUB FOR THE GIRLIES OF NEW YORK”.

It’s legitimately concerning how much this reads like satire.

While women have (rightly) been mocking the news online, the venture capital firm behind the company, Blackbird, has been notably quiet. We’ve all been waiting with bated breath to hear what they have to say. When it finally arrived, what we got was an apology for how the pivot was announced (which, while annoying, is not the actual problem), followed by paragraphs of defensiveness about how they’re actually doing a good job and why can’t we all just be grateful for that?

“Since Blackbird started deploying our 2022 core fund, we have invested in 22 companies, and 23% of these have at least one woman founder.”

Let’s leave aside the fact that they notably funded 11 male-led companies in a row, and instead calculate that 23% of 22 is five. Five companies that had at least one female founder. Of those five companies, the number with only female founders? Three. How many of the product offerings from these ventures are primarily aimed at women? None.

Because when all-women leadership teams pitch products for women, the data tells us: they don’t get funded. And that’s our real canary in the proverbial coalmine.

Half the population is just too niche

Blackbird – and other VC firms – crow about creating equality by having an equal number of women in high level roles, but at the end of the day every woman who has ever worked in any organisation knows that an equal number of women in particular roles means nothing if the company culture still has a single definition of value.

Every woman I know who has pitched a product predominantly aimed at women has heard from most VCs – if not all – that the product is ‘too niche.’ As though a total addressable market of 3.95 billion people is … small?

This is why women founders are infuriated by this story. It’s not even that a group of boys in their 20’s have the gall to start a “women’s only club”. It’s that if an all-women team stepped into the room with the same idea, the very people who funded Kiki would offer those women mentoring instead of money.

Blackbird went on to say:

“Our virtual mentoring program Giants coaches more than 400 founders every year, 55% of which are female. 50% of the startups in our deep tech focussed incubator program Foundry have a woman or non-binary founder. Our sister company Startmate runs the Womens Fellowship to help women career-pivoting into startups, which has directly resulted in 376 women getting a job in startups or VC or founding a company in the 3.5 years the program has been running.”

These kinds of programs are an easy out for organisations – they talk about them being ‘pathways’ – but the reality is over the last five years, VC funding for women-led companies worldwide has either gone backwards or is completely stagnant.

The percentage of VC funding for women worldwide:

• 2019: 2.8%
• 2020: 2.3%
• 2021: 2.4%
• 2022: 1.9%
• 2023: 2.8%

Net gain in 5 years: 0.0%

These programs aren’t pathways. They’re dead ends.

There is, of course, an easy answer to this problem. If you want more women to get funded, give them the money. It sounds so simple, because it is. And I’m also aware it won’t happen. This problem is endemic. Across the board, women are given platitudes instead of positions. Mentoring instead of money.

Men are allowed to fail, women aren’t

It ties back into a prevailing, perverse concept that the issue is simply women lack confidence. It has become a way to subtly build a narrative where the issue isn’t a lack of access to resources, but a lack of women’s willingness to ask. This narrative allows organisations to skip over taking any kind of meaningful action and instead of actually promoting or funding women, to pay (often male) motivational speakers to lecture us on how we can do better.

In rooms full of women founders, I’m hearing this consistently – women are looking to bootstrap. They’re trying to figure out how to grow without the system. As someone who did exactly that, I support it, but I also understand the limitations that come with bootstrapping. Business is a cash-hungry machine – growth is hindered when you’re limited to cashflow in order to feed it.

Add in the proposed changes around who qualifies as a sophisticated investor (the new rules would count out a large percentage of women who currently qualify, and currently women rely on other women for angel and seed investment) and we’re heading towards a catastrophic disaster. Not just for women leading startups. But for the business ecosystem and, by extension, society as a whole.

A couple of years ago I spoke with someone high up at an Australian VC firm who insinuated the reason women weren’t getting funded was that they weren’t applying.

While it’s impossible to know the exact numbers across the entire industry, estimates show us about 34% of pitches have a women-led team. If we adjust the 2.8% funding percentage to account for the application split, even at a 1:1 ratio women are literally half as likely to get funding. Those numbers took me about five minutes to do with Google and a calculator. Of course the industry is aware of them. Once again, it’s just more convenient to blame everything on women’s lack of confidence than to make any kind of real change.

VCs can gloat about how many women they employ but the real story is in the numbers, and the numbers don’t lie. The needle either isn’t moving or, when it does, it goes backwards.

The choice I’ve made, like the choice I see many other women founders moving towards, is to divest from a system that’s hostile towards me. I have a life rule about only staying in places where my presence is celebrated, not tolerated. And certainly not dismissed.

Bootstrapping is a part of this – and so is women coming together to support each other, whether that’s financially or with partnerships. I, for one, refuse to participate in a system that demands I beg men for a 2.8% chance to grow my business. Because raising money shouldn’t come at the price of your self-respect.

It certainly doesn’t for men.

This article was first published by Smart Company. Read the original article here.

The post Here’s why the Blackbird-Kiki debacle is no surprise to women-led startups appeared first on Women's Agenda.

One woman has opened up a restaurant just for women — offering a refuge for them in the male-dominated space of public dining and culinary practices in the Gaza Strip. 

Founder of “Sabaia VIP”, Reham Hamouda, wanted to create a comfortable and safe space for Palestinian women to come together and enjoy a meal. 

“The idea stemmed from our need to have something private, where we can enjoy our independence and our privacy, a place only for women,” Hamouda told Reuters.

Her all-female staff dish up light meals such as sandwiches and pizza, with some preparing the meals at home before bringing it to sell at the restaurant. 

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One of the eight female staff members is Amena Al-Hayek – a trained chef, who started out working without being paid at a hotel restaurant. When she eventually applied for a paid position there, she was turned down.

“The administration rejected (me),” she told Reuters. “They said they wanted a male chef, not a female.”

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Hayek said she was not considered for a leadership role at the hotel restaurant because of entrenched sexism.

“It’s a masculine society, that does not allow women to lead a team of chefs in Gaza,” she said.

