I would like to introduce you to The Becoz Project which is focused on the physical and mental development of teenagers. My first program – The BAM (Body and Mind) Program is a ten week program to improve the self esteem of year 8 and 9 girls and is currently being piloted at 2 Perth schools.

I don’t really know how I got here – I was reading my past blogs, the steps and the many lessons learnt over the past year and one piece of advice from my mentor Tracey Hodgkins popped into my mind – You don’t choose your product, the market will do that for you – and that is what has happened.

As I went into schools with the after-school fitness concept of Gymbtween, they were much more interested in the self-esteem and resilience part of the program which was such a small part of the overall product. So I started to do some more research and found that self-esteem has a huge drop in the early teen years and from that I wrote the BAM program for young teenagers. It was the schools that told me what product they wanted.

I will be piloting the program for another 5 weeks and from there the BAM program will be available to all Perth Metro high-schools.

I finally feel in my element. I feel like my business – The Becoz Project – fits who I am.

I LOVE Christmas – I love the busy shopping centres, the city Christmas decorations, buying the perfect present for someone and having a few drinks at the work Christmas parties. In past years, I have relished the month of December as I wound down from Uni and had time to enjoy the many things that make Christmas the best time of the year.

This year however, with a new business on the verge of taking off and two great contract jobs that have very close Xmas deadlines – I am finding that we are already half way through December and I have barely had time to breathe in the Christmas cheer.

I don’t want you all to think I am the Business Grinch – I am buzzing with excitement at some of the fantastic opportunities, interesting projects and business contacts that have come out of this month – and for that I am thanking Santa Claus. But I can’t help but notice that this is a very different Christmas experience than the ones I have experienced prior to being a business owner.

Lets Ho Ho Hope all the new business owners can fit in a few pressies around their busy Xmas schedules.

http://thesaurus.com/browse/push

As much as it is nice to think you have the strength and ability to stand alone – sometimes you need an external force to get the momentum needed to lift a business off the ground. Like a weight lifter that can lift heavier weights with a trainer by their side or a runner that can run faster with a coach – I have found that it works the same way with a business. An athlete may have it in them to go the distance but they need the direction, the vision and the energy from someone else – someone with experience – to get them to that next level.

My driving force came in the form of a 6 ft 7 business giant who set me short and long distance goals, got me doing the right kind of business training and had a great vision to share with me. After every session with him I feel revitalised, focused and more driven than ever before. I know where I need to be and what I need to do to get there.

Your business coach can be in the form of a mentor, investor or friend but they need experience to be able to set you the right goals, passion about your concept and have a similar vision to you.

With a driving force behind me I know this business could be a slam-dunk.

One of the biggest lessons I have learned this week is the benefit of having a critical time-line, of mapping your journey from back to front. If this is where I need to be in a year then what steps do I have to take to get there and therefore what do I need to do week by week.

Since sitting down and doing this I am so much more aware of my goals and of the steps I have to take to get there.

There is less risk of getting lost, of losing motivation and getting overwhelmed at what sometimes feels like an impossible task.

Of course there are always a few Mad Hatter tea parties that may distract you along the way or a Queen of Hearts that may force you to change your direction altogether if you want to keep your business head but on the whole a critical time-line will help keep you focused on what needs to be done.

What is curiouser and curiouser is that it didn’t occur to me to do this sooner when in fact this is something we do in life. Our goal is to go to Uni so we visit the career councilor, study the right subjects, apply for a degree.. etc. I think because starting a business is a unique goal, we cant follow the steps others have taken and therefore the pathway doesn’t seem as obvious. But when you sit back and look at the big picture, at your overall goal and important dates – the steps you need to take become much clearer.

I think if the King had been a business man he would have said “begin at the end, go on until you come to the beginning: then start.”

After a month of consideration, discussion and debate with myself, my focus groups and my mentors – I decided to make a major product change to GymBtween. This change would mean more time, more hard work and a revamped business plan – but would leave me with a much more unique and superior product line.

I had always been told that a business plan was a fluid document that was constantly changing – in fact I met an interesting business man at a conference last month who laminates his business plan and puts it on the wall in his office so that he can cross out and write changes as they happen. At the end of each month, he edits the plan, re-laminates and starts the process all over again.

