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Five years ago I was working full time in the public service, bored to snores with my job and feeling exasperated by the likelihood that this would be my ‘career’. In a desperate attempt to do something different I started helping out a work colleague with a side business she was developing in organic skin care. It didn’t take long before I was swept up in the energy and potential of a start-up. I felt like I had finally found something that I was just so passionate about and ticked all my boxes - and it wasn’t organic skin care – it was the challenge of running a small business.

Ever since that short experience I have continued on in my public service ‘career’ to pay the mortgage but I have almost been living with this unsated appetite to start up my own business. Concepts and opportunities have been constantly running through my mind, in a desperate search for that one idea that had enough potential to develop into a genuine business. I feel like I have been on this entrepreneurial hunt for the last five years, driven by re-creating that rush of blood feeling that comes with the prospect of creating and building something special.

After years of working in offices, I had started to notice how and what people snack on at their desks; big jars of pistachios, bulk bags of dried apricots, muesli bars and chocolate of course. My own snacking habits started to form in my mind as I would get to mid morning/late afternoon at my computer and be looking for just something small to keep me going, that wasn’t going to crumb all over my clothes, and made me feel like I was still making a nutritiously sound choice. So the more I looked around I noticed that the cafes and coffee nooks where all the city workers flock to throughout the day did not offer any type of convenient, nutritious or stylish snack product like the ones that were evolving in my mind.

And so it finally happened and I had found my seedling of an idea, and now I am ready to grow it under the watchful eye of the BC network. It is fair to say that I am equally scared senseless and giggly with excitement.

I realise that writing a business plan, building networks, understanding finances, navigating through beauracracy and overcoming personal fear are just a few of the critical pieces to the giant puzzle that I must endure and overcome if I am to get this business up and running. But my motivation outweighs my hesitancy.

So as I embark on this thrilling journey, I have decided to share every bump and twist in the road with the BC members to hopefully remind them of the same unchartered waters they have already successfully navigated through. But I am also hoping to glean any experience and know-how through helpful advice which will hopefully make my journey a little bit easier.

Whilst this column is an opportunity for me to write about my ‘real time’ experiences, I am completely aware of the potential for this venture to fail, in what is now a very public forum. But it might also be the chance to avoid failure through the support of a very powerful group of women who can point me in the right direction. 

Stay tuned.

Danielle is a Premium member of Business Chicks, request her online business card and connect with her here.