It was 2012 when I had the vision for Tech Ready Women. I was working from home and my problem was I had an idea for a startup but had no experience and no one around me who had been on this journey before me. At first, I attended countless meetups, however, I was the only woman in the room almost all of the time which made me feel isolated and without like-minded women to share my journey with.

I remember thinking, there needs to be a central place where women can go to learn how to build a tech startup, it needed to have the opportunity to meet like-minded female entrepreneurs, have a community of mentors who had achieved success in their own business and who could share lessons learned and this community also needed to provide help without having women give away equity.

Looking back on the last 12 months since launching Tech Ready Women’s first Accelerator Program in June 2017, I still pinch myself that it was merely my vision 7 years ago and it is now a reality. My team and I have had in excess of 500 women attend our programs and events where they’ve come to learn how to validate an idea, prototype, test, iterate and build their Minimum Viable Product (MVP), understand the process of software development, and get mentored by 50+ of the top tech entrepreneurs and startup experts in Sydney such as:

Fiona Anson, Co-founder, JobGetter

Taryn Williams, Founder, TheRight.fit

Lauren Silvers, Co-founder, Glamazon

David Bolton, Head of Engineering, Woolies X

David Kenney, Partner, Hall Chadwick

Albert Mai, Growth at Glamcorner + many more..

We also shared the win for Accelerator of the year, have partnered with Marie Claire magazine on a 2 day startup masterclass event with over 19 speakers, were successful in receiving a grant by the City of Sydney and have been featured in over 30+ press publications to date. The success of the Program has been everything I imagined and more.

I am lucky because everyday I get to witness women gain the confidence and skills to launch their ideas. I watch these determined women work hard towards achieving their dreams and building a business that will not only transform their lives, but also the lives of those around them - be it financially, relationship-wise, family-wise or in the community.

I'm also thankful for the continued support we receive from our Program mentors and partners: EY, Amazon Web Services, Github, Legal Vision, Tank Stream Labs and iKeep, who provide startup advice and savings for our female founders. Without our team, the mentors and partners, it would not be possible to provide the quality of service we aim for everyday and ensure we see more women thrive in the tech space.

I’ve had many proud moments, one of the most memorable was when I was interviewed on ABC News with our alumni from the first Program, Blaise McCann. ABC News asked Blaise what her experience starting a startup had been for her and she replied… “I’ve been so lucky, because I haven’t had to go through the same challenges Christie had to”. You can view the clip here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w3ng73jJwkc&t=98s

Like everything in life, the business has faced its challenges. After all, we’re a startup ourselves and we continue to learn and grow everyday. As an entrepreneur, I am constantly learning, and what I have learnt over the years is you can't teach someone passion for something. In order to succeed on your own path, you need to be committed to your own personal and professional growth in order to help you get to the next step in the journey.

Right now I'm listening to; “Grit - The Power of Passion and Perseverance” by Angela Duckworth on Audible. I recommend for those wanting to learn more about entrepreneurial mindset, they should check it out!

I’m also not the perfect boss! I am always thinking 5 steps ahead of where we are and that can sometimes put pressure on the team who are always trying to keep up with the next part of the plan, even though we are already at capacity! I do take my hat off to them though for keeping me in check and on the tasks at hand.

That being said, there is no time to rest at the pace we are growing. I have a global vision for Tech Ready Women - our end goal is to provide full circle support to the female founder community by investing our profits into a fund to support women-led startups.

So what’s next for Tech Ready Women?

We currently have registrations open for the Accelerator program, and soon will be officially launching our Online Academy (TRW Academy) for women who want to create, build and grow a startup.

If you are interested in learning more about anything I’ve wrote about. Drop me a line at [email protected]

Christie 

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