#awinewith Rebecca Dredge
MEET Rebecca
Rebecca is the Founder of Kiddo.
Find Rebecca here:
Kiddo website or Instagram @kiddo_app_.
Transcript
Speaker 1 (00:10):
Amazing. Rebecca, thank you so much for being here on Spark tv. I'm so excited to have a line with you. Cheers. Cheers. I've got my plastic, so safety first. Excellent. I love that. That's a very responsible way to start a podcast. I'm very happy. So look, the way I like to kick these off is really just by sharing your story. So tell us about Kiddo, but also tell us how you got here. So have you always been in business? Was there a career beforehand? How did you get here? Yeah, so my kiddo journey started when my daughter was two. There was a day where I needed a babysitter and couldn't find one. We got invited to the races. It was last minute. We knew it was last minute. It was like free lunch, drinkies, all the rest. I was like, we've got to get there.
(00:57):
We've got to get there. But I really struggled to find someone last minute. I had a babysitter that we use, like a family friend, but she was busy. And then my husband's parents, they're two hours away. So we were kind of like, oh, it's a Saturday lunch. We don't want them to travel two hours to come for a few hours, and then we can't really tell them to drive home, then they'd have to stay for the night. So it was becoming sort of a whole inconvenient thing, and that's when I sort of thought, Hey, hang on. There's got to be a better way to find care for our children. We can order our groceries, tap, tap a few buttons, and it's done. Everything is just quick and easy. So why isn't finding a babysitter? Just that quick and easy process. So that was three years ago.
(01:41):
We started out as a date night app, and since then we've sort of expanded as our families and parents and carers told us what they want more and more. We now offer ongoing care so we can help parents find nannies. And just in the last few months, we've also branched out into NDIS Care for Children. Wow, awesome. Care for children of all abilities, which is really amazing. Yeah, that's fantastic. And so it kind of explains how you got the idea, what you always an entrepreneur. Does business run in your blood or what was the career before then? Well, you could say it's always kind of running my blood. I was the five-year old out in the driveway. I grew up in Darwin, so of all places I was out there trying to make little snow cones with my little machine and 20 cents a snow cone.
(02:34):
I've always, it's so cool. I love those stories. I've always worked. My first job was when I was 12 babysitting, actually my family friend, her daughter with Down Syndrome. So it's funny how all the parallels full circle together. So no, this is my first business before Kiddo. I am actually a qualified accountant, love my numbers, but really love helping people. So I was in banking and finance where I could help people every day improve their lives financially. I had a lot of clients there that used to call me their fairy godmother because I in and fix things and make it all better in the banking and finance space for their businesses. So it's something that I really resonates with my heart actually walking away knowing that I've made a difference. I've made someone's life better. So I guess I get to do that every day with Kiddo.
(03:33):
And since having kiddo, it's like, yeah, we can be pink, we can be family friendly, we can have just everything that I ever dreamt of when I was sitting at my corporate desk in a big corporation. Now I sort of get to live and breathe all those dreams and ideas that I had. So it's really, really cool. That is so awesome. I love that. I love how your values of helping people and helping them achieve the things or just letting them do the things that they want to do has kind of carried through that whole journey from career to business ownership. So what's the journey been like for you? So you said you've been in business for three years. What's that journey been like? You've obviously built a tech platform, which is frigging hard. Have you raised capital? How did you go about getting your first customers? What's the journey in business been like for you?
(04:38):
I tell everyone, kiddo is my third baby because it is having a newborn. Literally. It's something that I love and adore. It's a part of me. It's something in the middle of the night. I'll drop and run and have to nurse it. You know what I mean? So the level of commitment is having a newborn. I guess my journey, when I started out, I knew what I wanted to do. I knew I could get there, but I had to learn the whole everything from start to finish. Literally, I didn't even have a Facebook account when I started Kiddo. So I had to get that up and going to learn about Facebook ads and joining groups and how to get people interested and build that kiddo community before we launched, because we are a two-sided platform. It wasn't just build an app and oh, it'll work. I needed carers there ready that understood how Kiddo worked. Really good quality carers. They needed to be verified. Their blue cards here in Queensland working with children checks completed. So then when parents logged on to book them, they were ready to go. And they're available because we are a little bit different.