As I sat down last week to my now, old and out of date business plan – I couldn’t help but feel frustrated. This was not a few changes to sections of the plan – but such a big change that it had a ripple effect throughout the entire document. I would have to start from scratch.

Why didn’t I make this decision to begin with? Why didn’t I see the signs sooner?

Without going through the previous process of developing, testing and documenting my old product ideas – I would never have realised the need to make changes: changes that are going to make my business bigger and better and much easier to market.

I have to admit, my business plan has also improved and been written clearer the second time around. Kind of like when you lose a uni assignment on your computer and have to rewrite it. It is frustrating at the time – but often you are left with a better product because you have had more time to think about it and understand the content.

Now, whenever I open that ‘GymBtween Business Plan’ document – I can’t help but feel an overwhelming sensation of Déjà Vu.

And I completely agree.

One of the biggest messages that came out of that conference  – a message that was pushed by all these smart, successful entrepreneurs and innovators – was that if you want to be happy in your career – you need to find your passion.

I think as students we often get caught up with what we are studying. If you are studying engineering or law – it is usually a pretty straight forward career path. However if you are studying business you are lucky enough to have many choices. As business students, we need to remember that we are learning skills and tools to make us successful at business – but it is up to us to be creative with those tools and apply them to something we love to do.

And yes – I know that’s not quite as easy as it sounds.

But when you start to think about it..

If everyone did what they were passionate about and loved to do, what a different world we would live in. Especially because we all see the world differently, we see different problems and holes and I like to think that if you see a hole in the world, it is your responsibility to fix it.

If you are doing something you are passionate about, you are almost always going to be successful. You are going to fight for it. You are going to be a little bit mad and totally driven..

“Chase down your passion like it’s the last bus of the night” (Terry Guillemets).

“cough cough”

Now, yes I have had a few of the common colds over the past year, but have not been this sick in a long-time and as I was floating in and out of consciousness in bed there was one very new feeling I experienced as a sick business owner – GUILT.

“cough cough”

Unlike over the past few years of the usual work and uni routine – when I was this sick I would jump on the phone and make a few calls – A friend to cover casual work shifts, a fill in for netball games and my lecturer for an extension on uni assignments. I would then enjoy my few days of much needed rest by sleeping, taking vitamins and watching some riveting day-time tv.

“ahhhh choooooooo” “cough cough”

This time however, there was no one I could call to cover shifts. Everyday I ‘rested’ was a day I lost on business development and a day when the work just piled up. I resorted to laptop in bed in which I hit off my most urgent emails, rescheduled appointments and tried to complete as much as I could before my energy levels were zapped.

“sniff, sniff”

I did as much as I could manage – but still felt guilty at all the things I should be doing and would be doing if I was healthy. And to top it off, I have rushed back into work without being fully recovered which will increase the probability of a relapse in a week or two.

“cough cough”

Having the responsibility of a business on your shoulders makes it hard to rest. But like anything, if you are not fit, healthy and able to put your all into something – it is never going to work as well as it can. The smart business owner looks after their health and wellbeing so that they are able to successfully look after the health and wellbeing of their business and employees. However, this is much easier said than done.

“ahhhhhhh chooooooooo!”

I think this is the plight of business owners and contractors and from now on, I will be eating an apple a day.

I find it so frustrating that our supposedly ‘best leaders in the country’, instead of inspiring us with great policies that are going to mean a bright future for our country, resort to short term manipulations of people and events to please the masses and ugly slander campaigns.

It made me think of the Australian Business Icon competition which I competed in last year. The environment of the Business Icon competition is very similar to an election campaign in which you compete in teams to win a challenge but are also monitored on an individual level.

I could not imagine any of these young, motivated, passionate contestants getting up in front of the judges, tearing into the other groups and wasting time telling the judges why the other groups and contestants should not go through. We were way too passionate and excited at our fresh, innovative ideas to be worried about anything like that.

What we need is our political leaders to take a leaf out of the Business Icon book – If you have great ideas/policies that you are passionate and excited about – and that you think are going to change our country for the better – then you should have no need to tear the other groups/parties down through negative debating and personal attacks.

In fact – I wonder if it has ever occurred to our leaders that maybe it would be better for the overall goal to take a more collaborative approach to politics and build on each other’s ideas…

This power struggle has to end.

The happy couple fell in love when they were very young, grew up together, and started their careers.

