New Kids on the Block: Lake Macquarie & Melbourne

Starting out in business is never easy (at least we’re yet to hear from someone who says it was) so New Kids on the Block is a SNOBS’ initiative to help start-ups, started by women, that are still less than one-year old.
For those of you already in business, think of it as a heads-up on the newcomers who just might be looking to carve themselves a cosy position in your industry.

The Lady in Charge: Penny Cantle
Business name: Zenana Women
Location: Lake Macquarie NSW
Launched: June 2008
Website: www.zenanawomen.com.au

Hit us with your elevator pitch:
Zenana Women is a clothing label designed in Australia for Australian women, and to Australian expectations of quality, but featuring beautiful hand-done embroidery from India. Our clothes are made by our sister organisation in India, which exists to help poor women lift themselves out of poverty. It’s a business run by women for women.

What drove you to go it alone?
Take two years exposed to India’s poverty, exquisite embroidery by exploited women, seriously poor quality Indian clothes, and realising that India – with the world’s highest number of HIV/AIDS cases – was twenty years behind Australia in social responses to the virus.
The connecting concept was obvious. Offer poor women, particularly those affected by HIV/AIDS, the dignity of fairly-paid employment manufacturing high quality clothes featuring embroidery. Export the clothes to Australia, where quality and beauty and social justice are highly valued. I couldn’t walk away.

What’s the most difficult, and the most rewarding aspect of running your own business?
It’s been tough wearing so many hats in both the Indian and Australian businesses; covering every step from registering the Indian company (which took almost a year!), through decision-making on all the details of design and production. But the toughest thing of all has been finding the market in Australia, which will be what makes or breaks us.
It has been wonderful to impose my ethics on hierarchical India, and watch a happy and effective little team develop there.

The Lady in Charge: Marigo Raftopoulos
Business name: StrategicGamesLab
Location: Melbourne
Launched: November 2008
Website: www.strategicgameslab.com

Hit us with your elevator pitch:
The StrategicGamesLab develops on-line games-based solutions to help organisations with strategy development and staff or stakeholder training and development. Most traditional business planning and staff training exercises are becoming less and less effective as they’re failing to engage people. Games-based learning emphasises fun, engagement and learning all in one.

What drove you to go it alone?
To see if I can:
I’ve been working in business consulting services for a long time. I wanted to see if I could practice what I was preaching.
To be scared:
This venture was outside my comfort zone and required the assembly and management of a diverse team (geographically and professionally).
To reinvent:
I was too comfortable where I was and I believe that business is moving into unchartered waters. To survive and prosper over the long term, I needed to reinvent today.

Fill in this sentence: If I had a dollar for every time someone said – how do you do it? – I wouldn’t need to be in business!
I never know how to answer this, so I usually say, I don’t think about it, I just do it.
No one asks a man that question. They think that just because I have children, I study and run my own businesses, that somehow I’m either obsessed or inhuman.
It’s all about having a tangible vision, setting goals and organising essential resources. Most of all, it’s about positive action: research and advice is great, but sometimes you need to take that leap of faith.

If you’d like to grab a little spotlight for your new business [and you're a woman, in business in Australia] send us an email, in relation to New Kids on the Block, and we’ll let you know if you’re eligible.