Entrepreneurial mother deep dives into business  

Entrepreneurial mother deep dives into business

Danielle Ramsay left her stable, high-income state government job of twelve years. She left to pursue a more fulfilling career, one that definitely wasn’t stable, that would require a hell of a lot of hard work and dedication and whole lot of faith. Since then, she has built her own creative practice from the ground up and reignited her passion. Now she does what she loves every single day, escaping the 9-5 grind. She now works for herself and loves the freedom and creative control she has over her work.   

Danielle started off a student, like many of us. She enrolled at UniSC and majors in Interactive and UX Design. Danielle’s daughter is her driving force behind her ambition. When Danielle’s daughter started prep, she was told that sixty percent of the roles that these children would go into didn’t exist yet. After hearing this she was inspired to embark on a relevant, creative career. She wanted to inspire her daughter to follow her dreams and choose the path that felt right for her, no matter how daunting and overwhelming it might seem. Danielle also felt out of place enrolling in university as a mature age student.

 "I was nervous about going to uni. I thought what am I doing here I'm too old for this"   

Danielle's story shows that university is for everybody, not just newly graduated high school students. Nobody is ever 'too old' to learn new skills or pursue the career they’ve always dreamed of!   

 While still at university, she decided to start her own design business. Perhaps like many who start such ambitious projects, she suffered from a lot of self-doubt. She was convinced she wasn’t ready, that no one would like her work, that she would fail. She started off doing small jobs for other designers in fear of not being ready enough to work independently with her own clients. She went around in circles like this for too long, wasting time she could have been spending launching and building her business. Eventually, she decided she had to stop self-sabotaging her own success and just start.   

Danielle found a mentor that supports her in running her business. “I would be lost without her,” says Danielle. Having another woman running a small business in her corner has been the integral to her success. She stresses how important having supports around when starting such a big project is.   

“Having a supportive network is so important. There are so many women out there running their own businesses whether they are mums or young women at all different stages in their life and it can be very lonely”.    

 Danielle admits that when she started “I had no knowledge on how to run a small business”.   

She had to learn everything as she went on elements of the business such as pricing, invoicing, service agreements and much more. When Danielle first launched, she took advantage of the supports around her to learn all of these new concepts. She gained a lot of knowledge from her mentor, a UniSC graduate who has her own creative practice.  She also joined many design Facebook groups and participated in free online webinars, such as Anna Dower’s design boss summit, which gathers a group of design professionals to share experiences and knowledge on the design business.    

Always learning, Danielle is continuously improving her management skills and adjusting processes to best fit her business. She has learned to adapt to communicating with a range of different clients, some of which don’t have a specific vision or plan.    

Danielle is passionate about visual branding, and her business is naturally based around graphic and web design. However, she is also expanding her services to offer social media and business collateral. Despite her struggle with self-doubt, Danielle’s business is beginning to boom, and looks set to keep growing into the future.  She has a wide range of clientele, for whom she provides a range of services, including micro-businesses in the health and wellness sector, and local businesses in the construction industry., She has created and edited ads for a Brisbane marketing magazine, and has also created trailer signage, and created a presentation and handout for a wellness coach speaking at a school.        

Danielle is passionate about giving back to the community. Despite her busy schedule with clients and family life, she has run a social media campaign for a local women’s group, created designs for her local community centre, and has built a website for her local school P&C association.     

Danielle’s advice to design students or creatives looking to start their own business is this:  don’t wait until everything is perfect to start.    

“As designers you will always be learning and growing so you could be waiting a lifetime,” she says. “Just give it a go!”    

Danielle didn’t let her inner battle with self-doubt stop her from succeeding and achieving her goals.   

Danielle also knows, from her own experience, that it’s important to not let setbacks or rejection discourage you along your journey. Sometimes this rejection is really a way to redirect you to work that aligns more with your business and your unique skillset and talents.    

Danielle is living proof women can really do it all.    

Writes Isabella MacDonald.
Photos: Courtesy of the designer.