The woman went to university and won a business competition which inspired her to start a fitness business for kids. The man became a personal trainer who was qualified in kids fitness and offered to help his partner start up her business.

One day, the woman went to see a business prophet who was helping her on this treacherous journey to become a successful young entrepreneur. The prophet warned her to be careful about her relationship with the personal trainer and gave the business woman a magic bit of paper that would protect her and her business in case the personal trainer turned out to be a frog.

One year later, the business woman and the personal trainer decided that their fates were no longer intertwined and decided to pursue separate adventures. Although the personal trainer did not turn into a frog, it was very comforting for the business woman to have her magic bit of paper to ensure the personal trainer stayed true to his word.

And they both lived happily ever after.. separately.

What is the moral of this story? Make sure you go through the appropriate legal process for all your business relations (even if they are friends or family!). You never know what your future holds so it is best to cover your ass.

THE END

The problem with networking events is, like dating, you are forced to spend time and money finding and building relationships that you are not even sure are going to be valuable or successful in the long run. Cue: the concept of speed networking.

After debating the types of communication skills and business knowledge needed to be a good networker, a smart friend of mine filled me in on this eastern state phenomena called speed-networking. The idea is – like speed dating – you get a few minutes to engage in ‘mini-meetings’ with a number of different people. Business cards are exchanged and both parties lay out their business needs on the table. It is a cut-the-crap kind of networking that is a great concept in our time-poor society.

The only draw-back – I hope you make a good first impression.

I look at what my friends are doing now and earning now and a little part of me thinks that maybe that a more conventional direction would be a much easier choice – a much safer choice.

My problem now is that after having my eyes opened up to what is out there, to the entrepreneurial way of life, to the potential of being able to do anything and participate in interesting business ventures – I don’t think I would be able to go back to being happy in the cushy grad job.

I would crave the excitement, the adventure, the learning opportunities and maybe even the risk that drives you to achieve. Now I have my eyes opened up to world, there is no going back.

I am hoping that in the long run this career path will be more fulfilling and hopefully more profitable then the conventional career path. It will definitely be more exciting. But until then I think there will be many more days on this roller coaster ride when I question that decision I made months ago.. Ah ignorance is bliss.

To put it shortly – the workshop was fantastic! Unlike Accounting 1100, I did not feel like I was in a foreign land. All the concepts were explained simply and easily and then practically applied to fictional business scenarios, giving me the practical skills to apply them to my own business. The group of people that attended the workshop were a mix of external business owners and internal Westpac branch managers all of whom were lovely and took the time to make sure I was keeping up with them. I left at the end of the two days feeling like I was financially savvy enough to design and understand my business financials and that if I got stuck, I was able to contact the right people to give me a hand.

I have to admit, prior to the workshop, I was a little sceptical that a bank was teaching financial education. I thought that maybe it would be a way for them to pitch their loan options etc, however I want to stress to all you sceptics out there – the workshop was all about giving business owners the skills to make their business more financially successful and able to obtain more cash without needing to get into debt. It was fantastic to see a bank teaching business owners these methods that can ultimately save your business or to significantly increase your profits – without help!

My key learnings from this workshop:
1) You can have a profitable business that will fail if you do not have good cashflow.
2) Knowing your “Breakeven” point can be a fantastic tool for your business
3) In order to have a successful business it is important to have a working cycle that is moving quickly and smoothly
4) Reading and understanding profit and loss statements and balance statements and how you can identify areas that need change.

So for any business owners that are wanting to learn how to get the most out of your business finances or for any newbies like me that want to learn how to start a business and keep it running – I would really recommend this workshop.

If you are interested go to: http://www.westpac.com.au/business-banking/services/business-courses/beyond-survival-workshop/

On one side sits a young, single woman, still living at home. Her main risk in this venture is the money she has invested (which in the scheme of things is not very much) and many, many hours of her time. Unlike many entrepreneurs that choose this path later in life and often have houses, children, families, debt… – the amount of risk she is taking to start her business is low.

On the flip side sits a young, inexperienced women who has the drive and determination but lacks the business knowledge and skills of someone who has been in business for 5, 10, 15 years. She is forced to spend much of her time reading and researching on various topics and even then finds that she does not have the practical experience to make the best choice. She just has to learn as she goes.

