Calling all rural business owners, online shoppers and anyone who loves getting behind a lady startup. Heck, do I have a PSA for you.

They’re the girls from the bush and they’re back… with an amazing competition!

(Why yes, that is a reference to Lee Kernaghan’s bangerBoys From the Bush, and if you don’t know it, Spotify it.)

(And yes you can take the girl out of the country, but you can't take the country out of the girl.)

As you can tell I'm pretty excited to tell you about this one.

Buy From The Bush (BFTB) is launching a new national competition called Buy From The Bush Big Break in partnership with PayPal.

We can all agree it's been a very tough couple of years for small businesses in our rural communities.

Droughts, bushfires and a pandemic. As a result, many have had to put their dreams on hold, but Buy From The Bush Big Break is providing an incredible opportunity to give you that booster you might need in taking the first step.

Think of it as a BFTB’s take onShark Tank. From one lady startup to another, BFTB is giving rural Australians (this includes the blokes too!) who have a great business idea, or an idea to scale up their existing businesses, the opportunity to win their part in $60K – to really help get the wheels in motion.

But before I get into the nitty gritty details of how to get involved and entry conditions (what a tease, I know) a little bit about BFTB if you’re not familiar with them.

What is BFTB and how did it all begin?

Buy From The Bush is an online marketplace for Australian bush businesses to sell their products.

BFTB itself all started with a lady startup, Grace Brennan, a farmer from Warren, NSW. In 2019, when the worst droughts in living memory hit parts of QLD and NSW, Grace started an Instagram showcasing the amazing work of rural businesses.

Just like their surrounding environment, cash flow was also drying up in many rural communities. BFTB encouraged rural businesses to use the hashtag #buyfromthebush on their social posts and Grace started curating a social media feed filled with some of her favourite products.

Well, didn't that explode.

Word got out and Australia ran with it. Seven weeks later BFTB’s Instagram had 130,00 followers and beautiful products from the Aussie bush were winging their way around the nation and the world. By December 2019, "buy from the bush" was the second highest search term used nationally.

What a feel good story, right?

It only got better from there: this lady startup has continued to pack a punch. Within its first four months it generated $5 million in revenue, 20 per cent of businesses on the site had to employ new staff to keep up with demand and 40 per cent of businesses started shipping interstate for the first time. But perhaps most importantly, 98 per cent of business owners said BFTB had improved their quality of life.