(05:55):
We are not like a Facebook group where you put a job up and people apply. We're a booking system. So those carers need to be available at Airbnb for that parent to say, I need someone Friday from seven till 10:00 PM I'm on the Gold Coast. Show me who's near me and who can do that time. So it was really, and it still is, it's always that balancing act of chicken and egg. So it's parent and carer having balance. So it sounds like actually building the community, which is really interesting. I love that because a lot of people kind of go, okay, I've got a business idea. I need to find money and I need to find engineers and I need to build a product. But really the most important thing for you was the community first. Without a doubt, the tech and everything. I had to work through all that.
(06:45):
You did do everything. No, and have an understanding of how it would work. And while that was being built, I sort of project managed my contractors that were building and then was literally all day every day parents, carers. I was speaking to another founder just in the last month or so, and he's setting up an app as well, and I was like, have you got a landing page? You need emails and mobile so when you launch you can communicate that. And he was like, oh, I haven't done that yet. So you've really got to think about the people and your community and how you sort of communicate with them. And I had a really strong following. We had 800 people that had pre-registered when we launched. Wow, that's huge. Yeah, that's huge. A lot of work. And now I laugh because that sort of happens within a couple of weeks now with our growth because the word of mouth, but it was about communicating really well with those people, having them, they were really part of the journey.
(07:52):
It was being honest too that, yeah, we're just launching. We need your feedback and continually checking in with them to build and flex and shape what kiddo had to be. So it's interesting. People will help you if you are open and honest. And yeah, I love that too, because I do find it interesting when people do put product first, but I love that you are having those conversations with people as you build and actually getting the feedback from them. It's actually a great way to save some cash potentially if you kind of find any issues in advance of building it. Yep, exactly. And three years ago, I never even thought about NDIS care, but we had parents, we had support coordinators saying, Hey, this is a really, it's a great platform to find child focused carers. Carers that are energetic carers that want to be around children.
(08:48):
So why not make it a bit easier for us to connect? So that's so cool. And we built it, but that's awesome. That helped, I think, as a founder, surely that's got to take a little bit of stress off your plate when you're like, the ideas are coming to me. Yes, yes, yes. And validated ideas because it's actual customers on the platform that are telling you what to build next. Yep, yep. So it does help. I love that. So you mentioned Facebook groups, you mentioned landing pages. What else have you done to grow? What's been your sales and marketing strategy to grow the business over the last three years and has it changed since day one? Yeah. Well, I guess sales and marketing were really very basic. For the first few years. Literally we launched and four months later, COVID came along, but that's fine.
(09:42):
That's where we knew, okay, ongoing care is a need. People looking for that, we can help with that. We've got the capability to do that. So I guess everything that I did, it was little, but everything that kiddo made, I invested back into sales and marketing. I guess it's understanding, I had to understand kiddo isn't about, I can't just put it on a billboard and expect 10,000 people to download it. Its not, I can't put it on, I don't know. Even just with influencer marketing, it's a bit tricky because it's not a physical product here by this.
(10:25):
A lot of it has been sort of capturing those testimonials and really focusing on those stories and reusing them, whether it is, I've done a lot of work. It used to be my Tuesday nights writing to all the customers, getting Google reviews and app store reviews. Of course now that's all automated, but it was, they're the things that help you be found and validate you as a service business. And then, yeah, and I love even the mention of automation so early on, obviously we've got to hustle and you're doing, I love that you said that was my Tuesday nights getting feedback, but that's so cool. In the early days, that is kind of what you have to do until you get to the stage where you're like, okay, this is the stuff that's working. How do I remove myself from the process? So I assume you've got email automation and things going on now that helps alleviate some of your time.
(11:34):
Yeah, well, this year was really cool with working with children checks. They are now fully automated. Oh, cool. No, I was doing those for the last three years. I think I've verified three and a half thousand blue cards in the last, yeah. So it's so nice now that that happens. But it's all stepping stones. You can't go out and do everything all at once. It's okay. For me, it was more important for other things in our app to be built before that. It's like, okay, well I can handle that. I'd rather this new feature that's a revenue generating feature beyond beyond there, then it being consumed by administrative taking time or something.
