“I didn’t take a salary for three years”: Four women share the reality of funding their successful businesses

When it comes to bringing a business to life, many founders will say that one of the biggest hurdles to overcome is finding a way to finance their dream.

In a recent panel event, Building Brave Businesses: Female Founders On Funding, Failure and Finding Success, hosted by Kochie’s Business Builders in partnership with Dell Women’s Entrepreneur Network (DWEN), four successful female founders and DWEN members shared their different pathways to funding their businesses.

Panellists Jax Garrett, founder and CEO of GGWP Academy; Cherie Johnson, founder and managing director of Speaking in Colour; and Gabrielle Magin, co-founder of Imaginelle Formulations and Love Beauty Foods spoke with host Jo Burston, founder of Inspiring Rare Birds and Dell Technologies Ambassador, about finding funding, how they define success, and why each decided to take the plunge.

Funding their dream businesses

From bootstrapping and personal loans, to foregoing a salary altogether and moving into mum’s basement, the panellists each had a particular way of going about their business setup.

When recalling her experience of finding the right business investors, Jax Garrett says she went into it like “a bull in a china shop”.

“I wasn’t ready for it. And I was just going and pitching them,” she recounts. “And so, it was a lot of trial and error in those early, six to 12 months”.

Jax’s booming business, GGWP Academy, is an e-learning and Influencer marketplace platform for gamers worldwide. Inspired by her nine-year-old son’s own fast-growing career in the gaming industry, she recognised a gap in the market. In an industry ‘bigger than Hollywood’, she saw an opportunity to introduce  some  structure into the industry, creating a secure market for content creators to represent brands.

“The kind of business that we’re building was going to be very capital intensive and we needed to build a lot of technology before we could start charging any money.” Jax said. “So, we needed that upfront investment.”

Cherie’s entrepreneurial journey began a little differently, initially relying on bootstrapping rather than investors. Investing as much as she could straight  back into the business, the early years of Speaking in Colour took a great financial toll.

“I just didn’t take a salary for three years, which is a huge cost when you have kids,”  she explained.

For Gabrielle, currently in the middle of her second maternity leave, she accredits the philosophy of her business and their focus on sustainability to attracting the right partners. Her cosmetic formulations and manufacturing company, Imaginelle, helps brands create on-trend products with a conscience.

She and husband Will started their first business, Love Beauty Foods, while mixing superfood blends in a flat above Will’s mum’s restaurant in Newcastle.

“We had about $15,000 in savings,” Gabrielle shares. “We got together a little range and thought to ourselves, yeah, let’s make a go of it. We were lucky to get introduced to a customer who had a lot of exporting going on. They were happy with the range and it gave us a good confidence boost to kick off that business.

“But the $15,000 – a lot of it went into packaging and branding design. We didn’t have a lot of working capital. So we did have to take out a couple of personal loans to help fund orders. From there, our profits just got reinvested back into the business, which has helped it move along.”

Nearly six years later, Love Beauty Foods is stocked in more than 150 online stores and across international retailers like Urban Outfitters and TK Maxx.

Watch Building Brave Businesses:

Taking the plunge into the ice bath

Conscious not to sugar-coat the entrepreneurial journey, Cherie shared some frank words of wisdom: “If people want to have a go, the only way you’re going to learn entrepreneurship and tenacity and being brave and resilient is to plunge in an ice bath and get uncomfortable,” the founder said.

Cherie credited the success she has found in business and beyond, to the fact that sometimes that icy bath got hot.

“In the early days, I still had one foot in the academic world and one foot in the business world, then I took the plunge, cut it all off, and closed the door,” she explained. “I’m a sole founder, sole director, single mum. So, it’s like, oh my gosh, being brave is actually a choice in the lifestyle.”

The bravest moment of all

So how do you bravely jump into an ice bath? Each panellist shared a pivotal moment in their business evolution. While the importance of a strong support network was acknowledged, self-confidence was found to be the catalyst for their entrepreneurial drive.

For Gabrielle, she recalled the bravery and confidence needed to ignore the trepidation of her family. Cautious of the financial risks involved, they initially discouraged her business ventures.

“For me, it was actually the transition from having a stable income to just starting my first business,” she recounted. “That was a huge, huge leap for me because I didn’t come from a family that had any entrepreneurs or had any sort of business background.”

The panellists urged aspiring female founders to stay open to development. As their businesses grew, the necessity for outsourcing and adaptability of processes became apparent. Through experience, each entrepreneur recognised their personal and professional limits within their businesses, something they agreed was equally as important as identifying the strengths they each brought to the table.

“I think it’s about seeing the transferability from each one of those roles,” suggested Jax, referencing her diverse professional experience. “ It doesn’t matter that I’m in gaming now or I’m in the CEO role now, it’s more to the point that I’ve taken a little bit of sales knowledge here, a little bit of marketing knowledge there, a little bit of everything from everywhere to make that work.”

Like the rest of the world, Cherie, Jax and Gabrielle were confronted with unforeseen roadblocks when COVID hit. Luckily, the quick-thinking entrepreneurs each adapted their business models and procedures, taking advantage of the global shift to online activity. 

“That’s the true spirit of an entrepreneur; when everything’s turning upside down and inside out and you go, oh, there’s an opportunity,” host Jo Burston explained. A keen advocate for the development of female entrepreneurs, she spoke to the benefits of taking advantage of the unexpected.

“Rewards that come are equally as exciting as some of the challenges and some of the pitfalls.” 

For more than a decade, DWEN has brought women entrepreneurs together from around the world to help them connect with each other, scale their businesses, and ultimately succeed. Join DWEN today for free access to a global network of women entrepreneurs and valuable resources to grow your business.

Want to be at our next Kochie’s Business Business and DWEN event for female founders? Find out more here.

This article is brought to you by Kochie’s Business Builders in partnership with DWEN.