What does it really take to leave a successful corporate career and build your own business as a woman? Sangeeta, founder of Jumpstart Studios, doesn't sugar-coat the answer. Coming from three generations of entrepreneurs, she first climbed to senior leadership at ANZ Bank before realising something fundamental was missing in her career.

The entrepreneurial path wasn't straight for Sangeeta. After starting businesses in travel and food experiences (both interrupted by COVID), she discovered her true calling: helping other women make the leap from employment to entrepreneurship. Her clarity about why women struggle in both corporate and startup worlds is refreshing. "The current business world was not built by women, was not built for women," she explains, highlighting how existing structures fail to accommodate the multiple identities women carry simultaneously.

This understanding led her to create Press Play Ventures, a program that's already helped over 120 women founders. Unlike traditional approaches, Press Play recognises women's realities and provides flexible pathways into entrepreneurship without forcing them to choose between their various roles. The statistics speak to the need: women receive less than 5% of startup funding globally, and in Victoria, only about 1,000 women founders existed before her program began.

What makes Sangeeta's methodology particularly valuable is her practical approach to testing business ideas. Rather than starting with heavy investment, she teaches "pretotyping" – a concept from Google's former head of engineering that involves testing market interest before building anything. "Don't build first. Market first, sell it first, get some money and then deliver the product," she advises, saving founders countless resources on unvalidated ideas.

The success stories emerging from her program show the impact of this approach - her most important insight is that success looks different for everyone, and recognising when an idea isn't viable can be just as valuable as pushing forward.

Want to learn more? Sangeeta's award-winning book "Start Right" distills these lessons into practical exercises, or join her next Press Play cohort opening applications in April with up to 85% scholarships available.

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Brown Queen Diaries by Priyanka Nomula

Directed by Sandeep Raj

Presented by Aussie Talkies

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