(12:20):
And I mean, it's tough to strike the balance. I think as founders, we kind of take on all the jobs at the start, and then it's a slow process to prioritize what's going to bring money in, but also then going, well, if I have more time, could I bring more money in by doing, yeah, where's my valuable, where I most valuable and where is that going to bring in the bigger returns or the bigger connections and partnerships, which is what I'm doing a lot now. Now that we have a national presence, it is exciting. Now we can talk to the bigger end of town, the bigger partnerships. Where previously it was, oh, you're just southeast Queensland, where we currently in Sydney, Mel. So now we're at a different level. But it's just how I've been raised. It's like you never forget where you came from.
(13:16):
I still, hi, welcome to Kiddo, this is Rebecca. How can I help you? We're in customer service, not that we get a lot of calls. We, the app is very easy to use and navigate, but it's still, yeah, you've still got to do the small things. And then there's the big, there's a lot of value in the small things and talking to people and yeah, it can never forget that either. Oh my God, you're so right. It always blows my mind how a handwritten note will just rock someone's world. And you're like, oh, still is. Just those little, yes, we're automating and we're scaling ads and we're doing, but it's like, does someone, one person really love that note and then they told somebody else. It's so cool. So have you had to, I guess going from the employee to the founder and CEO doing everything yourself and then growing to a team, how have you had to grow and how has your mindset had to change over the past few years?
(14:23):
Yeah, well, I guess huge changes. I guess as an employee, you just go to work and I don't know, you just walk through the door and things done in there and what fantastic copy are you've got, you've got all the oh HS is done, there's teams for hr, and you're dealing with whatever there is in a big, and someone pays you at the end the month too. Operation. Exactly. You get that regular paycheck. It's like money. What money? I missed that for a few years. So if we're going from employee where it is, it's just there. Everything's done to literally not earning any money. That was a huge thing too, because I've always been very independent, financially independent, driven to then sort of go, okay, every little dollar I spend, I've got to be really mindful of what I'm doing. Hey, I'm the marketplace queen now. You want something, I'll find it on marketplace in two seconds. And I love it. It's a sustainability thing. So it ticks all my boxes, and I'll always stay that way. It doesn't matter.
(15:39):
So that was a big change to be very independent and strong. And I guess to then go, oh, now I'm sort of in a world where I don't know what I'm doing. I'm learning. I'm very vulnerable. Oh God, now I sound like show literally. Okay, I'm just so, I'm trying my best. And I was still trying to be a mom as well. So balancing everything and then I guess mindset to change to then have a team. It's sort of everything I know in my head and I've done, how do I put that down on paper and procedures? So it's there for people and there's reference, there's different things that makes it all easier because you can't sit there and actually, oh, I just click this and I do that. It is documenting things. If it's your sales process or how you use your CRM, really, it's things you don't think of when you are just doing everything.
(16:46):
But you need to have that in place because until something ever happened, you can step away and know, okay, well people can step in and help. So it's doing a lot of that. And then it's, I've always had the mindset of too, if there's something, you can't be the best at everything. You can know your skills and then the power of knowing what your skills aren't, and to seek out professionals in that. So I've got someone that is doing my socials and edms that is a complete rockstar. Nice. She knows it better than me. I'm like, wow. In three years I haven't even learned all that. But that's where now I know that's just taken care of and you need to let go, but it's the people out there that know their craft better than you. So it is trying to understand what your craft or your best skills are and use them to the best of your ability.
(17:47):
Yeah, absolutely. And when you think about all of the jobs there are to do, one person physically cannot do all of the jobs. Yeah, way too many hats. Yeah. I mean, it's hard though. It's super hard to let go of. I mean, I know even for myself, even letting go email marketing, I'm like, well, they say it the way that I say it. That's it. Yeah. So it isn't really go. Yeah, that's a good founder mantra. Let it go. Yeah, I love it. And what about challenges? I love, so when we just talked about the last few years, you mentioned launching just before Covid, but I love how you said, wow, that just opened up new opportunities, which makes me think you're the type of person to see a challenge and go, that's cool. What are we going to do? But have there been challenges over the last few years and how have you potentially overcome? Oh, there's challenges Literally every day, every day, every day. I don't know, you can talk to any, not even a tech founder, just anyone in business. There are challenges every day, life happens, things in your family happen, people get sick.
