Please share some background on yourself and how the business was started?
I am a qualified junior schoolteacher and the mother of three girls aged from 10 to 19, as well as the guardian of a two-year-old girl.
Having a real love for education and young children, I love spending time with babies and their mothers, especially during the first year when developing and stimulating our babies seems so overwhelming and motherhood seems so lonely.
When I was pregnant with my second daughter in 2012, I was lucky enough to attend pregnancy Pilates classes with Donah Rosser at the antenatal clinic at St George’s Hospital.
Donah had recently returned from the UK and also offered a four-week baby massage course for newborns.
When she went on maternity leave, she approached me to do her four-week massage course for her .
On returning to do pregnancy Pilates, she asked me to continue with the baby massage.
I slowly introduced a longer course with stimulation and development activities and movement to music.
We found a beautiful old home in Walmer and the vision for a holistic pregnancy, baby and toddler haven was born.
We brought in a friend, Tjelke Klatte, who owned Oliver K, a beautiful decor shop that sold bespoke baby products and decor items.
Together we developed a thriving studio, Baby Builders, with stimulation and development classes as part of that.
Donah and I worked together for 10 years until my husband was transferred to Johannesburg.
After much deliberation and heartache, I sold the rights to operate Baby Builders in Gqeberha to Jessica Reeves at the end of 2016 and then started operating Baby Builders in Johannesburg from Bub Hub in Broadacres.
How old is your business?
16 years old.
What is your core service?
Stimulation and development of babies from four weeks to a year.
What makes your business unique?
Baby Builders is not just a social play group where mothers come with their babies.
I worked with occupational therapists and continue to develop a programme that teaches mothers during a class how to stimulate their babies at home.
Using simple stimulation aids and rhythmic songs and researched methods, mothers learn how to help their babies meet their milestones in the correct order with baby-building exercises, baby aerobics and various activities to develop the cognitive, fine and gross motor systems.
What are some of the biggest inhibitors your business faced before getting off the ground?
The hours it took to develop programmes that were developed and researched while doing classes and raising a young family.
Finding the balance between family and work.
Do you have any tips for budding entrepreneurs or new business owners?
Keep going and keep growing. Keep developing new ideas and be different from all your competitors.
What are some of your biggest challenges in day-to-day business operations and your particular industry?
Learning boundaries and when to switch off for the day.
Maintaining energy levels throughout the day so that you can give your best to each class.
Finding time for admin, as I like to commit all my energies to my classes.
How do you measure or define success in your business?
Watching babies who were in my classes many years ago grow into beautiful human beings.
Having mothers contact you years later and tell you how you much your classes helped them and their babies.
Having mothers return with their fourth babies to do your classes for the fourth time.
What are some of the best practices that have made your business successful?
Consistent hard work. Building relationships that often last a lifetime.
Giving my all in every single class and connecting with each mother and baby attending my classes.
Taking note of weekly development in the babies. Gauging reactions during classes and adjusting activities to suit levels and reactions.
Also, working hard to add exciting activities to my classes and developing my knowledge and activities all the time to give my clients the very best.
What kind of advertising do you do?
This is a word-of-mouth industry. Social media is the only advertising I do.
What is your company’s vision?
To continue to grow and adjust with the times and to offer programmes and classes that develop the whole being.
What is your target market?
Mothers with babies, newborns up to 12 months.
What have some of the highlights been in running your business?
The very special relationships I have developed over the years. Bringing Baby Builders to Johannesburg and seeing it thrive here, knowing that my programmes work.
How important is social media and an online presence for your business?
It is extremely important. Young mothers are very active on social media.
Having a number of social media influencers promoting Baby Builders on Instagram has been phenomenal.
How many people do you employ?
I do the Johannesburg classes myself. Jessica Reeves runs the Gqeberha Baby Builders.
Do you have any plans for expanding the business, and how would you go about this?
Baby Builders is growing as we speak.
Having started in PE with my first Baby Builders studio, we are now operating in Gauteng as well and there are plans to branch out in the new year.
What do you wish people knew about your industry?
This industry is so much more than providing a venue and an opportunity for sitting and chatting with other mothers.
Making lifelong friends and connecting with “your village” of like-minded mothers is definitely an advantage for mothers who attend these classes, but learning how to stimulate and develop your baby will have far-reaching benefits for the rest of their lives.
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