Now, as the head chef at Sabaia VIP, she can exercise her creativity and innovation.

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“We proved to the world that we were able to open a restaurant and succeed without a man’s supervision,” she said.

Recent calculations made by the International Labor Organisation revealed that only 17.2 per cent of females over 15 have paid employment in Gaza and the West Bank. 

The post Female only diner in Gaza offering Palestinian women safe space appeared first on Women's Agenda.

The move comes less than a year after Nicole joined Startmate’s Startup Program in 2019, with Kin filling a need in the market to provide women with an online medical support network with a qualified fertility specialist, connecting them to information about their reproductive health.

They’ve also created Australia’s first subscription service to the contraceptive pill, delivered direct to your door.  

I spoke to the wildly talented entrepreneur this week to ask her about her journey from aspiring investment banker to passionate, feminist businesswoman.

Why did you start Kin?

The idea for Kin started when I was misdiagnosed with Polycystic Ovary Syndrome and told I might be infertile. It brought up a tonne of questions that I really struggled to get straight answers for. I had talked to some friends about it and noticed that they also had questions about their fertility and some had even experienced their own fertility struggles. 

The weird thing was that we never really talked about it. I had never heard about Polycystic Ovary Syndrome until I was diagnosed with it, yet, I later found out that 1 in 10 women in Australia have it! What I realised was that fertility and reproductive health isn’t really talked about – there’s still a stigma associated with it. Instead, a lot of us go through really isolated experiences.

So Kin was created to de-stigmatise the conversation around fertility and reproductive health, by empowering women with trusted information and better access to women’s healthcare. Just thought it was about time that there was something that put a spotlight on women’s fertility and reproductive health.

https://www.instagram.com/p/B8m87lphfuc/

Take me through the steps from the gem of the idea for KIN to where it is now.

Well, when I was misdiagnosed with PCOS, like any millennial I consulted with Dr. Google for answers. But, I was left with way more questions than answers. So when we started Kin, we were really focussed on creating trusted information that took the medical information and made it easy to understand and actionable so that women could make empowered choices about their reproductive health with the right information. We brought together specialists and doctors and medical research and talented writers to turn evidence-based information into fertility guides that sounded like you were talking to your girlfriends.

That got a lot of engagement and really great feedback, so we decided to start tackling issues that were stopping women from feeling like they could be control of their reproductive health.

We decided to start at the start of what we see as the fertility journey – which really begins when you have your first period and start thinking about contraception. Based on our team’s collective experiences of being on the pill and how much of a struggle it can be, we started designing the service to make it as easy as possible for women while keeping all the necessary frictions there to ensure its safe. For example, ensuring the doctor can engage with each patient.

What was the investment/funding procedure like?
We approached Blackbird VC and a startup incubator called Eucalyptus who were really supportive of the idea and have been really great partners. I had previously worked in Venture Capital, so it was super interesting to be on the other side of the table.

https://www.instagram.com/p/B8sKcxDhush/

So how does KIN work?
You go online to Kin and complete an online health assessment consisting of 40+ questions. Our doctors review that information and engage in a text-based consult through our secure chat platform, where they can ask and answer any questions about your contraception. If it’s safe for them to be on the pill, a script is written up and then we work with our partner pharmacies to ship that to their door.

Super exciting to hear about the amazing work being done in the @kleinerperkins Fellowship program to empower students to change the world! #startmate pic.twitter.com/ITvpuV7p3p

— Nicole Liu (@nicoleeeee12312) May 1, 2019

Tell us about Startmate Fellowship you participated in last year.
The Startmate Fellowship was a program to help people working in corporate learn more about start-ups, with the goal to move into a role in a start-up. I was part of the first cohort! We met and learned from a bunch of people in the Australian start-up world and got to go to San Francisco to learn from really great start-up investors and operators there too.

What were some of the skills you noticed were useful from your history working in corporate advisory?
I think I learned a lot about structured thinking and breaking down big problems into smaller parts to solve. Like for Kin it was “how do we de-stigmatize fertility” and then thinking through how we break that down and tackle each part. I was surrounded by people who tackled problems and managed teams and change all the time and I learned a lot through osmosis that way too!

What does a typical day look like for you?
It changes week to week. The mornings are checking out what the metrics are telling us. We send emails to customers to get feedback, and I read and respond to them to figure out how we can improve Kin.

What’s the best piece of advice you’d give to a young start-up with an idea?
Trust your gut. If you find there’s something you’re really passionate about, you should definitely go for it. If you’ve got enough conviction as to why you want to do something, it makes a huge difference. Also make sure you surround yourself with a great team.

What mantra do you tell yourself when things are getting tough?
Not really a mantra, but I try to hold onto the good times! There’s always ups and downs but you learn a lot going through the challenges and coming out the other end. I like to remind myself when things get challenging that it’s just a blip on the timeline and the tough times are just a part of the journey.

What do you do to wind down or de-stress? |
I’ve taken up boxing classes and have taken a lot of my stress out there!

Find out more about Kin here.

The post Nicole Liu is revolutionising fertility wellbeing with a contraceptive delivery service appeared first on Women's Agenda.

For those of you who aren’t familiar with our story, we appeared on Network Ten’s Shark Tank in August 2017 and received an amazing reaction from the sharks, with Janine Allis winning an impressive bidding war against Steve Baxter for a stake in Be Fit Food.

In the weeks that followed, we experienced the most phenomenal rapid growth. Overnight our small business grew by 1500% and we went from five employees to 63 one month later. We quickly learnt that we were nowhere near prepared to scale for this unprecedented demand.

While we service 70% of postcodes in Australia today, it’s been an incredible journey — filled with many highs, lows, and lots of bitter-sweet moments in between. And although I wouldn’t change a thing, there are some very important lessons I’ve learnt along the way that I wish I’d known before I started my business.

1. Your website matters

When Shark Tank aired, our website received 60,000 hits and crashed. It then continued to crash every hour after that for a few weeks after the show. You can only imagine how this affected our customer experience — not off to a great start!

