Standing with women entrepreneurs navigating tough times so their businesses can continue.
We provide:
Lived Experience
Real stories from women who run businesses. Women who have stood exactly where you’re standing now.
But lived, raw, generous accounts from women who’ve survived violence, cared for ageing parents or unwell children, rebuilt after partnership collapses, navigated chronic illness, or fled with nothing but their ABN and a determination to stay afloat.
These stories aren’t shared as a download of everything painful or overwhelming. They’re not here to retraumatise, sensationalise, or weigh heavily on you.
They’re shared with care, shaped thoughtfully, with boundaries and clarity, by women who’ve done enough healing to speak from solid ground, not from open wounds.
They offer what helped them most:
The choices that mattered, the support that shifted things, the steps that made it possible to move toward safety, stability, and a future they could trust.
And they’re shared for a reason:
Because when many of these women felt alone, someone else’s story helped them feel less so. Now, they want to give that same steadiness back.
Their words exist so you never have to feel like you’re the first, the only, or the one who “should have known better.”
You are not alone here.
We provide:
Resources
Most support systems were built for two completely separate worlds: women in crisis on one side, and business owners on the other.
But if you are both a woman navigating something unbearably hard and the person responsible for keeping a business alive, you already know that the guidance out there rarely speaks to your reality. You are expected to fit into systems that were never designed for you.
That intersection is where we work.
Our resources are made for women who are carrying both loads at once:
the emotional, physical and psychological strain of crisis;
and the operational, financial and relational pressure of running a business that depends on you.
These are not resources written for salaried workers with paid leave, HR teams or safety nets.
They are created for women whose businesses cannot simply pause,
for women who do not have the luxury of stepping back when life unravels,
for women holding everything together with whatever strength they have left.
We translate crisis management into the real, day–to–day realities of entrepreneurship, including:
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how to make decisions that protect your safety while improving your wellbeing
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how to keep your business steady when everything else feels uncertain
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how to care for your physical and mental health while holding the weight of both crisis and business responsibilities
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how to navigate legal and medical systems that can feel overwhelming, confusing or inaccessible
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how to choose what truly matters when your capacity is stretched thin
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how to safeguard your income, your assets, your clients and your energy at the same time.
Every tool, template and guide exists for one purpose: to help you protect yourself and your livelihood through the hardest season of your life, because both deserve to make it through. And every time they are created or updated, they become stronger, just like the women we walk beside.
We provide:
Expert Guidance
Through our events, books and podcast, we will bring you expert guidance from people who understand the intersection of business, trauma and survival. Your situation is never “just legal,” “just financial,” or “just emotional.” It is all of these at once, and you deserve support that recognises the full complexity of your experience.
Our expert contributors will include:
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legal professionals who understand separation, safety planning and the realities of running a business through upheaval
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financial adviser who know how cashflow, debt, assets and crisis support actually work for business owners
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medical and psychological specialists who can help you navigate health impacts, trauma responses and recovery
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business and operational experts who understand what it takes to keep a business functioning when your capacity is low.
We are also working on a way to carefully vet and recommend trusted professionals who can support you with the same level of care, integrity and understanding that Held+Free is built on.
This is guidance that takes your whole reality into account: your safety, your livelihood, your family and your future.
We provide:
Community
A space where women in business can rest their shoulders for a moment.
Where no one questions your choices, your timeline or your story.
Where you will never hear “why didn’t you just…” because everyone here already understands how complex survival really is.
Through our events, retreats, podcast conversations and support circles, we are creating many ways for women to gather. Think spaces that are nourishing, uplifting and genuinely connective. We have big ideas about how to bring women together in ways that feel safe, empowering and forward-moving.
And importantly, these spaces are never a place for trauma dumping.
Stories are shared with care, boundaries and respect.
The energy we plan to bring will always be steadying, encouraging and hopeful. Even when the topics are tender.
This is a community of business women (and their besties) who simply get it, without explanation.
A place to feel seen and believed.
A place to steady yourself with people who understand.
You do not have to carry any of this alone. Not here.
We provide:
Financial Support
[Coming as soon as possible in 2026]
Low-interest and interest-free funds designed specifically for self-employed women facing crisis: to cover legal fees, urgent safety needs, crisis recovery costs, temporary operational support, and the essential help that keeps your business alive while you rebuild your life.
Because survival takes resources. Real, tangible, practical resources.
And pretending otherwise has left too many women falling through the cracks.
Held+Free wants to change that.
To make safety, stability, and continued livelihood possible.
If you can help us to do this, sooner please get in touch.