The only way to somehow turn the fates in your favour as a Gen Y in the business world is to work bloody hard, find a group of wonderful mentors that can share their business knowledge and experience, and try and attend as many practical courses that are  relevant to your business as possible.

It is a hard slog.. but dont worry, you only have a light load of risk to carry on the way 

I started by racking my brain to try to dredge up any graphic design friends that I may have crossed paths with over the past few years – only to turn up empty. So where to from here? I needed a logo that would be designed quickly, well and cheaply. Impossible? Not quite!

99 designs is this fantastic, innovative website that brings businesses and graphic designers together from all over the world. The way it works in that you upload your design brief for whatever graphic design task you have eg: Logo for a tween fitness business  - and then you allocate prize money to your brief. Their database of designers then competes for your prize money – they upload logo designs that match your brief, you give them feedback and then they make the changes. What you end up with is a number of talented designers from all over the world working on your graphic design challenge, competing to win your prize money. At the end of the contest, 99 designs sorts out the exchange so that you pay the designer the prize money and in exchange receive the intellectual property. How cool is that!!

My logo was designed by a woman who lives in the Philippines, it cost me approx $300 US and I LOVE IT! I had the most fun designing the brief, waiting for designs to be uploaded and giving feedback until I got what I wanted. And the best thing is – if you don’t like anything you get a full refund! Tell me a graphic designer that will do that for you.

A few tips for anyone who decides to use 99 designs:

-          Make sure your brief is clear and exciting to read so that you attract more designers.

-          Don’t worry over the first few days – the best designs come in towards the end of your contest.

-          Keep in touch with your designer in case you need any other graphic design stuff done with a similar style.

-          If you have any questions, email the 99 designs team, they are lovely!

I apologise for the huge plug in this blog – but credit should be given where credit is due and my logo process was an affordable breeze thanks to this great site!

My constant analysing drives my boyfriend crazy when I am not able to make my mind up about what I want for dessert or god forbid which movie we will go and see – however I have found that it has come in quite handy when making business decisions. Being able to look at and analyse all my options when it comes to making critical decisions about the direction of my new business is something that I have found quite natural, like picking which new restaurant to go to, I am good at gathering adequate information, relevant research and expert opinions.  However, unlike these mundane everyday decisions, in my business, when it comes to crunch time, there is no one else but me to make that final choice. And like most business people will tell you, if you spend forever researching, you will never get anything done so at some time you have to say enough is enough and make the best decision you can based on what you know.

What is funny about business decisions is that you are not always qualified in every area to make them. I find myself constantly reading and researching so I can make a fairly informed choice about things that prior to this adventure I have never had to come across before! Blogging for example – yeah I have read them, but did you know there are millions of different blog layouts that you can have, each of them with different functions and tabs and styles – I certainly didn’t! Yet I have to be informed enough about them to make an adequate choice. I have found it quite bizarre, especially coming from a world of parents, university and employment, where I was often told what to do and how to do it, to move into this business world in which people are turning to me to make the final choice.

It is this weird mix of feeling: the buzz of power and excitement aswell as an underlying murmur of fear and responsibility.

But what would happen if I made the wrong decision? And who along their own business journey has done everything perfectly? Would my business adventure come to an end? Probably not, I would much more likely learn from the mistake, adapt my concept and keep moving forward. As a reader, you can bet your bottom dollar there will be a number of bad choice blogs along the way and I am hoping that although maybe a challenge and frustration for me, they will be the most entertaining and valuable reading for you – so please enjoy!

My first mind, and this probably comes from the EEO policies that have been drilled into me from HR lecturers, thinks that when it comes to a role, business, position, how well you know the person shouldn’t be part of the criteria and in fact can cloud your judgement when picking the most ideal candidate. My other mind, thinks that if that’s the way the world works – and it seemingly does, then people should suck it up and use it to their advantage. Don’t whinge about your friend getting the job over you because they know the manager – go and meet the manager yourself!

I think that it is important to spend time, not only on studying or developing a fantastic business plan but on networking and meeting the people that you know are going to be helpful, interesting or valuable to know in the long run. I think, from what I have seen so far, that building relationships is one of the best skills an entrepreneur can develop in order to ensure the success of their business. Build relationships with people more experienced then you, listen to them, learn from them and use their knowledge to build your business. There is no point making the same mistakes as others if you can avoid it – so save yourself time and money and talk to people. You will find that if you have the courage to put yourself out there, attend the scary networking events and ask people questions, they will often be happy to talk to you and give you some advice. It can even be fun!!