Despite the unusual flow of traffic, our first website also wasn’t suitably designed for our type of businesses to operate with ease and success. It was custom built, which sounds good in theory, but in reality it was expensive to upkeep and therefore extremely inflexible.

But our website troubles didn’t stop there. Our second website never went to launch, and our third website didn’t quite serve our purposes either. We’ve now launched our fourth website, which appears to be the right fit (so far!) but like anything in business, there’s still ongoing development and improvement.

While there’s no such thing as the perfect platform, investing in a good website and technology from the get-go can save you a lot of headaches down the track. For a startup, a $100,000 tech investment seems like an absurd amount of money to splash out, but if we didn’t cut corners initially to save, we would have made this money back tenfold.

2. Always have your own back

Believe in yourself and always back yourself in — no matter how crazy your idea might seem. You will have plenty of doubters (or ‘realists’ as some would like to call themselves), but you need to be confident in your own abilities and stick to the vision.

When Shark Tank was set to air, I was extremely optimistic this would be a giant turning point for the business, but our production team were adamant we wouldn’t need more than 200 boxes worth of stock. I petitioned for 800, however we never got there in time. And what do you know? We sold out in the first night and spent the next few weeks trying our hardest to quickly fill back orders — it was one of the most challenging times in our business.

Trust your gut and back yourself.

3. Question everything 

When you’re starting a new business, you have so much going on that often you blindly trust your suppliers, advisors and experts to give you advice/programs/plans they think will work best for your business. More than that, often you’re naïve and don’t know what you’re doing or where to start.

I am a strong believer in listening to advice, because it’s really important to learn from others. However, an important piece of advice for those starting out would be to question everything. Why should I go on that service plan? Why should I go with that product package? How much should I be spending a month on rent? What kind of people should I be hiring and why? Will this website work for us? Are there any hidden costs? Should that be in our employment contracts? And the list goes on.

Don’t let a small oversight cost you a big chunk of time, money and resources later down the track. Be clear on exactly what suppliers you’re using, what staff you’re hiring, and your expenses — why, how much it costs, and how it makes your business better. It can save you a lot of time, money and drama.

4. Set yourself up for ongoing success

It’s really important to set yourself up for success from the outset. Go into it with the mindset that you’re already a successful business and invest in the technology, processes, and people to match this mindset. While it may cost you more in the beginning, it can definitely be worth it in the end.

One example for us was that we tried to save money on packaging in the beginning — only to have it constantly break, which saw us fielding customer complaints every day. We have since upgraded to better packaging and have received much better feedback and greater customer retention. I could give so many examples of where we tried to cut costs in the beginning, only for it to turn around and bite us later.

Good systems and planning also allow you to know exactly what staffing you need, as you don’t have excess staff working to fill the gaps that you could have filled with automated systems, such as data collection. Having strong operating procedures helps your business flow efficiently and effectively and be positioned for growth.

5. Hire slow and fire fast 

The saying is true that one bad apple can spoil the whole bunch. I’ve learnt to only hire people who align with the vision of the company, and who actually want to come on the journey. It sounds cliché but it’s important to hire nice people too.

You’ll quickly realise who fits and who doesn’t in your business by how the other staff interact with them. My advice would be not to let a negative employee take down the whole ship; listen to your gut instincts, pay attention to your employees and act accordingly.

Remember your people are an extension of your brand, and the gateway to unlocking your vision and growth, so make sure you take the time to hire the right ones!

6. Ask for help

Put your pride aside and always ask for help if you need it. When Shark Tank aired, many people in the Mornington community took leave from their own jobs to help our struggling business because they believed in us and our cause. Never underestimate the power of relationships, community and connection.

Another important reason to ask for help is to avoid burnout. Stress actually affects your body and mind and can paralyse you from achieving your goals. I personally have spent time in recovery from burnout after I tried to take on too much of a mental and physical load with my business and family responsibilities. Learn when your body needs to rest, and how you can make this happen.

I’d consider hiring a personal assistant sooner rather than later too. I used to think of this being a luxury rather than a necessity but having a PA has allowed me to delegate tasks that don’t need my attention and focus on achieving my full potential in my role as chief executive.

Lastly, the most important piece of advice is practice what you preach. As a healthy meal provider, for me that means eating nutritious food, including what we sell to our customers, having balance, and keeping my body moving to maintain optimum health.

This article first appeared on SmartCompany. See the original here. 

The post Six things Kate Save wishes she knew before she started Be Fit Food appeared first on Women's Agenda.

What does it take to launch a successful coffee brand in a competitive market? Jacqueline Arias the founder of the well known República Organic did it. Her secret? Passion, purpose and a really good idea.

It started with a family trip to Colombia almost 15 years ago- Arias’s country of birth.

Early on in the holiday, she and her husband, like most tourists to the popular South American nation, ordered coffee but were confronted by how “terribly bad” it was. Arias’s shock soon turned to a bitter realisation.

“I realised that coffee that comes from developing countries as well as other things like tea, spices, rice; the farmers, don’t have a clue how good their products are, and they have no clue as to how we consume it”, she says.

“They don’t know just how much we pay for their products, because they certainly don’t get that at all.”

Appalled by the way local Colombian farmers were treated,  Arias set out to create an ethical company that would ensure they were guaranteed “a fair deal whilst not compromising on taste.”

And so began the humble business idea, that would soon become one of Australia’s leading, ethical FMCG brands.

“When I launched my brand, it was very early days of Fairtrade, nobody had heard about it. It wasn’t on the supermarket shelves in Australia- that is when it made sense to me. I wanted to make sure that Aussies had a choice at the checkout.”

Since 2014, República Organic products, including the business’s innovative, biodegradable coffee pods, have been on leading supermarket shelves. The pod technology is currently the only in market. “……the only one on supermarket shelves in Australia, the pods biodegrade in about 730 days same as an orange peel’.

While Coles and Woolworths were quick to jump on board, Arias believes it’s difficult for other brands to make the same leap.

