To mark #workthatworks week,  we’re lifting the lid on what flexible working means to us. Our Meet Team Happity blog series, shows just what a team of parents can achieve – without the 9 to 5.

Sara’s story, Founder of Happity

Sara lives in Forest Hill with her husband, daughter (5) and son (2)

I started working on Happity…

I had the idea in 2015 when I was 7 months pregnant with my son and we’d moved house. It was only about 15 minutes away from where I’d had my eldest but I didn’t know where to find local baby and toddler groups in the area. I couldn’t believe there still wasn’t one great platform making this really easy for mums all over the country. At the time I didn’t know the first thing about tech and spent some time battling self-doubt (with a newborn baby!) before deciding it had to be done.  A year later, I’d retrained as a web developer and my son was ready to start nursery. I’d been exploring a number of startup ideas but there still wasn’t a great platform solving this particular problem, so I started building Happity then and it’s been an incredible journey since!

Before that I …

Used to be the Development Manager at BBC Radio 1 where I met celebs and worked on special projects, like the launch of the station’s visual iPlayer channel. Before that, I’d been working in corporate strategy and started my career as a management consultant.

I wake up at…  around 6.30am when my son  gets into our bed. I attempt to doze whilst he jumps up and down on my head.

My typical day involves… 

Doing the school run in the morning. We nearly always run late but I still enjoy the walk and chatter, and the exercise helps get my energy levels up and puts my brain in gear. I then work remotely from home, keeping in touch with the team using a range of tools to collaborate.

My daily work is very varied as a founder, especially as it’s still early days for us. I have some level of involvement in nearly every function that a new business needs, whether that’s marketing, operations, recruitment or sales – and I still do a lot of coding on the site too! We’re currently on the Ignite Accelerator programme for early stage tech startups, so a significant amount of time is spent in training and meeting mentors – most of which is run remotely too. I love that Ignite are actively doing their bit to improve diversity in the tech sector.

I switch off at 3.45pm for school pick up and have some time with the kids. I’m a great believer in family dinner times and the routine of bedtime. But I log on again in the evening when their in bed and will often work late – because working on your own business is addictive!

We’re a team of mums solving a problem we’ve all experienced and we’re determined to make life a little bit easier for new parents.

I love Happity because…

We’re a team of mums solving a problem we’ve all experienced and we’re determined to make life a little bit easier for new parents. Each of us have had felt the struggle of rediscovering our purpose and identities after becoming parents, but building Happity in a way that works around our family lives is giving us that back. I’m incredibly passionate about creating opportunities for truly flexible yet rewarding work, and doing it in a way that actually makes good business sense. It’s not just about mums either. There’s a whole host of people who need and value flexible work (not least dads too!).

Hanging out in the park

The biggest challenges of combining work with motherhood are..

Mum guilt. We’ve all been there! Feeling torn between work and family life. That you’re trying to do a bit of both but not doing either especially well.

Mum guilt. We’ve all been there! Feeling torn between work and family life. That you’re trying to do a bit of both but not doing either especially well.

I’ve made my peace with this after 5 years as a working mum. Happity has given me the opportunity to consider what is important to me when it comes to home life. I’ve thought about how I want to allocate my time between work and family and found ways to increase my productivity during my working hours.

Ditching the London commute and setting up Happity as a remote working team also means I get to keep an extra 10 hours of my life each week! I still find things a challenge, but having a division of time and planned working pattern means I can be fully present with either work or family, instead of trying to do both at the same time.

One thing that makes my life easier: 

So many things! I’ve had to get better at managing activities I used to spend a lot of time doing (cooking) and delegating others low on my priority list (cleaning). My fave product ever is my Instant Pot multi-function cooker and I constantly bore my friends talking about it. It’s amazing for batch cooking though and I think every family needs one! Any household appliance with a timer is brilliant.

As a family we…

Enjoy eating good food together at the weekends, going on lazy holidays with our friends and pottering about in the park.

What keeps me sane…

My husband. He’s been incredibly supportive, has picked up loads of the housework and listens patiently to the latest idea that’s whizzing through my head. He also took Shared Parental Leave with our 6 month old son whilst I learnt to code at a full-time bootcamp in order to chase my dreams. But it meant he completely understood what it feels like to be alone with a small baby all week long, and knows exactly why creating Happity was something I needed to do.

He completely understood what it feels like to be alone with a small baby all week long, and knows exactly why creating Happity was something I needed to do.

Founding a new business is hard work and almost impossible to stop thinking about. Time out is vital for your mental well-being, and having designated family time where I have no choice but to switch off from work is what helps keep burn-out at bay. I always aim to have one day of the weekend where I won’t touch work at all and I make time to meditate.

My guilty pleasure… is when we have a cheeky pizza and movie ‘party’ and let the kids stay up. It puts them in such a good mood all day, and then there’s no washing up. Those are the nights I definitely feel like I’m winning!

How I make it work… by asking for help from everyone.  I’m not too proud to say I don’t know everything, and I can’t do everything. And that’s OK. We have a weekly cleaner, and my parents help us out two days a week with childcare so that my son doesn’t have to go to nursery full time. It also means I get to have a morning with him to myself during the week, which is key to managing mum guilt!

 I’m not too proud to say I don’t know everything, and I can’t do everything. And that’s OK.

My Happity hero is…

Sing & Sign. Both of my children did the classes for as long as we could – they loved the music and adored Jessie Cat. Personally I liked the opportunity to learn something new and natter with the other mums. My husband did them with my son too.

When the babies start signing it’s incredibly rewarding. I vividly remember the day my daughter ‘read’ her first book just before she turned one – it was called ‘Guess What Fruit‘ where the fruit turn out to be animals. She could sign each one of them. I found it mind-boggling as I realised how much she already understood at such a young age. And she can still sing the songs 5 years on!

Happity is a web platform making it easy to find local baby and toddler classes. Built by a team of mums, for parents everywhere. We love hearing from interesting people who’d like to work with us. Get in touch on [email protected]. Looking for a flexible role? Sign up to our jobs list.