One of the biggest advantages I have as an entrepre-amateur is a fantastic group of contacts and this is mainly due to WA Business Icon which has connected me with not only a wonderful group of intelligent, passionate students but also some prestigious business leaders and experienced entrepreneurs. I have been amazed as a young entrepreneur, the amount of time and effort people will put into helping me in all business areas – finance, franchising, planning etc. I cannot express enough the gratitude I have towards all the people who have shared a few words of wisdom or taken the time to show me the ropes in their main fields of knowledge – It is because of them that I not only have the courage to develop GymBtween, but why so far, the road has been so smooth.

To the other entrepre-amateurs reading this blog, my advice is this. Be confident, have the courage to ask questions and don’t be deterred by a knockback. I think many of us Gen Ys are used to hiding behind our technology – we text instead of call, we email instead of meet – Put down the phone, close the laptop and get out there and work the room!

You often hear of entrepreneurs who have fluked their way through the planning process – who have gotten so caught up in the passion of their idea that they have forgotten to sit down and plan – and a few of them have still been successful, so why is planning so important?

If you go to any business workshops or listen to anyone that has successfully started a business they will stress to you the importance of having a business plan – of knowing where you want to be and the steps you want/need to take to get there. This was one of the first major things I began to do after protecting my intellectual property – and I found it to be an interesting process.

For someone who is very new at this, who has not yet even got a program put together, any staff under their belt, or any income, it is very interesting, exciting and a little bit overwhelming to think about where you want to be in 1 year, 5 years, 10 years and consequently the large amount of time, work, sweat and tears that you will have to put in to get there. This is especially difficult when your idea is constantly evolving. I have found this process to be such a huge role in dictating my short term decisions that I wonder whether if those ‘lucky entrepreneurs’  would have sacrificed a day to sit down and plan whether it would have made them more successful or at least saved them a day or two of business heartache down the road.

I have found the planning process of my ever changing concept to be not so much a solid step by step guide but a vision of my end goal which makes it much easier to know whether you are moving closer or further away from where you want to be. I think it is very easy to get off track, to get distracted or lost when starting a business and having a business plan is like your shining star which you need to follow.

I am thinking that this is the never ending task of a business owner!

Tracey (AELC) – my business GPS (among other things) got me moving on the right track. Although each business is unique and you are ultimately mapping out a new pathway that has not yet been fully explored before – there are still a number of common steps that every entrepreneur must take.

As explained to me by Tracey – The first of these is to protect your intellectual property. For anyone with a new idea or business it is important that your first step is to protect yourself. This means trade-marking any business names, logos etc that you have developed. In Australia, http://www.ipaustralia.gov.au/trademarks/index.shtml is a good place to start. You may also need to look into patenting your product or service if it is completely unique. Your second big step is to register your business name – during this process you are able to run a search to make sure that your business name is one of a kind.

Step three is to purchase and register your domain names. For those who are business-rookies – like me – a domain name is a website address, for example, my website  www.gymbtween.com.au .

It is essential, in these techo-times to have a website that is easily accessible by your customers. What is important to understand about these addresses is that they can be pointed to which ever site you like. For example, I can have gymbtween.com, gymbtween.com.au, gymbetween.com  etc all pointed to the one same website so that no matter what derivative of my business name (whether it is spelled correctly or incorrectly) or whichever end used such as .com, .com.au, .org – my customers are still directed to my one main website and competitors cannot purchase similar names and profit from customers that are looking for me. A business hint to help you get into pole position: when purchasing domain names don’t just purchase the one address, but all available addresses that are associated with your business name. There are a number of different sites through which you can search for, purchase and register your domain names.

Once you have an address you need to have the online real-estate to assign it to. You will usually have to rent online space for a certain amount per month depending on your needs. This is called hosting and is again something that I had never heard of prior to my business adventure.

One of the pearls of wisdom I have collected along the road to a hopefully successful business is that it is important to have a strong, sturdy base to build your business on. If you ignore or skip steps at the beginning it is going to be a big problem for you as you grow – and we all want to grow. Like a racing car with faulty parts, although it may have saved you money when you originally purchased it, it is going to cost you more time and money to repair those parts in the long run and this will let your competitors catch up to you.

