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µþ²âÌýRanjani Ragotham, PHD student at The ³ÉÈË´óƬ and member of the ThincHer blog writing team.

We recently celebrated the exciting launch of ThincHer, a community of women students to empower and foster women's entrepreneurship. Amidst the buzz and excitement of the launch event, I had the chance to catch up with a few amazing women entrepreneurs at the Female Founders Alley. These incredible women took out time from their busy schedules to set up stalls,Ìý interact with students and members of the ThincHer community, and answer some of their questions. Wanting to learn more about their journeys and their motivations as entrepreneurs, I interviewed Taylor Peplow Ball from My Grandma Ben, Allys Todd from Val.Ai, and Erin from Swift. Here is what they had to say:ÌýÌý

Tell me a little bit about yourself and your business.

Taylor: My name is Taylor, and my business is My Grandma Ben. So, I have a sustainably focused cafe, catering business, and workshop space in Bowden, in the Plant 4 building. I'm here with Arianna from Think Enough today. She has an online directory for businesses, where you can find social enterprises or sustainably minded businesses online. Whether that be a brick-and-mortar space like mine, a clothing shop, a charity, or an online service of some kind. It gives you ideas on how to make small changes in your life. So, I'm a bit of a representation of some of the businesses that she has in her directory. Our space is mostly focused on minimising waste. Whether that be plastic waste or food waste.Ìý

Allys: I'm Allys Todd, and I am from Val.AI. We have a product called Home Efficiency Australia. We help banks and insurers look at the risk of homes and more importantly, we work with their customers to make sure their homes are electrified and energy efficient.

Erin: We are Erin – and Erin – and we are called Swift. We're a startup company through the ³ÉÈË´óƬ. Pretty much working with women in domestic violence, giving them the means to call for help or contact authorities swiftly. We’re currently developing a prototype, which will be a physical product where, with a press of a button, they can contact emergency services. We're aiming to make it a wearable device, potentially something like jewellery or keychains.

What is the inspiration behind your business?

Taylor: My business partner, Jessie, and I have always worked in hospitality and the food space, but we wanted to do something that was our own. And that was creating a little bit of change, moving away from the typical cafes that you see everywhere. A big thing about our cafe is that we don't have any takeaway cups. We haven't used a single takeaway cup in over five years. So, just little things like that help create a big impact environmentally. And doing our little bit where we can in the industry.

Allys: We have all been working in our own expert fields and came together to be able to tackle the climate crisis. And we're doing that through technical data, ensuring that no household will be left behind in our actions towards a net zero economy. So, this is all about climate action.

And how long have you and your team been working on this?

Taylor: We had our fifth birthday this week actually. So, just turned five. There are three of us who are the owners of the business. All female and we've been working together since day one. And we now have a team of about 16 employees as well.

Allys: Our journey is two years old now. So, we have raised some capital, brought in some paid staff, helped some customers, built out some MVPs and have a product in the market.

What has been the biggest challenge in your journey so far?

Taylor: Probably the challenges around the waste area. A lot of people don't understand what we're trying to do and would say things like that's so stupid, rather than be open-minded about it. So, we have had a few setbacks in that space. And of course, the COVID era was very difficult. Everything turned to a takeaway model and we don't have that model. We don't have takeaway. We had to adapt a lot during that time and do a lot more take-home stuff. That’s where the pickles kind of grew as well because people were buying things to enjoy at home more. So, we kind of pivoted to that. When we couldn't be in the cafe every day, we started making more pickles and selling them. We also tried to use up all sorts of things that we couldn't use in other ways and make sure they had a second life.

Allys: The biggest challenge is that our customers are large corporate enterprises, and there is a lot of work to do to be able to work with them. And the need for us to continuously do user-testing with them to make sure our product is ready for them. And the other thing is that our technical staff are highly trained. They're young and super, super keen. Quite often it's hard to be able to get them because there aren't enough machine learning engineers, UX/UI designers, and data scientists. So that's probably been one of the hardest things is to be able to bring in the talent we need to do the work. We have a vision to decarbonize a million homes, so that will ensure that we can remove 1.4 gigatonnes of carbon from Australia, and that's going to save $125 million Aussie households on their electricity bills.

Erin: The biggest challenge is definitely the manufacturing of the prototype. Getting the electronic components and getting like them to meet outside requirements. As well as the funding for the prototype has been quite challenging.

What piece of advice would like to give someone who’s looking to start their own business?

Taylor: I think definitely just reaching out to people. If you admire a business or something like that, just reach out to them. Most of the time, they'll be absolutely happy to talk to you and share ideas and advice. Also, if there's a value that you want to stick to – like for us, we really didn't want to serve takeaway cups. And in the first year, we had so much backlash on that.Ìý Just stick to your values. If it’s really something that you care about, just stick to it because eventually, it will pay off. Now people admire that we don’t do takeaway cups, which has become a great selling point. And it's obviously great for the environment. So, even if it's challenging at the start, if it's like a value that really speaks true to you, just stick it out and it will pay off eventually.

Erin: Personally, it's just been about just actually doing it. So don't worry about making it perfect from the get-go. Just get out there. Just get started. Put pen to paper and just have a go. So many people have told us it's not going to work. Or that there's no market. Or no one really wants this sort of product. I think by persevering, that’s been the greatest advice. There have been people who have always told us to not give up and just keep making it. There will always be people that will try and stop you but just keep going.

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