“There’s a lot of things that make it prohibitive for companies to be more environmentally ethical,” she says. “Like, the additional cost to pay for the biodegradable capsule- because it does cost more than an aluminium or plastic capsule.”

But Arias believes the tide is changing quickly, and Australians expect more socially and environmentally responsible options from the brands they select.

“More and more people are aware of the environmental damage that single use capsules have. There’s a tidal wave against that and there’s going to be increasing demand for that on supermarket shelves.”

Right now, Arias is in the midst of a busy resettlement to Austin Texas, where the business is currently branching. She sees America as a huge opportunity, with the healthy, ethical products market growing rapidly.

But prior to starting up, Arias had no background in business, and stresses this isn’t necessary for every individual starting a venture. In the early days of starting out, she equipped herself with the necessary resources- books, professional advice and technology.

She also spent time reaching out to people she believed might be willing and able to help. She grew her network and professional support base and credits her background in journalism for this approach.

“When you’re a journalist, you’re curious about life and you want to find the answers to the questions you have,” she explains. “I think that was the greatest asset to building a business, because I knew what the questions were, and I knew how to find answers.”

Her naivety in this regard, was her greatest asset.

“I didn’t have a business background, so I didn’t see any constraints. I didn’t see any barriers. I thought everything was possible. I think there’s a real beauty in that, because when you believe in something, you truly go out for it, as opposed to now, 11 years into the business, I know what the barriers are.”

Arias also threw herself into study, saying a thirst for knowledge and up-skilling herself were always high on the priority list. In the last few years she’s not only completed a Masters of Entrepreneurship at MIT but a business course at the prestigious London Business School.

“I am constantly learning. I read global media about business, I pick up the paper, I call people, I spend money and time on education,” she explains. For women seeking to make a similar leap into business as herself, she emphasises the importance of mentors and being confident about opening doors that are there for you.

“Having mentors is really important, and not being afraid to open those doors. That’s often what women don’t do, they’re shy or they don’t think they’re good enough- I don’t have that. I do bang on doors. In fact, I bash on doors. Those are the things that’ve led me to be successful.”

As for other advice she’d lend to aspiring business leaders, Arias’s position is clear:

“If you’re going into business to make money, then you are starting from the wrong mission,” she says. “Go into business only if you have an awesome idea.”

“It needs to be something you’re going to fight for, and if you do that really well, then success will follow.”

Arias’s own mantra and the prevailing ideology behind the República brand is to “do the right thing when no one is looking.”

“We believe in independent certification. We are fairtrade and organic certified and we’re a B Corp Certified company, the highest certification on the planet for ethics in business. I’m a strong believer you need to do that. You need to walk the talk.”

“Break barriers, be a leader, don’t be a follower. Look how you can change the market. Look at how you can do something better than what’s there, your goal is to win the gold medal for your niche in the market”

The post ‘Don’t knock on the door. Bash it down’: Meet Jacqueline Arias founder of República Organic appeared first on Women's Agenda.

Andrea Christie-David could see first hand the need for another option, especially as a busy working mother of three children under five, all needing care at the same time.

She saw an opportunity to engage high quality early childhood education in the family home in a way that could create comparable rates to what’s offered in formal childcare environments.

So after extensive research she created the childcare startup Leor In Home Early Learning, enabling families to access an innovative method of meeting the ever changing demands of busy family life.

The Leor model aims to engage highly experienced and qualified early childhood educators in order to bring a formal early learning framework into the home.

It also goes out of its way to reward educations with pay rates well above the Children’s Services Award, and offer a number of other benefits that ultimately help contribute to higher quality outcomes for children.

And business is booming, with Christie-David herself now being on their own waitlist.

The ex-human rights lawyer and equality advocate has spent years working with the most vulnerable and disadvantaged members of our society.

Now she’s an entrepreneur, and has been named a finalist in the 2019 Women’s Agenda Leadership Awards in the Emerging Entrepreneur of the Year category.

Christie-David answers our finalists Q&A below, describing what she believes makes a successful entrepreneur and how mentors have aided her career.

Our finalists are sharing some awesome career wisdom in these Q&As, as well as more on their back story and how they have emerged as a leader. See our growing hub for this content here. 

And tickets to the 2019 Women’s Agenda Leadership Awards are still available at the time of publishing, here. 

How did you become an entrepreneur? Was it a deliberate decision or something that happen by chance?

I wanted to create a childcare alternative for my own children, that allowed them to access education at home. Once I came up with the idea I felt that my diverse work experience as a lawyer, COO, and a company director provided me with the skills I needed to get this business off the ground.

Give us your quick elevator pitch: What does your business do and where did the idea for it come from?

We place qualified early childhood educators into family homes to deliver tailored learning programs to children aged between 6 weeks and 12 years.  The idea came from my own experiences of different forms of childcare with my children. I wanted an option where I could leave them in the comfort of their own home but also bring quality early childhood education to them.

Can you share three major contributing factors that have led to your businesses’ success so far?

Firstly, finding staff that are equally committed to making a positive difference to children’s lives as I am. Secondly, having the support and confidence of family and friends to be able to give it my all. Finally, knowing when to seek out specialist expertise or ask others for advice and assistance.

What do you believe is the number one trait that makes a successful entrepreneur?

The ability to evaluate and manage risk, and then to be able to take calculated risks, even though you may not always know what the outcome is going to be.

As well as your business, what other priorities do you juggle?

I have three children under 5, I have a husband who travels a lot for his job, I am a Director of a charity, and I’m on the management committee of my daughter’s preschool. Due to the popularity of the business, I am also now on my own waitlist! A good problem to have as an entrepreneur, but it also means I have to call on loving grandparents for childcare to get through my workload.

How have mentors, sponsors or other kinds of support system aided your career?

Mentors and supporters have been such a blessing throughout my career. I have benefited from their counsel and feedback when I’ve been at a career crossroads, or just grappling with a complex decision.

As a business owner you are often faced with difficult decisions that you need to make on your own, but my ability to access mentors and experts in different fields has allowed me to make informed decisions, even if they are, at times, difficult.

