Awesome OAMs Abigail and Ally on fuelling business growth

In a panel discussion of our new vodcast series last month I chatted with Code Like a Girl founder Ally Watson and KeepCup founder Abigail Forsyth, who shared their growth stories and how they ensured a sustainable and well-funded trajectory.

It was a great conversation, I’ve pulled out some highlights below, but if you have time, give it a watch or listen, however you like to consume your vodcast. It’ll be 45 minutes very well spent.

Abigail Forsyth and Ally Watson are both OAMs: Medal of the Order of Australia winners. OAMs recognise Australians who have demonstrated outstanding service or exceptional achievement.

I’ve never been in a room – or in this case a podcast studio – with two Order of Australia winners, and – slightly overwhelmed – I missed the opportunity to ask them about what winning the gong meant to them. So I rectified that this week.

“The OAM was a big surprise,” said Abigail Forsyth. “A strange feeling — am I part of the problem or part of the solution?! The recognition of the impact of KeepCup, having the medal pinned by my (then 12-year-old) son, was nothing but a lovely thing.”

“I genuinely questioned the email’s authenticity,” said Ally, “and had to check with my teammates that it wasn’t a scam. ‘You are being considered for the Award of the Medal (OAM)…’ The team’s response and email chain that followed is worth framing in itself for its hilarity.”

“The UK has a very similar honours system, so the prestige and gravity of such recognition was certainly not lost on me. I was particularly proud to share the news with my family in Scotland. They don’t get to see what I do day-to-day or see our business in action as we’re Australian-based. So it was nice that this recognition translated.”

As a fellow Scot – or Scozzie as some describe us – I imagine Ally’s family were delighted.

Highlights from our Finding growth on the roadmap vodcast

Abigail Forsyth of KeepCup had been running a string of Melbourne cafés, the cash flow from which helped initially fund personal capital to invest into its reusable cups venture. Second, she found a Melbourne manufacturer who advised Forsyth to secure presales to fund its first production run. “We did, and we ended up selling $100,000 of stock before we even had a product,” Forsyth recalled.

“Sell the idea, sell the innovation and people will back you in that if you’re passionate about it and have a good product,” she advised.

KeepCup also took advantage of grants available in 2007, including a City of Melbourne new business grant, one from Design Victoria to develop a website, and an export markets development grant. In recent years, it has benefited from a manufacturing grant as well. 

“Even as your business is growing, [grants are] not just for startups; it continues,” she said.

Naturally, those administering grants will have objectives of their own – some of which fitted right in with KeepCup and its purpose.

“The returns they were looking for had a lot to do with keeping jobs in Australia: Australian manufacturing, helping Australian businesses get a foothold overseas to promote an Australian business in an international market, and also promoting Victorian design,” she recalled.

Ally Watson chose a social enterprise model, which had a for-profit structure but had values and mission in its constitution. As such, everything Code Like a Girl now does must balance impact as well as commercial viability.

Code Like a Girl was bootstrapped to begin with, and began bringing in revenue quite early on. Partnerships with other companies helped get backing for products, initiatives and events. This certainly got the ball rolling, “but I think when we went to those more significant milestones when we wanted to pilot something that was quite meaty that might evolve into something that was more scaleable, that’s when we looked at grants and even debt,” Watson recalled.

“We have written a LOT of grant applications in our time! Way more than we have received,” 

It’s a handy reminder of the competitive nature of grant applications. “Sometimes people hear ‘grant money’ and think ‘Oh, it’s free money’, but it’s so highly competitive, and there’s due diligence involved.”

Those administering the grants have high standards and many options to choose from. Watson said, “they’re looking for somebody they can trust, they’re looking for someone that’s risk-averse; you’ve got to prove that”.

“You do that through evidence, you do that through traction, almost the same means you would any type of money that you’re borrowing.”

As for lessons Watson has learned, a big one is that you should apply for grants you know how to spend. “If I look back at my early grant applications, I was probably pitching for a significant amount of money and I’d never had that money before, never had that type of budget before.”

“Apply for money that you actually can spend and know how to spend and feel comfortable spending. Don’t apply for something that’s really out of your reach, because again it’s a risk. Get in that mindset of ‘how do I tell this person that I’m risk-free?’”

Watch Business Journeys: Funding Growth here