(19:02):
All sorts of things happen. I guess just as a founder, you've got to pick yourself up, dust yourself off. Tomorrow's going to be a new day. You can push that in the past. Everything can be fixed. Yeah, everything can be improved. You've just, sometimes if you get too worried about it or deep in it, you can make it bigger than what it is. So maybe it is just, I don't know. It's having a think about it and maybe even having a chat with someone. I often find just talking to my husband, he'll go, Hey, Beck, well have you thought of this or that? And then all of a sudden you go, hang on. We can do it even better. Or we can, I didn't think of that. So why don't we? Yeah. And then it just puts you on a new path, I guess. I love that too, because sometimes even talking to people who are outside of your space is really helpful.
(19:57):
They're not bogged down in, well, you have to do things this way. They just Different perspectives. Yep. Yeah, exactly. I love that. My partner does that, actually. He's like, I don't know what you are doing, but I'm just going to ask you a whole bunch of questions in the hope that you are just going to start talking and you'll figure it out yourself. And it's usually what happens. I'm like, well, this, well this. Oh, hang on. That's what I got to go. I've fixed it now. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. Okay, cool. So then just thinking about that and thinking about all of these things that have had to happen now, changing mindset, our growth and building teams and blah, blah, blah. How do you actually stay motivated to keep it going? Do you just love the cause that much, or do you do to chill out and forget about business?
(20:50):
How do you look after you Literally every day, I had Tim start a couple of weeks back and he was like, Beck, this is like, I just love your energy. It's literally like I am, I know it sounds corny, but I actually love it. I love what I'm doing. I love to know. Literally there's people around Australia that are jumping on and going, oh, kiddo, yeah, okay, check out kiddo and downloading kiddo and love it. This excites me. We've got nearly 18 and a half thousand users fully registered. We've got more that I've never finished off. But when I think of that in, I don't know, in the space of that's half of Suncorp Stadium has taken the time to download Kiddo Register, jump on. That is so motivation. It's like, come on. Every parent in Australia needs to know about kiddo. The more people that know about it, the more we can change their lives.
(21:51):
That keeps me going. Just knowing how big we could be and where we've come from an idea to now to more and more is just keeps me going. That's incredible. I love that you are actually driven by your mission and that that's not even changed from when you were an employee just going, do you know how many lives we could actually impact? That's cool. That is so cool Going, yeah, as corny, it sounds, it's it, oh my God. But it's not even corny. If you could wipe the slate clean, if you're a business owner who, so say someone's listening in and they're like, oh my God, I've built this business. I hate if you could wipe the slate clean and find something that actually motivates you beyond anything else, that is the magic, because it takes a long time. I've been doing it for 10 years now.
(22:46):
You just said three. It's not like a do it for a year and then get a promotion and do something else. This is a cause. This is a lifelong thing. I think that's so cool. I love that. That's amazing advice. So speaking of people listening in, the people who listen to Spark TV are really business owners, obviously female business owners who are either in the thick of business and might be struggling a little bit, might be going, oh my God, how did I get here? And then others who listen in who are just taking the leap, so they might be an employee and they've got an idea or they want an idea. Would you have any advice for somebody who is just starting out on their journey who maybe is a little bit hesitant to take the leap into starting a business? Any kind of things you might've done differently or things you are happy you did, or any advice you would give? My biggest piece of advice when you're starting out is to connect with people. Because you can at times feel overwhelmed.
(23:58):
And it's not about going along to every I don't networking thing or whatnot. It's key people talking to them. They'll have two or three people that they use, and whether it is a business owner or a founder or there's people that are really willing to help you. It's not about going out and talking to 200 people and being overwhelmed. So many connections. It's trying to go, okay, who's someone I aspire to? Or where is that person? Or is it going to River City Labs and going to some events and just starting to people and be part of, I had to do that. I used to go to finance, networking things, being in banking and everyone who's who in the zoo. So if you're sort of branching out to something new, it's really cool. Now I've got my own network and it's like, oh, there's just different people.