Where do you currently get news and info regarding your industry and career?

Women’s Agenda of course, especially in relation to aspects relating to gender equality in the workplace, as well as Care for Kids, Early Childhood Australia, Child Magazines and Facebook forums for early childhood educators.

The post Lawyer Andrea Christie-David has created a childcare alternative & business is booming appeared first on Women's Agenda.

It’s something entrepreneur and mum-of-two Carrie Kwan knows all too well, and it’s why she set out to create a community for women like her to lift each other up and make founding a business a little less daunting.

Mums & Co is designed to provide a support network for women trying to run businesses while raising kids at the same time, Kwan says.

With membership options ranging from a free learning- and networking-focused package to the $99-per-month ‘soar’ package, it helps women find services ranging from business insurance and media training to last-minute childcare, she says.

For example, the network partners with a service that can provide childcare within three hours, “if you have that last-minute pitch meeting or investor meeting”.

Founded in 2015, the network now has some 20,000 members, and events running in all states.

It also runs its annual Be Mpowered conference, including a pitch night for selected women-led startups, with mentorship and confidence-building pitching workshops ahead of the big night.

Having previously founded digital lifestyle guide Daily Addict, Kwan herself was six months’ pregnant when she launched Mums & Co.

“I loved the startup world, and I loved the generosity of it, but I found it really challenging at times, and really isolating,” she explains.

“I wanted to do more, but I didn’t have the support.”

There are about 345,000 business owners who are also mothers in Australia, Kwan says.

“It’s a significant cohort of business owners.”

For women balancing businesses, lives and families, “that support is really critical from a business-growth and from a personal-growth perspective as well,” she adds.

“I knew that small businesses needed more support. I knew that Australian women needed more support, and specifically mothers.”

There is a phenomenon, Kwan notes, of women just getting on with the job.

“A lot of women probably don’t see themselves as the ‘mum’ title,” she explains.

“They’re just business owners, founders and entrepreneurs, and they’re getting the job done.”

But managing not only the business-growth challenges that any founder would face, they’re often also the primary caregivers to young children — a job that, let’s face it, still falls predominantly to women.

“Those combined together … you’re probably doing two-and-a-half jobs,” Kwan says.

Mums & Co strives to provide a community to acknowledge this work, and to help women champion each other.

Just having people cheering you on “makes a huge difference”, Kwan says.

“I feel like I’m a duck sometimes … calm above the water but furiously paddling underneath,” she adds.

“We show up like we’re really strong — and these women are confident — but being a startup founder is tough and I can’t sugar-coat it all the time.

“It takes a lot of resilience and a lot of confidence to do what you do every day.”

Any startup founder has to work on getting people on board with their vision, finding and converting customers, keeping their team on track, and keeping investors happy.

No matter how confident that founder is, “that confidence, every now and then, can take a hit”, Kwan says.

“We all have to deal with doubt and imposter syndrome,” she adds.

“Having someone to back you is really important.”

This article first appeared on Smart Company here.

The post “Two-and-a-half jobs”: Meet the entrepreneur giving a boost to mums in business appeared first on Women's Agenda.

Fah answered questions posted via Twitter from the crowd and the first got straight to the point. 

“Why did your company decide to only focus on Indian women?”

Fah, who is also the managing director of Sydney-based international business advisors, CEO Strategic, the group that launched the project in June last year, clasped his hands together and smiled faintly before explaining. 

They decided to concentrate their efforts on Indian women for a few reasons. One was the fact that the #MeToo movement had became such a big phenomenon in India last year, in which Indian survivors of sexual assault began sharing long ignored or unreported instances of abuse.

Fah said he and his team saw an opportunity to mobilise the support women were receiving and they wanted to foster corporate goodwill between India and Australia. 

The session was part of the Future Asia Business Summit, which the City of Sydney hosted over two days. Its theme was “Sydney thriving in a smart Asian century”  and was aimed at building international connections between Sydney and Asian cities and attracting top talent from across the region. 

The Virangana Project was conceived by Shalini Chauhan, a human rights lawyer and women’s advocate from India, who recognised that support for female entrepreneurship remains low.

“The landscape is still extremely tough terrain for women,” Chauhan said in a statement released by CEO Strategic. “In addition to historical and cultural issues in India’s male-dominated start-up scene, women entrepreneurs remain underrepresented in the economy and still face biases from investors when all that should matter is the idea. Material issues, such as ‘Is it solid? Innovative? Scalable? Will it make revenue or change lives? can often be overlooked when they see a woman is involved.”

This project aims to identify and select groups that are founded by or significantly managed by women that have the potential to significantly benefit Indian society. 

CEO Strategic came on board and now works to raise investment capital directly from international investors. 

https://www.instagram.com/p/BpGCvtvHBrq/

In October last year, the project selected 12 Indian female entrepreneurs to fly to Sydney to participate in a special event at the annual Spark Festival, Australia’s largest gathering for startups, innovators and entrepreneurs.

Its Program Director, Maxine Sherrin heads a team dedicated to providing opportunities for individuals of diverse backgrounds to succeed in a career of entrepreneurship through events and other activities.

Shalini Chauhan, Co-founder of Virangana

During the festival, Virangana ran Australia’s first ever Bollywood themed pitch fest event, where the 12 entrepreneurs battled it out for their ideas to be championed. 

The program attracted Indian women from all industries, from high-end technology to social enterprise. Other ideas included an app to provide treatment options for chronic conditions based on stem cell technologies, a leisure travel app, a vegan clothing line and an automated wearable device for the detection and management of diseases. 

Tony McAuslan, the Communications Director for the project, believes Australia will benefit by laying the foundations for a stronger investment environment with India. 

“Investment in an Indian start-up goes a lot further than in an Australian one,” he said in an official statement. “It gives you access to an incredible pool of well-educated talent, and if your start-up kicks a goal in India, you have a consumer base greater than $1.2 billion and a well-off middle class ten times the size of the entire Australian population.”

