South Coast Women provides a professional place for local businesses to list their services online.
Launching in March 2026 as a dedicated directory, this site acts as a search tool for our region. It is built to ensure that women-led professional services and local trades are easy for customers to find.
From the Illawarra and Shoalhaven to the Eurobodalla and Sapphire Coast, this directory is a local resource designed to help businesses get found.
This site is a simple tool built for finding your way around the South Coast’s professional services.
After living away for most of my adult life, I returned to the South Coast and realised how difficult it could be to find your place in the local professional and social landscape.
I had the initial idea for a unique local networking platform in early 2025.
I spent six months in the pre-launch phase, taking the project from a concept to a fully functional digital platform, and officially launched it in mid-2025.
I did almost everything myself; my friend Sam designed the logo, and my niece Ash assisted with some testing and social media, but all the rest of the work was done by me, solo. I might be a full-stack web developer who has built several businesses, but this was by far the largest project I had ever undertaken alone.
I started with the idea validation, then to business creation, and then all that goes with building a custom platform. Research, technical planning and testing, data structure, brand guidelines, the list of tasks goes on and on.
Not only did I design and build the platform, but I also wrote all the content, searched for images, configured the server, and did all the marketing, SEO and social media management.
Once the platform was live, I needed to promote the platform as well as manage it. I created, hosted, and attended in-person activities, workshops, and events, as well as developing new platform features and maintaining and tweaking what I had already created.
I was doing the work of a small team on my own.
Carrying all that weight is unsustainable, especially as I have no external support, investment or grants.
I had stepped away from paid client work for six months to self-fund the project, but it became clear it was never going to work with me solo. It is not a long-term viable or healthy option for me to continue in that capacity.
It has been a great learning experience building all that I did. It reminded me of just how many skills I have, but wearing all the hats and doing all the work isn’t something I can sustain indefinitely.
I have spent the start of 2026 trying to work out what to do next.
It seemed a shame to close South Coast Women altogether, so I have spent the last week or two reworking the platform for a new purpose.
In March 2026, I pivoted South Coast Women into a dedicated digital directory
This change allows me to stay behind the scenes, providing a digital tool that assists local women-led businesses in being found online. Much of the system is now automated, meaning I can maintain the directory in just a few hours per week.
This ensures the platform stays active while I return my focus to my professional work.
I maintain South Coast Women as a solo project focused on web development and search rankings.
My job is to handle the code and the behind-the-scenes work that helps local businesses show up when people search for them.
I do not organise events, networking, or social groups. I build and maintain the technical tools only. This platform uses my skills as a developer to give local businesses the digital setup they need to be seen in a crowded online market.
© 2025 All Rights Reserved | Website created with 🩷 by Lara.net.au
