and you hear more about strategies,
lessons learnt and holding one's
nerve than about glass ceilings.
but, in common with every courageous
entrepreneur, there have been nervous times.
gift retailer for experiences in Australia and
New Zealand, RedBalloon Days. "At one stage,
our revenue was a couple of thousand dollars
a month, at the most, so profit was in the
negative. I decided to do a massive trade show,
which cost $15,000. It was almost a make or
break decision. As it happened, we returned
half a million dollars worth of business out of
that over two years."
something, you have to be bigger than you
know yourself to be," she says. "I worked at
Apple as a marketing manager a long time
ago Steve Jobs [Apple co-founder and CEO]
always said, 'We look bigger than we actually
are'. You create the size of the organisation
that you want to be and build into that. We're
a big business in a small, agile body."
Pete, an accountant, and their two children,
Natalia, now 12, and Oscar, 10. A couple of
years later, there were nine people working
in the front room, before a move around the
corner to a larger terrace house "which we
thought would last for ever". Fifteen months
later, "we were 23 people and bursting".
push it through. Neither crushing workloads,
early business uncertainty or the demands
of two small children dissuaded Naomi
from following her dream. After 15 years
in corporate life specialising in marketing,
she wanted flexibility. "I wanted to start a
business from home that I could work on in
the evenings," she says.
track this year for a turnover of $25 million.
In her blog, she says that in 2007 an estimated
65 per cent of Australians received an
unwanted Christmas gift, costing givers
$985 million. She's out to give people more
lasting value. "I know that if people get given
fabulous gifts they feel great. And when people
feel great they do amazing things."
the lessons are really hard to take, but they
all add to your ultimate purpose. People are
naive to think it's all been a good time it
hasn't. It's been really hard work. And there
are lessons in that hard work. It's your ability
to just get on and keep doing stuff that makes
the difference, rather than just wanting to roll
over and play dead."
burst onto the scene as the newsreader on
Steve Vizard's Tonight Live, Jennifer has been
prominent in the public eye as a newsreader
and presenter on channels Nine and Seven.
She now fronts Seven Melbourne's weekend
news service.
position of trust and I never underestimate
the position," she says. "Providing news is,