"I always had a passion for having my own business and I just knew if I worked for long enough it would fall into place.
Ms McWaters first started a wine promotions business "that didn't do well".
"The staff was pretty much me and any friend I could rope in at the time," she said.
"I thought it was going to my big idea."
"The second one that failed was during that time I met a wine distributor who taught me about gross profit and buying and selling so I became a wine distributor. But Dan Murphy's came along and took the market with cheap wine."
But Ms McWaters' luck turned around when at 22 she bought a "really rundown" cafe in Rose Bay for $20,000. With her sister who'd just finished school, they turned the cafe around in a night to open it for business the next day.
Eighteen months later she sold it for $180,000.
"I realised then one of the best ways to build up a business was to buy a business," she said.
"It puts you in the thick of it and then you have to make it work."
Ms McWaters then took a huge risk and started importing gourmet food through Kingston Foods at 26 years old.
Things were going well until she got distracted with the lure of big investors.
"I started importing and realised how difficult it was going to be," she said.
"We didn't even have bolt cutters to open the containers. We were serious amateurs."
"We got very distracted by venture capitalists and spent a lot of money on accountants and solicitors to try and do a deal with them.
"Meanwhile their investment came down and at the 11th hour we decided to walk away and had to do a great deal to get the business back on track and not go broke."
In 2013 she imported the biggest gluten-free brands out of the USA and listed 16 lines into Coles and Woolworths.
Eventually she sold the business to Tynan Motors in 2014 to focus purely on her current business The Hamper Emporium. The luxury goods company sells food and wine baskets made up of things like Moet, craft beer and luxury chocolates and has corporate customers including Qantas and American Express.
In 2014 The Hamper Emporium was turning over only $1 million but she's now built that up to $17.5 million in five years.
She's got 30 staff across the country working for the business that offers luxurious and gourmet hamper gifts.
"There's such focus on start ups at the moment but buying a business puts you in the deep end and you have to sink or swim," she said.
"I had to swallow my pride and work from the bottom."
