Networking needn't be a total waste of time, says time-poor female founder

Working in quarterly sprints has been vital since I went full-time on my start-up, Create Racket. Designed to keep burnout in check by ensuring I consistently evaluate the progress and pitfalls of building a business from scratch. So while Q1 has been every bit as testing as I expected it to be, I’m also reflecting on a month of diverse and genuinely impactful event opportunities.

Good news if you’re a fellow neurodivergent female considering the founder life. Your tendency to embrace every opportunity can finally be a force for good, here. Sure, it’s still a pathway to overcommitment and stacked deadlines, but saying ‘yes’ can also land you in the right rooms.

I threw myself into event mode in March and here’s how it went…

First up, I marked International Women’s Day with Google Cloud x Startmate, hearing career highs and constructive lows from Angela Shi, Tina Tran, Niamh Mooney, Georgie Healy, alongside host Holly Brooks. As well as nodding furiously along with May Samali, whose authentic approach to coaching made a group workshop feel like a meaningful 1:1 experience, looking under the hood at what it takes to craft a career via experimentation. Another reminder that my neurodivergent-ness can be handy as a solo female founder. The challenge? To stop testing and learning when the idea actually works. 

After connecting with Steph Darmanin, I changed gears with my first taste of Debate Club, joining the judging panel for an energetic few hours of healthy debate related to the 4-day week. Aside from my personal feat of balancing on a bean bag, I’d scored the night’s easier task and left feeling very much inspired by the energetic group of speakers who’d stepped into the spotlight. 

Switching topics entirely last week, I was fortunate enough to attend the ARIA Innovator Conference; the first of what will no doubt be a repeat event. Made possible with the support of Sound NSW. Hearing the smarts from some of music’s most creative minds almost burned a hole in my notepad. And at risk of stating the obvious, Zara Seidler did a dream job of navigating rich conversations with Panos A. Panay (President, Recording Academy / Grammy Awards) and Dr. Marcus Collins (best-selling author, cultural specialist and former Beyoncé brand builder), providing practical insights from a set of careers that almost seem too unique to be true.

After squeezing in a night of euphoric arena pop courtesy of Dua Lipa, I headed along to B&T’s Women Leading Tech Awards 2025, where I allowed myself a little pack on the back as a finalist in the Entrepreneur/Founder category. It was a chance to reconnect with media folks and ultimately toast to the first 12-months of Create Racket with Jay Wennington. It was a total treat to celebrate such a high calibre of talented women across all categories, and a huge congrats to the winners both on stage and, of course, at the centre of the 360 cam. 

It may be April but a special mention for yesterday’s SmartCompany Growth Summit 2025, which balanced the worlds of start-ups and scale-ups, from honest tales of ‘going global’ to straight-forward exit strategies. Kerry Boulton-Holdsworth did something I rarely see but couldn’t appreciate more, sharing unfiltered frameworks and visual equations that answered the kinds of questions often left lingering somewhere between ‘it depends’ and ‘join our accelerator to find out more’. 

There’s no avoiding the fact that resources, networking and expert advice only gets you so far as a first-time, solo female founder (cash flow instability is very real) but I’m chuffed to be heading into Q2 with a brain full of validated business cases and the reminder that resilience is a big part of the start-up game. Also cash flow, did I mention cash flow? 💸