Chauhan believes in the power of this collaborative project to build bi-lateral ties between Australia and India, but most importantly, provide a leg up for Indian women:

“This collaboration with Australian businesses will equip these  women with new skills and direction and give them the exposure they need. They play a central role in driving the Indian economy forward and The Virangana Project is now harnessing the power of technology to drive social change for women in India.”

Read more about how you can be involved in The Virangana Project here. 

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I know, because this is my reality.

I became Managing Director and Co-Owner of Brewtopia – the only producer of personalised beverages in Australia with a full suite of drinks – five years ago.  At this time, we were situated in a tiny construction office working out of a small shed in Western Sydney. It was alive but floundering. The then-CEO set me the challenge to transform the business, so we relocated Brewtopia to Melbourne, my home town, allowing me to closely manage the transformation while raising my 10-month-old. It was a real balancing act.

Like many who lead businesses in the growth phase, I have made tough decisions and worked incredibly hard – especially juggling professional and home life – to make Brewtopia appear like an overnight success. We still have goals to achieve and I would say we are still in our infancy but I put our success so far down to identifying and capitalising on a gap in the market, having a broad scope skillset and building a diversely talented team.

I knew that personalisation was becoming an increasingly popular trend from my discussions with brand owners in the beverage industry. There was a strong desire and appetite for a service that would help Australian businesses with the graphic design, digital printing, label application and packaging, as well as warehousing, logistics, and compliance and licensing requirements. However, the actual execution of a service like this was extremely difficult and clunky with a number of businesses across the process needing to be involved. Seeing this as an opportunity, I set out to create a fully integrated business model which would see Brewtopia extend and transform into an end-to-end solution for clients. My vision was clear from the outset and that ultimately resulted in achieving the desired outcome.

I knew growing a boutique business and effectively creating a new category would need me to be a flexible but firm leader with a broad skillset across all aspects of the business including e-commerce, IT, finance, human resources, sales, digital and traditional marketing, operations and supply chain. These skills and the required diversity allowed me to look at each aspect of the business with context, perspective and understanding. My previous experience in various industry sectors and business lifecycles equipped me with a very strong business acumen and a rich understanding of business operations from the ground up.

I started my career in product marketing with a manufacturing brand so there is a very strong focus on production principles such as lean manufacturing, raw material sourcing, supply chain, cost structure and pricing strategy. In my first years of my career I was fortunate to be thrown in the deep end and in my early 20’s I was running a small division, which also gave me P&L and people management experience.

From here to KPMG I had a totally different focus but the learning was equally valuable in managing complex environments, so at every turn in my career I have built this incredible tool kit of knowledge which gave me the foundations needed to effectively run a start-up business, where management, structure and process is absolutely important.   Some might say that this inhibits creativity in a start-up but I would argue it avoids chaos.

l had a very clear strategy and vision for Brewtopia and it all began with a talented and trustworthy team. I had the fortunate opportunity to hire my entire team when I started. If you can put the right people with the right culture together all working towards a unified goal, magic happens and everything else will fall into place. And that is exactly what happened with Brewtopia.

I had a holistic approach to hiring my team. It was critical for me to not recruit simply based on skills, but to hire the right person with great aptitude and attitude. You could teach them the rest. Two of the key staff I hired were turning 60 at the time. They have provided an enormous wealth of knowledge and calm for the entire staff, particularly important when embarking on such an intense transformation plan.

Transparency is key. Taking your team on the journey with you is incredibly important.  There is absolutely nothing the team do not know about the business. When issues arise, we always get together as a group and brainstorm ideas off each other. If you have a brilliant team, why not use them? Lean in and listen intently. Your team will share diverse thinking and approaches.

That same core team is still with me today continuing on the journey.

Brewtopia now has an extensive client base across Australia including many household names such as Stan, Smeg and Boating Camping Fishing (BCF). We operate a multi-channel sales network across B2C online retail and B2B wholesale and corporate direct.

For those embarking on a journey similar to mine, my biggest advice would be to set out a clear, unwavering vision, surround yourself with a unified team with a strong cultural fit and complementary skills. And most importantly, prepare yourself and accept that it won’t be easy but it will be worth it.

The post Shifting a start-up into a national enterprise: What I wish I knew then that I know now appeared first on Women's Agenda.

While the women on that list are undoubtedly some of Australia’s best female business owners, we feel they may not best represent the goals and struggles of Australian women who run small businesses and startups. After all, the challenges you face when you have $1 million in turnover are vastly different to those you face at $1 billion.

This year, SmartCompany decided to showcase some women running businesses who at their core, represent the small-business and startup community. They’re advocates, ambassadors and all-around badasses, and we’re proud to have been able to share their stories in SmartCompany and StartupSmart.

Andrea Gardiner

Gardiner runs Jelix Ventures, forming a wholesome powerhouse investing duo with her husband Ian, who recently quit his job to work full time at the firm. But Gardiner had been running Jelix for two years prior, and is the second woman to be a founding chief executive of a venture-capital firm in Australia.

Despite being a relatively young firm, Gardiner and Jelix are already making their mark, with the VC leading 12 investments into nine different startups. One of those startups, StorReduce, has already exited, with investors in the firm making a rumoured 10-times return from the sale of the company.

“Ian often spots a good startup and sends it my way. But then I’m the one that’s pretty meticulous about rigorous due diligence, and structuring the terms so that you balance basic investor protections with making sure the founder is incentivised,” she told StartupSmart last year.

“It’s a new business model and it is exciting. I feel like I’ve hit my sweet spot in work — I’ve never loved doing what I do as much as I love doing what I’m doing now.”

Julie Mathers

For Mathers, its all about small changes.

The chief executive and business owner runs sustainably focused e-commerce store Flora and Fauna, which offers shoppers a range of cruelty-free, vegan, eco-friendly and all-around sustainable products to help them lead a better life.

Mathers has been in the industry for nearly three decades, and launched the store in 2014. Since then, it’s gone gangbusters, with revenue growing 400% year-on-year as more and more Australians get hungry for responsible purchasing.

