With rising mortgages, cost-of-living pressures and growing job insecurity, it’s no surprise that many people start businesses with one goal in mind: to make money. Having interviewed more than 40 of Australia’s top online entrepreneurs for my latest book, many of them women, what I’ve discovered is that if you follow the passion, the profit will follow.
Money matters, of course. It’s up there with oxygen, but it can’t be the only reason you start a new business. Why? Because there are going to be stumbles, bumbles and lots of stressful times ahead (sorry, but that’s the truth), and the pursuit of money alone will not cut it.
The women I interviewed taught me that the businesses with the greatest staying power are those built around genuine interests, meaningful problems and a desire to make a difference. Ideally, you’ll find a sweet spot where your passions, profit, and personal potential collide, and that’s the product or service you should be selling.
By the way, you don’t have to build a billion-dollar business to be successful; and nor do you have to sacrifice your family, friendships or fitness in the process. There is a middle ground: a business that provides both profit and a lifestyle you love. The real goal is finding a version of success that works for you. What follows are the stories of women who turned their passions into profitable businesses and found the grit to keep going when others might have given up.
Build a business that supports the life you want
Take Valerie Khoo, the founder of the Australian Writer’s Centre. Valerie trained as an accountant and worked in the corporate world before making the leap into journalism. She loved words, stories and helping people express themselves. But after years of freelancing, she hit a wall.
‘I was tired of trading money for hours,’ she told me. So, she started teaching writing. One course became another, then another. She took the business online in 2007 because she recognised that people wanted access to great teaching but couldn’t always get to a classroom.
Today, Valerie runs more than 75 courses a year, employs a small team of 12 and has helped thousands of writers unlock their creative potential.
Valerie’s systems gave her something many entrepreneurs don’t have: time. The problem was, she didn’t know what to do with it. Her friends suggested she get a hobby. ‘I don’t have one,’ she replied. ‘Find one,’ they said. So, she did. She tried woodwork, crochet and craft classes before discovering oil painting. She loved it so much she began selling her work. She licensed her designs, which now appear on fabric, wallpaper, greeting cards and jigsaw puzzles. ‘It’s nice to see them out in the world because it means more people get to experience them.’
Her writing business gave her the freedom to pursue another creative passion, proving that success isn’t always about building bigger businesses, but about building a life that lets you do what you love.
Say yes and work the rest out later
Then there’s Kirsten Tibballs.
I first knew Kirsten as one of the mums at school. We spent years standing at the school gate waiting for our boys to come out of class. What I didn’t realise was that she had over a million followers and was rapidly becoming one of the world’s most respected pastry chefs.
Kirsten’s journey wasn’t straightforward. Illness disrupted her schooling and she left school at fifteen to begin an apprenticeship in a bakery on the Mornington Peninsula. The hours were brutal — two in the morning until five in the afternoon, six days a week — but she loved it.
After winning international competitions and travelling overseas to hone her craft, Kirsten returned to Australia and began teaching. A distributor of chocolate-making equipment had an empty warehouse and wanted a way to showcase his products. Recognising Kirsten’s talent and natural ability to inspire others, he invited her to run chocolate-making classes from the space.
She began with six students, two tables and a fax machine. The classes sold out. Students wanted the equipment she used, so she started selling that too. Then she filmed her lessons and took them online. Then came the cookbooks, the television appearances and MasterChef. She’s now got an online community of 20,000 people, each paying around $20 a month to be a part of it. She turned her passion into profit and now travels the world doing what she loves.
Solve a problem you care about
Carla Oates had a different reason for starting her business, The Beauty Chef. Her daughter struggled with eczema and allergies, as did Carla in her youth so she did what all caring mums do – she tried to help. Carla instinctively returned to the broths, ferments and wholefoods that had restored her own health years earlier.
So, she started experimenting. Her Bondi kitchen became a laboratory of sorts, with saucepans bubbling on the stove and ferments lining the bench. As she introduced probiotic-rich foods into her daughter’s diet, something remarkable happened: within weeks, her daughter’s skin began to clear and her allergies eased. Friends started asking what she was using, then their friends wanted to try it too, and before long, local health stores were calling to place orders.
Carla was still working as a journalist while filling orders at the kitchen bench and making deliveries in her car.
‘If I can make a little business out of this and help people, that’s enough,’ she said. But people really loved what she was making, as did Vogue, TVSN, Mecca, Sephora and Chemist Warehouse who all became fast fans of her ingestible products. Carla followed her passion before she followed the profits, and in the end, the profits followed too. Passion won’t guarantee success, but it will give you the grit to pursue it. The profits may not come overnight, but when you build something meaningful, they’re much more likely to follow.