As an entrepre-amateur, one of the hardest things I have found so far is to rap my head around is the idea of starting something where you are not really sure where it is going to end up. Whether it is my often compulsive need to plan or if this is something that scares most people starting a business I don’t know. What I do know is if I start this race strong, follow the guidelines and don’t cut corners I will be much more likely to have a smoother journey and reach my desired destination – whatever that may be – in record time.

As an entrepre-amateur I often wonder how does anyone become an entrepreneur? Starting your own business is not really a career path that is pushed by schools, unis or parents. Entrepreneur is not in any job guide or on any career site. You cannot take entrepreneur 101 at uni or TAFE – in fact these institutions make you ready to move into already established organisations, not teach you how to start your own.

When I tell people that I am starting my own business, I am met with expressions of surprise. So what qualifications do you need to become an entrepreneur? You need an idea, a concept that is unique and sellable. You need to find a hole in a market and then have the determination and drive to develop a product or service that fills that hole. This combination of creativity, business savvy and determination to see it through is rarely found in one person – yet it is the key to entrepreneurial success.

I have always had the determination and drive, I would learn the business savvy along the way, and about 6 months ago I was challenged to come up with an idea – and this is how:

As you look back on your life, there are a number of defining moments – choices that you made that have resulted in you ending up where you are today. Sometimes you know that they are big choices – you spend time and effort researching and agonising over them, other times they are a snap decision that results in something extraordinary – the beginning of an adventure.

My snap decision was to fill in an application for the WA Business Icon 2009 competition. A very wise tutor at my uni had told me about the competition a few weeks before and I thought this would be a great thing to put on my resume to give me an edge when moving into industry. The competition as I knew it was a WA version of ‘The Apprentice’ in which contestants competed on tasks and got eliminated after each round. There were a number of industry leaders that were involved in the competition including Rick Hart and Richard Goyder (CEO Wesfarmers) and all contestants were invited to attend networking events in which many prominent WA business leaders were available to network with. I thought this would be a fantastic opportunity to make some contacts in industry for when I graduated in 2010 so I was hanging out by the phone hoping that I would get the chance to have an interview.

I was called a few days later and asked to attend an interview at the AELC offices in Midland and a week later received a phone call asking me to be one of the 32 contestants in 2009.

Getting results on the phone during an early round of the WA Business Icon competition at CCI

On day 1 of the competition, 31 other contestants and I turned up at the Chamber of Commerce and Industry Western Australia. We were excited, nervous and keen to start the roller coaster ride called Business Icon 2009.

Over the next week, we were trialled and tested in a number of real life business scenarios. In one week, my team members and I created a viral marketing campaign for a new business, raised over $2,000 for two wonderful not-for profit organisations and created a climate change program for the City of Swan. These were current business challenges that many of our young minds had not even considered before – you should have seen the energy and creativity that arose from a group of intelligent young people that put their fresh point of view to a modern day issue.  After each challenge, one group won which meant that all participants went through to the next round, and from the other groups, people were judged on their individual input. Individual input was judged by the moderators who were our ‘flys on the wall’ – they followed us around and recorded the input and activities of all team members.

It was interesting to have a group of people in a room, all of whom were used to being leaders, trying to reach a common goal. I imagine it is a small scale version of world leader meetings when everyone, although with a common goal – such as climate change, is also trying to fight for their own interests – that of their country. If anything is ever going to get done, you are forced to compromise, to give and to take, to push in your areas of strength and to let others push in your areas of weakness. For future competitors here is a bit of hindsite advice: you have a better chance of getting through the rounds if you have a cohesive team that works productively.

Wearing Angel Wings, fundraising during the competition with other competitors

On the Friday night, after our climate change challenge which was done in a group of three, we attended a networking event. For any future contestants – this night and the final dinner is the real prize. Whether you were eliminated in the first round or survive through to the final four, you are still invited to attend both events. Make sure you do some research, know who is there and who you want to talk to and make the most of this amazing opportunity to mingle with some of your state’s biggest business leaders and HR managers.

