Dadpreneur Profile: Tejinder of Letssharecare.com

Name of Business: Letssharecare.com

Your Name and Age: Tejinder Singh Gawera, 39

Tell us about your family:

Married with 2 children boy aged 7 and girl of 7 months. I live in Leicester.

What did you do before coming up with your business idea and how was it making the transition?

My background is as an accountant, so very different to launching and running a childcare website. I still work as an accountant so I haven’t made the full transition quite yet! Accountants are known for being risk averse, but I feel I’m quite creative, and have a lot of ideas. Letssharecare.com is hopefully just the first.

When did you launch?

Officially Jan 2009

How did you get started?

I had the original idea a while ago, and it has evolved overtime when I’ve had to think about the nuts and bolts of the business. I attended a basic website course, so I could build a basic prototype and learn more about website development. I then got someone I know to build it for me.

What research did you do before launching?

The research I did was mainly informal. I spoke to other parents and got their advice, asked them what they liked, what their concerns were. Basically as a parent myself I could put myself in the users shoes.

How have you funded the business?

Self funded so far, but if anyone wishes to throw money at me, please feel free!

How do you promote your business? What has worked best?

Mainly through adwords, and press releases. I shall be starting a blog on the site as well so hopefully that will help the sites ranking.

What has worked well about your business?

It seems to be well received by people in these economically challenged times, and we are getting a lot of registered users. Most people get it straightaway, but some seem to get confused and seem to think it’s about sharing nannys!

What has been your biggest challenge so far? How have you dealt with it?

How long have you got! I’d say there are two main challenges. Firstly because it’s a new concept, you have to explain what it is first, before you can get people interested in what you are offering. Secondly because everyones childcare needs are so different it can be difficult to match people up. What we try and do is email people if we think they could have a potential sharer in their area, rather then wait for new users to search themselves. So were being proactive and responsive, rather then waiting for users to find each other.

How do you fit in work with the family?

Its difficult especially with a young baby in the house. Late nights are common, I should now be in bed rather then doing this! Having an understanding wife also helps, you need that support to get you through the tough times.

What advice would you give to someone else wanting to work in this area?

Don’t ! I don’t want the competition!

Your website link: www.letssharecare.com

This entry was posted on Tuesday, June 16th, 2009 at 10:00 am and is filed under Dadpreneur profiles, childcare. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.