Lead or own a small business or startup in Australia? We’d love your input for key research on women running and building businesses.

We’ll be collating the results for a special report released in October, highlighting some of the opportunities and challenges for women in business in the year ahead, and also using the data to drive policymakers and decision-makers to offer more support where needed.

Check out the survey here.

The survey takes around five minutes and is made possible thanks to the support of CommBank Women in Focus — with the results collated, respondent data remaining anonymous, and a final report published independently by Women’s Agenda.

This survey is also an opportunity for our team to learn more about some of the awesome businesses and startups women who are running and building in Australia — should you wish to share your name and business details for our team to potentially contact you later on.

Who are we seeking input from? Any woman founding or co-founding a startup, or women running and starting a small business. It doesn’t matter what industry that is, or what kind of services and products you offer. We want to hear about your experiences from the past couple of years: like if you’ve been able to raise money (and how you did it), how you feel you’ve been supported (or not) from different from different areas like Australian families, banks, investors and corporates. Also more on the resilience you’ve shown over the past couple of years.

Why are we doing this? Because we know how integral women in business are to the Australian economy, and we want to promote ideas and research that can do more to help businesses such as thrive.

And we’ve seen how entrepreneurship and small businesses can provide incredible incomes and economic security for women, as well as satisfying and fulfilling work that lifts the communities and areas where those businesses are based, and contributes overwhelmingly to the innovation and capabilities of the country .

We also know the numbers all too well about the investment gender gap in Australia, some of the outright discrimination women face when pitching for funding and/or for new clients, as well as the complexities of added caring responsibilities that women contend with while running a business.

So from those founding early-stage tech startups to scale-ups, to sole operators providing anything from legal services to bookkeeping and eCommerce businesses, we want to hear from you! From those running restaurants to consulting businesses, health and beauty businesses, retail businesses, architecture firms, and more, we want your experiences included! And it doesn’t matter whether you’re a founder, a co-founder, or have acquired a business or lead and work within a family business, your input matters.

We’re keen to learn about resilience among women business owners, as well as some of the raw and honest accounts of how you’ve fared during these past few years — and what you are expecting in terms of challenges and opportunities for the year ahead .

We’re excited about this research, the final report, and what it can do to support business owners in Australia and get the country a better understanding of just what women bring to the startup and business ecosystem.

And just in case you didn’t know, Women’s Agenda is also a female-led small business, so it happens with a small team, working around caring responsibilities, and after a few years difficult. We are with you!

The survey link is here and closing soon.