At the networking event we got to mingle with the judges and people from industry in a social environment. You could feel the nervous energy in the air because it was during the networking event that they announced the final four. By the end of the week, after pushing through 15, 16 hour days, I remember feeling absolutely exhausted. Finally, the judges had made their decision and Rick Hart, the gentle giant, whipped out his bit of paper to put us out of our misery.  This was a big cut – down from 12 to 4.

You could cut the tension with a knife as Rick called out the finalists. I could hardly believe it when my name was called! As the news sunk in the adrenaline starting pumping and I felt ready to tackle our final challenge.

Our final challenge was to create a product or service for the new ‘tween’ market which includes 8 – 12 year olds. They are a difficult target market in that they want to be seen as being older and more sophisticated, but in reality they are still children – so the challenge is finding a product that appeals to the ‘wanna-be’ grownup tween and the parents who see their kids for the age they are. This product or service also had to be ethically and morally sound which was a challenge in a target market that wants to be grown up and is being pitched products such as push-up bras and facials.

We had to come up with our product or service, create a business plan and pitch the idea to our 8 judges who were acting as venture capitalists – oh, and in front of a 300 strong audience. Piece of cake! Not! We were given the outline on Friday night and had to pitch it at 12pm on Monday – essentially we had 48 hours to come up with a concept and an entire business plan.  The pitch had to go for 5 minutes, followed by 8 minutes of questions from 8 prominent judges.

As a student, I never contemplated how many decisions and areas need to be considered when starting a business. Start with the concept – that you think is fairly simple – and then think about management, human resources, marketing, finance, target market, insurance, business models and the list goes on and on. We had to consider all these areas in 48 hours and try to plug the holes in our concept so that we didn’t fall apart in our 8 minutes of question time.

My concept was an active program for tweens that involved some young fit healthy rolemodels coming in to teach movement to music choreographed classes.

On the day, I have never been so nervous. My heart was jumping out of my chest. I was as prepared as you could be for 48 hours, I had finished my presentation at 8pm the night before, spent a few hours rehearsing, got a really good night’s sleep, got up early and continued rehearsing until it was time to go. When we got to the event, names were drawn out of a hat to determine the order we would go in. I was up first. In hindsite, this was probably a good position to be in – I was able to get it out of the way, I was the first up so I had the audience’s attention and I was able to watch all the contestants after my presentation.

I felt like my presentation went well! After feeling a bit shaky at the beginning I found my feet and cruised through the presentation that I had rehearsed over and over. Then came the tricky bit, the 8 minutes of unprepared questions.  Again, the first question was a bit shaky, but I just slowed down and thought about all the research I had done. The rest of the questions were like a blur, I could hardly remember a word I had said up on stage, but as I sat down, I felt happy and confident and so proud that I had gotten up there in front of all those people and held my own.

With judges, including Richard Goyder and Ric Hart, at the final of WA Business Icon 2009

By the end of the presentations, It didn’t matter to me if I had won the competition, I was so happy with how far I had come, but as it turned out, I did win – and it felt amazing to have all my hard work recognised. I remember thinking that Business Icon was the most amazing experience and it had come to an end. Little did I know it was only the beginning!

Since the competition I have had an amazing few months. I wake up every morning and I pinch myself because I can’t believe the kind of opportunities that are presenting themselves to me. I have received emails from many wonderful, interesting people congratulating me on my achievement. Every time my phone rings with an unknown number, I hold my breath because I don’t know who is going to be on the other end of that line. I have been in the paper and I was a guest speaker at the Melbourne Business Icon final event.  I have attended a number of networking events and met some amazing people.

But the most amazing thing to come out of the competition is a new path – An opportunity to make my idea a reality – an opportunity to start GymBtween.  This was an opportunity too good to pass up. I am now being incubated out of the AELC offices and have access to an amazing office full of business resources in both books and friends. I have a number of different mentors who are there to advise me in a number of different areas – finance, IT, franchising, you name it. I have an amazing, successful, business savvy woman who gives up her very valuable time to listen to me, teach me and give me more and more things to think about. I have an amazing support network of family and friends. Without these things – this journey would be a much harder and lonelier road. So with this blog I hope to share them. I hope to be a guide for those who are taking the same journey –  share my experiences, learn from my mistakes and don’t be afraid to break the mould and take on your own adventure.

Video of my GymBtween presentation at the 2009 WA Business Icon Final.