How a female founders program shaped Australia’s startup scene

Five years on: How a female founders program helped shape Australia’s startup scene

Despite Australia being home to over 12,000 social enterprises, Nandeeta Maharaj couldn’t find a single retail platform showcasing their products.

After spending four years working for a social enterprise and seeing its life-changing community impact firsthand, she realised the connection between those doing good and those wanting to support them was completely broken.

Today, her platform Goods 4 Good serves hundreds of customers including large Australian corporates, connecting them with over 450 impact-driven products from Australian social enterprises.

Maharaj’s journey from frustrated consumer to certified social enterprise founder captures what’s been happening through Tech Ready Women’s (TRW) Female Founder Startup Program: women aren’t waiting for someone else to solve the problems they encounter every day.

When daily frustrations meet innovation

The founders in TRW’s NSW Government-funded program share something powerful. They’re solving problems that emerged from their lived experiences, not market research reports.

Take Melanie Wind, who watched her occupational therapist partner spend an hour every night transcribing notes scribbled on napkins, post-its, and old receipts from his day.

“If I didn’t have to write all this at the end of the day, that would change everything,” this doctor told her during one exhausting evening.

Wind’s response became Pegasus AI’s Perci, a technology that automatically generates clinical notes for allied health professionals. Last month, she introduced the solution to 70 occupational therapists across Sydney and Brisbane.

In rural New South Wales, Deborah Martin was witnessing preventable hospital admissions and unnecessary transfers due to limited clinician access and long travel distances.

Her Observa Care platform provides remote patient monitoring specifically built by rural clinicians for rural conditions. In 2024, she secured MOUs with the University of New England and a NSW local health district to validate the clinical efficacy of her approach.

Meanwhile, Barb Swanson could successfully manage sales teams across the globe but found family life to be a whole different beast.

“I could manage sales teams all over the world successfully and efficiently, but when it came to my most important team, my family, it was chaos,” she explains.

Her Done Life platform, launching commercially in August, transforms family management from frantic juggling into streamlined systems. Every parent she’s spoken to about it – including myself! – cannot wait for it to become a reality.

Building the support system that actually works

Behind these individual breakthroughs lies crucial infrastructure: the Tech Ready Women Female Founder Startup Program itself, backed by NSW Government funding.

The transformation pattern is consistent. Before TRW, founders arrive with strong ideas but limited business structure. They emerge with validated products, clear market positioning, and execution confidence.

Amireh Amirmazaheri came to the program with “only an idea, a strong intuition that something needed to change” in PMO consulting.

After completing TRW, she validated that 80 percent of target users were willing to pay for her AI-powered consulting solution, PMOiS. More importantly, she positioned herself as a thought leader, attracting inbound interest and strategic partnerships.

As Maharaj puts it: “Without the TRW program, Goods 4 Good would still be just a dream.”

The program creates systematic support that moves women from concept to confident market entry. But the infrastructure effect extends beyond individual business success.

Each founder who navigates this journey creates a roadmap for others. Every breakthrough expands what’s possible for the next wave of entrepreneurs.

Rewriting the rules in male-dominated industries

These women aren’t just participating in traditionally male-dominated spaces. They’re leading innovation that redefines entire sectors.

Helen Lawson Williams noticed she was having the same coaching conversations repeatedly, trying to help high-performers avoid burnout through trial and error. Her structured approach became TANK, which addresses burnout at both individual and team levels.

Partnering with organisations like Allianz and Sonder, she’s delivered measurable 20 percent drops in burnout risk factors for nearly 1,500 users, with improvements sustained at six months.

In the grants space, traditionally dominated by expensive consultants and insider knowledge, Janine Owen’s Grant’d platform uses AI to democratise access to funding opportunities.

“Billions in funding go unclaimed every year because the process is slow, confusing, and costly,” she explains. Since launching their beta in September 2024, they’ve attracted 115 founding members, relaunched to the broader market in January 2025, and are targeting 750 members by year’s end.

Miah Hammond-Errey is tackling cognitive performance for leaders through evidence-backed solutions. Her platform addresses the reality that cognitive overload costs US tech companies $322 billion annually. She’s moved from concept to MVP with beta testers waiting to onboard and pilot organisations in discussion.

These founders prove that systematic support transforms individual success stories into sustainable infrastructure for innovation. They’re not just solving today’s problems. They’re creating frameworks that enable tomorrow’s solutions.

When women have access to structured mentorship, validation processes, and supportive communities, they don’t just build businesses. They build the foundation for an innovation ecosystem that captures the full spectrum of problem-solving perspectives.

Ready to amplify women-led innovation?

Support these founders as customers, connect them with relevant networks and speaking opportunities, consider partnerships that leverage their expertise, and amplify their voices through social media and industry platforms.

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