Every list of women who built something from very little begins the same way. A famous name, a small sum of money, a very big result. Those stories are true, and they’re worth knowing. But they’re also the ones everyone tells.
So here they are, briefly. And then we’ll head somewhere a bit less crowded.
The famous ones, and what they really show
Sue Ismiel (Nad’s). She was a medical records officer and a mum when she started in 1991. She used a $5,000 long service leave payout and made hair removal wax from honey and sugar in her kitchen. By her own account she had no selling skills, so she began by demonstrating it at local markets. Nad’s is now sold around the world. What it shows: a small, specific problem, and a very small first step.
Mary Kay Ash. She was 45 when she started Mary Kay Cosmetics in 1963, with about US$5,000, after a long career in sales. What it shows: a second chapter can begin well after the point most people think it’s too late.
Sara Blakely (Spanx). She started with US$5,000 in savings from selling fax machines. She had never taken a business class and had no background in fashion or retail, and manufacturers turned down her first pitch. Fortune reports she never took outside investors and sold the company in 2021 for US$1.2 billion. What it shows: you can begin with a problem you personally have.
Lorna Jane Clarkson. A Brisbane aerobics instructor who couldn’t find workout clothes she liked and started making her own. Her students asked for some too, and the first Lorna Jane store opened in 1990. What it shows: start with the people already asking.
Vera Wang. She was 39 and couldn’t find the wedding dress she wanted, and she has said she thought it was too late to start a business. She launched at 40, but she’d also spent 17 years at Vogue, so this one is about age, not about starting from nothing.
There are other stories
Here’s the thing about the really humble beginnings: they’re rarely documented. Nobody writes a magazine feature about the woman who sold ten things last month. But we went looking, and found these.
Diane Hurford: three years before she paid herself
Diane Hurford’s business, Brolly Sheets, grew out of a purple cotton bed protector she sewed at her kitchen table in New Zealand. Once her youngest child started school she had something new: a working day of school hours. A business mentor pushed her on pricing and where to make her product, because at cost it would have stayed a hobby. It took about three years before she paid herself a wage. Twenty years later, the business is still going and still growing.
The lesson here is patience. A slow start isn’t a failure. It’s often just how real businesses begin.
Natalie May: when the shop closed
Natalie May spent thirteen years working at a scrapbooking store in Adelaide. When the store closed, she decided to keep doing what she loved on her own terms. Her husband built her a studio in the backyard, and she launched an online store. In 2020 her orders went from 20 a month to 700 within ten months, and she says the rapid growth almost became her downfall. She found a mentor and a community of other business owners, and that changed how she ran things.
The lesson: losing a job can be the push you didn’t know you were waiting for, and asking for help isn’t weakness.
Susan Toft: a spare room full of laundry
Susan Toft was a corporate professional with a toddler and a spare room buried under laundry when she hit on an idea: she would wash other people’s clothes. Her Queensland-based company, The Laundry Lady, now has nearly 500 contractors across Australia, New Zealand and Canada, and she’s appeared on Shark Tank.
The lesson: the idea in front of you, the one that feels too ordinary to count, may be exactly the one that works.
Bambi Price: quitting at 50
Bambi Price loved the early years of her corporate tech career, but eventually the thought of yet another work trip made her stomach knot. At 50 she quit and went out on her own, starting a technology company in the aged-care industry. Ten years and several companies later, she’s launching a venture to help people over 45 overcome barriers to finding work, changing careers or starting a business. She’s open about the fact that her long career and network were her biggest assets, so her story isn’t one of starting from nothing. It’s a second chapter built on everything she already knew.
One more thing: you don’t have to do it alone
Global Sisters is an Australian not-for-profit that helps women start micro businesses, including women over 50, migrants and women with disabilities. It offers coaching, short courses, a marketplace and micro loans, and it has supported thousands of women. If you’re ready to start, it’s well worth a look.
What they have in common
They started small. A kitchen pot, a sewing machine, a spare room, a backyard studio.
They started with something they knew. A problem they’d lived with, a skill they’d built over years.
They asked for help. Mentors, communities and people who believed in them show up in almost every story.
It took time. Three years to a first wage isn’t unusual. It’s normal.
They kept going when it wasn’t working yet.
These are the stories that got written down, which means they’re the ones that worked. Plenty of small businesses stay small, and many women start something and then stop. That doesn’t make starting a mistake, it means it’s worth going in with your eyes open, a little money set aside, and your income intact while you build. Of course, there’s more daring ways — and sometime you just need to run with it, because that’s what life throws you.
Your turn: start somewhere
You don’t need $5,000, a business plan or a perfect idea. You need a place to begin. That’s where Sholo comes in. An app designed for this moment!
Sholo is an AI co-founder for solos, built to run wild with you. Part dream catcher, part mentor, part nerd. It’s best for exactly this stage, when you’re playing with ideas and nothing is built yet. Dream is a blank canvas for the what-ifs. Mentor helps you find the one next step. Nerd talks through the numbers, in plain language. It gives honest, kind feedback, never asks how much money you have or how many hours you’ve got, and gives you an Inspo board, lists, goals, wins and a milestone timeline to keep it all in one place.
It comes with 300 messages a month, about ten a day. You can try Sholo free for 30 days, and after that the plan is A$24.99 a month through the App Store. Sholo is an AI. It can’t promise a result for your business, and it isn’t a lawyer, accountant or financial adviser.
Tell us yours
The most inspiring stories are often the ones nobody has written yet. If you started something small, from a kitchen table, a spare room or a single idea, we’d love to hear about it. Send us a few lines at hello@getsholo.com.
Try Sholo free for 30 days at getsholo.com.
Sholo is an AI co-founder. It isn’t a lawyer, accountant, financial adviser or health professional, and it can’t promise any outcome for your business. See the Terms of Service and Privacy Policy for the full details. The stories above are drawn from published interviews and news coverage; details may have changed.