“We’re helping people make a few changes in their lives to become more sustainable. The sort of people who take their own shopping bag, or refuse a plastic straw,” she told SmartCompany last year.

“Businesses have the responsibility to make a change, as businesses will get there before the government does.”

Almost exactly one year ago, Ong was the proud recipient of a $128,000 cheque, knocking out other formidable competitors at a pitch competition with SocialSuite, a startup she co-founded in 2015 to help companies better track their social and environmental impact.

Since then, her startup has continued to thrive, recently locking in a $1.85 million Series A round from AddVentures and Salesforce Ventures and setting its sights internationally, where clients are waiting in the wings.

Last year was a big year for SocialSuite, with the company finally able to kick into gear after spending “a year and a half selling a product that didn’t exist”.

Rosie and Lucy Thomas

There are not many Australian companies who can say they’ve received an investment from social media giant Facebook itself, but Rosie and Lucy Thomas’ anti-bullying venture Project Rockit is part of that elite few.

The two sisters founded Project Rockit over 12 years ago, a social venture which empowers Australian youths to stand up for themselves and others in the face of bullying. The two are a force of positivity and fearless progression and have thrived through a “complementary” relationship, with their respective strengths making up for their respective weaknesses.

“There is no one in the world I believe in more than her. If I’m ever in panic, or feeling like we’ve gone backwards, I ask her: ‘Mate, do you think we can do it?’ If she says we can do it, then we can do it,” Thomas says of her sister.

“I’ve put a lot of faith in her.”

Sarah Moran

A regular force in the Australian startup ecosystem, Moran has spearheaded a number of movements for change over the past few years, the main one being a push for more young girls to take up coding through her business Girl Geek Academy.

However, recently Moran has been fighting against the government’s controversial and damaging AA Bill, which passed parliament late last year and has potentially devastating flow-on effects for Australia’s tech industry.

“It’s absolutely something a lot of companies have had to act on already. What chief executive in their right mind will see that not as a security risk?” she said.

Leah Callon-Butler

Callon-Butler is a pioneer in two of Australia’s more controversial and misunderstood industries: cryptocurrency and the sex industry. She’s the co-founder of intimate.io, a startup which raised millions via an initial coin offering last year to help make payments in the adult industry easier, and also introduces a verifiable and immutable trust and reputation system.

Since then, Callon-Butler has been a voice for change in the industries, regularly writing for StartupSmart on issues such as discrimination, data validation, and thefanatical world of blockchain. On top of this, her company recently allowed customers to buy vibrators with cryptocurrency, which was followed by the company being cut off by payments provider Square.

“This is exactly the reason why intimate.io exists — to challenge this mode of financial discrimination against perfectly legitimate, tax-paying entities within the legal adult industry,” she said.

“Our merchants have been battling against this economic exclusion for too long, and it’s time to put an end to the moral arbitration.”

Shahirah Gardner

Gardner believes her financial management startup Finch has what it takes to be globally competitive, and right now, all signs point to her being bang on the money.

Finch was founded by Gardner and her partner Toby in 2017 after spending time in one of the world’s most competitive fintech accelerators, and locked in a whopping “Silicon Valley-sized” $2.25 million seed round just three months after launch. Since then, the company has continued to grow, landing customers as it expands throughout Australia.

“Every Sunday I jump in the car and just drive for an hour in any direction,” she said at the time.

“I love hiking, and for me that’s the automatic reset button that reminds me that there is a world outside of my Finch bubble.”

Kate Morris

SmartCompany readers are likely familiar with Morris and her powerhouse beauty business Adore Beauty, which has recently forecast tipping over $100 million in revenue during this financial year. While this solidly puts Adore Beauty in the ‘M’ part of SME, her journey to get there has been long and storied, with the founder first launching the business back in 2000.

Since then, Morris has been a vocal advocate for diverstity and equality in Australian business, calling for more reporting on gender equity in small business, and doubling domestic violence leave for her staff.

For Morris, she’s not shy about her success in business but says it goes beyond just having money.

“Success is about having choices about how I want to live my life, and having opportunities to make a difference to the world. I get to work flexibly to spend time with my kids; and I also get to do great things with my business now, like paid parental leave and our Women in Tech scholarship,” she said.

Katherine Roberts

Roberts first popped up on SmartCompany in our 2017 Smart 30 Under 30 as the founder of Perth-based food delivery service This Little Pig Went to Market. A perennially positive business owner, Roberts has shared frank insights into how her venture is run, including that founders should look to change “tiny things” to benefit customers above broad, sweeping changes.

Roberts also revealed how much she and her co-founder paid themselves in the early days of their business, saying it can be “depressing” for business owners when they end up being paid a pittance for pouring their heart and soul into their business.

“In a lot of cases, you just end up being the burnt chop, because you have to pay everyone else before yourself,” she says.

“From my perspective, while the business is making money it should go back into the growth of the business because extra cashflow should go into an extra cool room or an extra delivery van rather than into my wage.”

Lorna Deng

While there is a lot of work going into tackling unconscious bias, “we’re not seeing the results yet,” Deng told StartupSmart.

That’s where her startup Divtal comes in, an online platform which connects organisations with culturally diverse talent, born out of Deng’s own frustrations of struggling to find employment as a migrant born in Kenya.

It took the entrepreneur 18 months to finally land a paid internship with a bank, and she decided it was time to make a change.

“A lot of migrants are experiencing challenges getting jobs in Australia, there’s a much much higher unemployment and underemployment rate,” Deng said.

“On the flip side, a lot of organisations have diversity and inclusion strategies. They really want diverse talent, but there are challenges in getting that,” she added.

Jen Geale

A Smart50 winner and part of a four-person founding team, Geale is the founder of $7.8 million e-commerce business Mountain Bikes Direct. Her business is thriving, growing 236% over the past three years, despite her and her team almost never seeing each other.

The company has no central offices and the team all work from home, communicating through platforms such as Slack and Asana.

“One team member is a recreational pilot and takes his plane out in the morning and works for us in the afternoon,” she told SmartCompany.

