Australia could use some more billionaires. Better yet, we could really use some more female billionaires.
It’s difficult to find too many women among the super rich of this country. Just seven women were listed independently on Forbes’ 2016 list of Australia’s fifty richest people.
Now unless you’re about to inherit a lot of money or a massive media empire — like Blair Parry-Okeden, who Forbes lists as the richest person in Australia — then you’d want to think up a great scalable idea and get working on it fast.
The word ‘billion’ was on the lips of everyone who attended the Australia Post Tall Poppies Summit for female entrepreneurs in Melbourne on Thursday. It helped that panel moderator, Blue Chilli’s Colette Grgic asked everyone to say it in unison, in an effort to encourage us to not shy away from the word, or be afraid to declare that’s how big the businesses we build could actually be.
I’ve written previously about my admiration for Lauren Hall’s very public ambition that she wants a one billion dollar exit with her events management platform Ivvy. It’s a bold, confident statement that shows just how much belief she has in the scale of what she’s building. But she’s one of very few women to openly make such a declaration.
You see we still seem to feel a little icky talking about money, and our ambitions to actually make it, a lot of it. We’d often rather talk about our passion or purpose, and our drive to give back and assist. What we often forget is that building a major business, or receiving a significant salary from an employer, could actually be one of the best means to ‘giving back’ possible — by being able to invest in other startups, get involved in philanthropic causes, and being a role model to other women.
So is Australia ripe for more billion dollar businesses, like that of Atlassian?
Well according to a panel session during yesterday’s Summit at Australia Post, any such business would need to reach well beyond the Australian market alone.
Springboard Enterprises director Topaz Conway said that such big thinking has to start from the outset. “If you want to solve a big, global problem, you have to be global thinking from day one. If you’re not, then you’re building a cottage industry.” She added that Springboard aims to find women-led companies with a global view, that are scalable and have the potential for fast-growth. She added that part of the training they offer is about giving women the confidence to think big.
“We want women to say the ‘b word’, to know that ‘billion is OK’, that’s it’s a good thing to aspire to,” she said.
Still, Rampersand CEO Jim Cassidy noted there’s merit in using the Australian market as a great beta environment. With a population of 25 million, and a number of industry sectors keen on supporting innovation, Australia is a great place to test and fine-tune a product before determining how and why you’re going to take it overseas. “You’re better off failing here amongst friends, then failing spectacularly overseas,” he said.
But even the best idea is not easy to get started on, given any scalable startup needs capital to get going and 58% of women report never starting a business due to a lack or finance. Just 5% of investors are female, according to Scale Investors — although with a good 70 or so female angels involved they’re hoping to change that ratio — and pitching events are still notoriously male-dominated.
As Cassidy said, just 15 to 20% of the 900 companies that have approached his VC firm in the last three years have been female. Given they invested in 10% of those companies, he wants to see many more female-led businesses coming forward.
So the ‘B’ word is perfectly acceptable. It’s big, it’s bold and it’s potentially worth billions.