I just need $4 million dollars

I keep telling people I just need $4 million dollars and it's really not that much money. Not having $4 million is frustrating me because it is slowing down the pace in which I can work at. I want to be able to work faster to get the tools I've already developed into the hands of the people that need them.

But I know sweet FA about marketing and so I'm going at a snails pace, learning as I go.

Some people will look at $4 million and think that is a lot of money. They would be entirely correct.

But it is a drop in the ocean compared to the budgets I am used to managing. The first one, back 20 years ago when I was 19 years old, was $6 million. The Reserve Bank has a handy calculator that tells me it's $9,674,477.52 in today's money.

I'm used to playing with big numbers, I'm really good at that. I'm used to having a team of people to help me- skilled and knowledgeable people who understand things like marketing.

But I don't have $4 million. So, like most small businesses in this country, I do most of it myself.

I didn't set out to become en entrepreneur. It happened because everything else I tried - politics, public service, local government - was too slow for the pace of change I knew I could work at. I wanted to work quicker, so I jumped ship and decided to fend for myself.

It is quicker, even without the resources.

Without the resources I've been able to just get on and create the solutions I could see were possible without having the weight of bureaucracy slowing me down. I can use my intellect and my experience to design new ways of doing things that I know work. I know they work, because women with PhD's are working along side me - without a guaranteed pathway or regular salary - because they are using their intellect and experience to measure how successful our outcomes are.

We know we have solutions that work, but I have no idea how marketing works. So the solutions aren't getting out there very quickly.

Not because they aren't good solutions. Because we can't afford to speed up the process.

This is what women are telling me over and over and over again. They have businesses sitting, ready to grow, but they don't know how to market them to get the customers that they need. They also don't have the $33 co-payment needed to access the SA Government funded women in small business program to get the expertise about marketing they need to get the customers they need to get the money they need to grow.

It's not working.

So their intellect and experience slowly paces forward while more fortunate business owners who can afford the fees are able to move ahead more quickly. Their ideas aren't necessarily better - but their access to resources certainly is.

I don't feel that it is fair that in order to access SA Government programs for women in business you have to pass an affordability threshold. This isn't helping to make sure that our best and brightest can succeed. It is helping to make sure that those who can afford it get another leg up.

So I continue on, doing my evidence-based work trying to level the playing field for women who can't afford the programs my taxes supposedly subsidise.

I really just need $4 million dollars.

It's really not that much money.

Actually, it is a lot of money.