Mikaela Jade

Running a startup from the middle of Kakadu National Park in Australia’s far north is a tough ask, but Indigital founder Mikaela Jade has seen her augmented reality startup thrive, telling Indigenous stories on country through the creative tech.

The founder told SmartCompany her experience working in the Northern Territory had been fantastic but noted she’d struggled without the same entrepreneurial networks found in places like Sydney and Melbourne.

“I’m not only trying to develop tech that didn’t exist a few years ago in an industry that’s absolutely ripe for disruption, but we had challenges we had to overcome that other startups didn’t have to deal with,” she says.

“We didn’t have the innovation community, we didn’t have other startups to provide that support. I was in the Sydney startup hub [recently] where there’s such camaraderie, and we didn’t have that; I had to invent it by stalking people on LinkedIn and building those networks online.”

“We’re still focused on how to push tech for the betterment of the Indigenous community across Australia, and I feel so lucky to be part of this community.”

This is an edited version of a piece that first appeared on SmartCompany.

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Christmas is right around the corner, and as such it’s likely that familiar feeling of dread has begun to set in. Yes, we acknowledge how Grinchy that sounds, but the reality for many busy women is that Christmas is yet one more task on our infinite to-do list. How are we supposed to find the time to get to, let alone navigate Kmart?!

But there’s a way to eliminate this stress from your life while simultaneously supporting a whole host of excellent, female-led businesses this year. Below are our top picks (and all offer online shopping options!)

Freedom Filosofie

Founder, Bella Corke recognised a common frustration felt by many career-minded women: Why are work bags and laptop cases either too small and impractical or big and masculine?

Through her business Freedom Filosofie, Bella offers up a third option with a line of stunning and functional leather laptop bags in various styles and sizes.“Like all working women, many of us all struggle to find that perfect bag that is both suitable for work and stylish for play, that can also easily fit in all the necessities for the day,” she tells us.

And right now Women’s Agenda readers can get 50% off all 2018 designs by using the code AGENDA18 at checkout!

Modibodi

An Australian company on a mission, Kristy Chong founded Modibodi to empower women, smash stigmas and deliver a long-term, sustainable replacement to single use disposable hygiene products like liners, pads and tampons.

Modibodi’s line of protective and leak-proof apparel, underwear and swimwear is designed for all modern women experiencing incontinence and periods.

Moreover, Modibodi supports and champions other vital organisations for women like Share the Dignity and Days for Girls. Chong and her team also launched their own program ‘GIVE A PAIR’ to deliver Modibodi products to Australian women in crisis; since supplying thousands of pairs of underpants to shelters across Australia.

Ithas Gourmet Foods

Led by Mandy Krywulycz, Ithas Gourmet Foods is a business that knows exactly what we all want at Christmas: Dessert!

Ithas’ product line includes delicious, handmade puddings, sauces, cakes, biscuits and hampers, as well as options to build your own customised boxes for corporate gifts with a personal touch.

The business has been operating for over 10 years, with a traditional family recipe passed down through generations. Itha’s products are made with best quality fruit and ingredients that are sure to please everyone at the table.

Spicemama

After losing two grandmothers in the same year, Indian-Australian Shaheen Hughes left a fast-paced corporate job in 2015 to launch her venture ‘Spicemama’. She told SBS she “felt the need to remember their [her grandmothers’] recipes and food stories” and to “stay connected to our roots as migrants”.

Shaheen’s spice mixes are hand roasted and ground, selling in retailers across Perth and online. She and her mother also teach a cooking class twice a month in the pursuit of demystifying Indian cooking. Surely the right gift for all the adventurous, foodies in your life!

Zadi Training

Founded by Adala Bolto and Diana Williams, Zadi Training offers various workout regimes and classes to busy women in Sydney. Incorporating HIIT, strength, cardio and core training programs, a Zadi membership is the right gift for anyone you know who might be looking to get fit in the new year (and work off those Ithas puddings!)

The post Female-led businesses you can get behind this Christmas appeared first on Women's Agenda.

In the lead up to the inaugural Tech Ready Women “From idea to tech startup” event sponsored by the City of Sydney as part of a $25,000 cash grant to help more women start viable tech businesses, Christie shares her insights on how women in start-ups should approach grants and funding, and what the future looks like in this space.

Q: What are your top 3 tips for women who are eager to secure funding for their start-up?                                                   

A: Tech Ready Women were recently awarded a grant from City of Sydney to provide three events including “From Ideas to Tech Start Up – Get Pitch Ready” and some of the key takeaways I gained from this were:

• Don’t try and write it alone. Call up the grants hotline prior to writing your application – most often than not they are more than happy to provide insights into what they are looking for and what they are expecting, as well as talk you through the application process and what you need to provide.
• Don’t rush writing your application, have someone spell check and read over it to ensure you haven’t made grammar or spelling mistakes.
• This may seem obvious but be clear about the project objectives and outcomes. The clearer you set your information out with headings, bullet points and descriptions, the easier it is for the grant reviewer to understand what you are trying to achieve.

Q: Where should women be looking to find out what grants are available and if they’re eligible?

A: Starting a business can be exciting and all encompassing, but it can also be stressful and expensive. However, there is a range of business grants in Australia that can help alleviate some of that pressure.

I wrote a blog about this here recently, outlining business grants for women in small business that any woman with a start up should consider applying for.

In addition to this, simply searching online for grants within your specific, niche industry and researching your local government sites as well can be useful.

There is some helpful information here.

Q: Could you share your thought on the recent study that suggests when women do successfully apply for funding, are awarded less money than their male colleague?

A: We know now of the statistics indicating that women who receive venture funding bring in 12% more revenue than male-owned tech companies and are likely to have greater success overall.

However, I believe until we have more women in the leadership positions making the decisions of who gets the money and how much, then we’re not going see much of a shift. This is why at Tech Ready Women we’re working towards not only up-skilling women in tech start-ups, but also giving them opportunities for funding and eventually building our own fund solely for women led businesses.

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