Starting a business from a multi-marginal perspective

Last year I got a call from my big sister, who at the time was managing our family business, a bottle shop in Northern NSW. She had discussed possibly hiring a worker with disability, an NDIS participant from an employment provider her friend worked at. I had planted seeds over the previous couple of years in any discussions around hiring we had. If you grew up in a business family, you will know how the business is almost another family member and how much it permeates your life. The seeds I planted were around how, when I moved home for a while to recover from DV, I had worked in the shop and she could see how hard I worked, despite severe disability and chronic pain at the time. I reinforced that I am an NDIS participant, and I work for a university and study at a post-graduate level. I reminded her than many workers with disability are grateful for the opportunity and that will show in their work.

In the wake of this seed planting, I got a call from my sister asking if I was happy to answer some questions about hiring someone on the NDIS. She didn’t want to ask her friend and risk sounding ignorant, and that is a sentiment I can very much understand. Her questions made sense. Some of them has strong answers from me, some were points of legislation, some led to recommending looking into government grants and some benefitted from lived experience perspective taking. I was very pleased I could help. My sister hired the person she had questions about and was very happy with their work right up until the business was sold.

That may have been the end of this, but within a month or two a business owner friend of mine had an employee with disability who was struggling and he needed advice. We met for coffee, and I helped work through the situation and we decided to see if I could assess the issues involved and provide some coaching, at my friends’ expense, and see if this worker might be able to come up to the required level with some additional support. The only thing was, I didn’t have anything set up to take payment, and I am quite Autistic and am not comfortable with under the table cashie jobs. I am not a good fit for prison, and I tow the line with legal issues.

Thinking over the short span of time that two people just from my personal networks needed assistance, it got me thinking “Maybe there are other businesses with questions and problems I am uniquely suited to assist with?”. In discussion with Tom, my dad and my big sister, and after much reading of legislation, policy and paperwork I felt invested enough to engage a business mentor and get started setting up a business model and structure to start providing this service to others.

I was prepared for the administrative work, the costs that I need to absorb from my Disability Support Pension and the added stressors that come with things you can avoid a bit in your personal life but must deal with as a professional. What I was not prepared for was the self-doubt I felt. I don’t know a lot of businesspeople in Toowoomba yet, my work has centred around academia in recent years. Will my degrees mean anything to a business owner? Will my lived experience be a strength or will it be seen as weakness and a reason to dismiss my capacity? Will I be able to generate any interest in my work or will this all be a waste of time and money?

And yet, when I explain my work to others, they see the value in it. I reached out the the UNHCR IncludeAbility team, and they mentioned businesses asking for people who do this work. In the last couple of months, I have seen businesses emerging offering similar work to what I am offering. I believe that there are many businesses that seek to do better by their workforce and their clients, and they just don’t know where to start. I just need to get in front of those people, and I am sure that my capabilities and experience will be clear.

I am not interested in making people feel small, I have experienced that enough myself and wouldn’t put that on others. I am not interested in telling people how to run their businesses either. What I am here for and would be so deeply happy to provide is space to work forward from someone’s understanding of diverse groups and facilitate their own insights into how they can step up to provide a safe workplace and business for everyone on their teams and in their client-base and let them experience how much stronger the work-product from their teams is and how much richer the client-experience can be when you let everyone in the room.

I have been working on myself while I have been building the infrastructure to run this business, and I am confident in my ability to do the work I am offering. I am excited to get started in sharing the wealth of knowledge and expertise I have developed and I am eager to meet new people and be a small part of their journey, hopefully leaving them a little bit changed for the experience.