Priya Jakhmola (@priya_indianinaustralia), a Newcastle-based content creator who documents moving to and living in Australia, recently shared exactly how she built her small business, GINNI, from the ground up — real, specific detail most “start a business” content skips entirely. Here’s her actual account, in her own words, checked against what Australia’s real business registration process actually requires.
The real starting point: research, category, and an honest budget
Priya describes starting with research to settle on a specific product category, then building out a genuine first-year budget — including a real, deliberate 30% buffer set aside specifically for unexpected expenses, bringing her total starting figure to $16,000. That buffer detail is worth taking seriously: it reflects planning for the version of a business launch that doesn’t go exactly according to plan, rather than budgeting only for the best-case scenario, which is exactly the mistake that sinks a lot of first-time small business launches.
The real registration steps, and how they check out
Priya’s account of the actual paperwork lines up with how Australian business registration genuinely works. She registered with both the ATO (Australian Taxation Office) and ASIC (Australian Securities and Investments Commission) — the two real, correct government bodies involved. Getting an Australian Business Number (ABN) as a sole trader through the ATO is real, free, and typically searchable on the public ABN Lookup register within 24-48 hours. Registering the actual brand name, GINNI, separately with ASIC was also a necessary, correct step — under real Australian rules, you only need to register a business name with ASIC if you’re trading under something other than your own legal name, which is exactly Priya’s situation, and that registration genuinely costs around $42 for one year or $98 for three. Her decision to secure both the .com and .com.au domains at the same time, specifically to avoid a similar business name grabbing them later, reflects a real, practical brand-protection step a lot of first-time founders skip and later regret.
Bringing in real outside expertise before spending on the business itself
Before committing money to the business itself, Priya says she hired a strategist to walk through her full plan, who then advised her on what would actually work and what needed adjusting — and separately recommended she bring in an accountant specifically to handle the legal and compliance side. That sequencing is worth highlighting directly: getting real, paid expert input before spending on inventory or marketing, rather than after problems surface, is a genuinely disciplined approach that a lot of new founders skip in the excitement of actually launching.
Where the real difficulty actually started
Priya is direct about this part: the real struggle began once she started sourcing products and ordered her first sample — describing it as a level of difficulty she “never imagined,” despite all the planning that came before it. From there, she names the real, specific costs that stack up fast and rarely get mentioned in the “start a business” content that focuses only on registration: a website, a product photoshoot, ongoing content creation, and a genuinely wide range of separate software subscriptions needed for different parts of running the business — each one a real, recurring cost most people don’t budget for until they’re already paying for it.
The line that actually sums up the real lesson
Her own words capture the honest takeaway better than any outside summary could: “Starting your small business is easy but staying in the business is very hard.” That’s a genuinely accurate, unglamorous description of small business reality — the registration paperwork, however detailed, is the easy, mechanical part; the sustained, ongoing cost and effort of actually operating the business is where the real difficulty lives.
Full credit
This kind of specific, honest account — real dollar figures, real government agencies, real admitted difficulty — is genuinely more useful to anyone considering starting a small business than most polished “how I built my business” content. Full credit to Priya for sharing the real version rather than the highlight reel, and worth following her account directly for the ongoing story of how GINNI, and her broader move to Australia, actually continues to unfold.