(24:52):
So it is sort of building that new business community around you, talking to them. And then I think early on, if you can find, if it's a key, if it's your accountant or I've still got a solicitor who's a friend, works for a friend of ours. She still looks after me three years later. She's been there since day one. But it's just those key people that know what they're doing and can work with. You just kind of get each other and you just know. Yeah, I dunno how to put it into words. And if someone themselves has had a business three years ago, a good friend of mine, Sasha, they've got a startup here in Brisbane. So she connected me with her graphic designer because that was before Campbell was around. But that was someone who helped me get all my digital assets and my flyers and business cards, just things like that.
(25:49):
So you're not having to go, oh wow, where do I go? I don't know, yellow Pages. I don't want to Google to find a graphic. Just that word of mouth, even within an ecosystem or network, can really put you in good stead to know that you're in good hands and okay, that's happening. This is happening. I'm getting my terms and conditions drafted. I'm getting a great website up and running. And it's just finding your people. I think that that is the best advice because it's so easy to get overwhelmed by how much crap you have to do when you first start a business. Look, I'm a big believer in go lean, go minimal, do the bare minimum, try and sell it, make sure people actually want what you're doing. But as soon as you've proven that you really got to start ticking things off the list and you're so right.
(26:45):
Just the decision making process of, okay, what graphic designer do I use? What lawyer do I use? What this do I use? What that do I use? It's so taxing. So having recommendations from your network is awesome. And then just going along to certain things where it's going to add value. I dunno. I literally went to, and I'll never forget, it was, I can't remember her name now, but it was the Brisbane lady who created all the roses dips. She does crackers and all sorts of things now. Roses, it's all like organic. She's in Woolies now, but back then it was just, she was very boutique. Her and her mom started it, and it was just like a networking night that I went along to go into River City Labs and it was like, oh, I saw all these stickers on the wall. I'm like, one day kiddo's going to have their, we are going to be on that.
(27:34):
Our brand will be up there. And just listening to her story. And every time I see a dip when I go shopping, I'm like, oh, I just remember her story. And I'll tell my husband, oh, she used to wash her lettuces in washing machines. That's how they had to spin dry them to make it. And all her, everyone starts at this grassroots level. Yes. And everyone's story. Yeah. So I don't know. I've just lost myself again. I love that. No, no, no. I think that's a really good point because the thing I love about that is the woman with the dips, I know who you're talking about, I can't think of her name. The woman with the dips started just like us, right? Yeah. Everything starts from a backyard story or an idea or basic stuff, but it's actually giving it a go and said, being lean and going, okay, well how can I do this?
(28:30):
How can I make this work without Moring the house? How can I just prove it to then understand more and build everything? You're not going to have a big empire overnight. It's literally, why not three years? Come on, air took nine years I think it was to go on the it picture of their pitch check and stuff, and it's crazy. Things all do evolve, so it's having that patience as well and just, yeah, I don't know. Hearing other people's stories. It's like, yep, Rome wasn't built in a day, but you've just got to stick at it. Yeah. Oh, it's so true. I think persistence is the thing that I would say if anyone asked me about what my secret to success was, it would literally be I'm just an idiot who doesn't give up. Yeah, I'd agree. That's saying what I'd say. Yep. You just keep going. It's the Dory. You just keep swimming. Exactly. Exactly right. But I kind think that there's no other choice. Every founder story that you hear, they had problems. They were nearly on the brink of collapse. They were this drama, this drama, this drama, and they never gave up. And also, there's so rarely that it's one magical moment. It's just all these tiny things that they did in their persistence and then it built up over time.
(29:55):
That's incredible. Well, cheers to you, Rebecca. You are absolutely phenomenal. Thank you for having a wine with me on Spark TV and sharing your story and tips and insights. I know everyone dialing in would've gotten value, so I cannot thank you enough. Thank you for having me, and best of luck to everyone listening. Go hard, believing yourself. You can do anything. Women, moms, we can do anything. I love it.
