As a female-founded company, what are your core values, and how has that come through and changed as the company has grown?
I feel throughout my journey so far, I have always made it evident that I am a family business and a mum myself, I think this adds a sense of personal touch to both the products but more importantly the customer care. As a female and mother within the industry I understand and appreciate the struggles that a mum goes through, whether this be physically, emotionally and financially, I aim to reflect this in every aspect of Pippeta from a personal customer care service – aftercare – pricing of the products – social media platforms. We have a fab article on this on our website (link below).
https://pippeta.com/blogs/breast-feeding/pippeta-pump-belief
What would be your main advice to another female entrepreneur?
Get a cleaner! Haha!
Go for it! Don’t doubt yourself. When becoming a mum, you do loose that sense of you and individuality and even confidence.
- Speak to other business owners ask for help (and remember when you’re on your feet give that advice to other people needing it, just remember that was once you)
- Ask for help when needed, whether that be childcare, advice, cleaners etc.
- Get a great team behind you (and just remember that team is sometimes the people in your own household).
Are you part of any programmes to mentor other female entrepreneurs?
This isn’t something I am currently part of as at the moment my focus is on building up a strong team at Pippeta. However, I have a good connection with other business owners as well as my colleagues and women within the industry who I speak with regularly.
What are the female traits that you believe help you in your job role?
I have 2 children myself Mila (8) and Gianluca (6), I have also breastfed my little ones so I can understand and relate to our customers. I think this gives me a sense of warmth.
As a mother, caring is a natural trait and something you naturally do for your family. I feel this helps with me with customers and general public.
Determination – I would always encourage my kids to try and work hard and I want them to see me doing that.
Encouraging a team which can talk and rely on each other.
Oh, and most importantly, having a bottle of prosecco in the fridge!
What barriers have you faced, as a woman, in becoming successful in your field? How did you overcome them?
This is a really interesting question.
Confidence and guilt – Pippeta started off as a small business based in the spare room, as it’s grown I have had to adapt my life around it and let’s not forget the COVID-19 which totally added another spin to my life adding in home schooling. At this point I really questioned whether I had the confidence to grow the business and did I want to risk becoming a mum that works 24/7.
I feel within the baby industry, it can ‘seem’ extremely competitive and almost overwhelming. I have to admit almost like you pick up on every potential threat, making you scared to praise other companies in case you give them advertisement which will take away custom from yourself. Whereas in fact most owners are mums/parents and actually working behind the scenes to run business and families (That’s a hard job!) just like you!.
However, don’t be fooled as there unfortunately is still a small percentage who try to pull you down, oh and trust me personal experience this happens!
My biggest advice which I have learnt is you can still have a competitor and praise them, acknowledge the hard work they have put in and congratulate them if they win an award. Isn’t been a woman run business about upbuilding each other and helping each other obviously within a remit of protecting your company.
Based on your own experience, what advice would you give to women considering pursuing opening their own business?
Go for it, but personally despite all of this my family comes first, set out what you want to achieve, for me I had a strong ambition to have extremely high standards of service and should at times this not happen, address it along with my growing team to see how we can come back better.
As Pippeta has grown I have learnt that a growing a strong team is actually what makes the business go from strength to strength. Been able to delegate and work as a team for me has been hard as Pippeta has always been myself and my husband however I’ve learnt (or should I say learning) that allowing staff to bring ideas to the table is actually really refreshing and team bonding.
How important is it for women to lift each other up and what does that mean to you?
I touched on this in one of the questions above, I feel this is SO important. Not only from one business women to another but also business to consumer. Empower women, there is so much pressure when becoming a mum to look, feel and act a certain way and I think for me with Pippeta, creating a place where we encourage every mum/woman is really empowering even within my own office and team.
How do you juggle family life and running a business?
My family is always my priority and don’t get me wrong this can be at times extremely hard when building a company, I am very lucky that my family is part of Pippeta, my husband Giancarlo is head of design and my 8year old daughter knows the stock as well as myself and already tells me she wants to run Pippeta when she is older. (She really is a mini-me)
When starting Pippeta from my home, I always made sure the children were part of the journey, over the years as it’s grown I have made sure I am still able to do school runs and have my weekends with my children. However, this doesn’t mean that once they are on bed I don’t switch back into work mode.
In 2020, I was over the moon to have my sister join the company, I felt this has always grounded me as we can pull on each other strengths but also help with each other’s weaknesses. We come from a huge family and I have many siblings and nieces and nephews. Unfortunately, in the past few years my mum was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s which also added another perspective to life having to face the challenge of caring for my family, mum and running a business has been very challenging, but with the support of my husband and family is something that I will always be grateful and proud of.Â
Check out www.pippeta.com
