Lord Lieutenant of Hertfordshire’s Entrepreneurs Challenge

Oliiki is finding its groove! We have found our home in the Eary Years sector. Oliiki now has a significant following on Tiktok of parents who are using the Oliiki app to support their parenting journey and we are now supporting Nurseries and nannies in their professional work.

Last year found me talking on most of the industry conference stages and developing learning material for the National College, one of the industry’s leading eLearning providers.

Oliiki was short-listed against HUGE industry players for the prestigious Nursery Management Awards. This award is presented at a gala dinner in front of over 1000 industry members. Sadly, Oliiki lost out to the leading industry software, but I was so honoured to see Oliiki’s name up in lights amongst such big players.

This year, Oliiki will add a training portal to its offering to up-skill early years staff and parents and is aiming to increase both the number of nurseries they support and extend to the nursery apprentice sector as well.

There have been many ups and downs along the journey. I’ve personally had to learn everything about having a business and I’ve had to learn to believe in myself.

Along the way I have had so much help and support from amazing people who have built businesses before and who kindly give their time to support us newbies! And most of those people I met as a result of the Lord Lieutenants’ enterprise challenge which I took part in and took away 2 prizes from in 2019.

To date, Oliiki has now won 8 industry awards (I think – there may be more, but for now that’s all I can think of), carried out a randomised control trial with UCL Institute for Education, grown a social media presence of about 25,000 followers and over 1 million views in the last year, launched an app, become a leading name in my industry and become the go-to person for babies and parents – all as an accidental entrepreneur! There’s a long way to go yet. But I’m excited for the road ahead.

I won my Lord Lieutenants awards RIGHT at the beginning of my journey when I didn’t believe in myself or my product… But I had a vision and a passion and a determination to ensure that every baby and parent thrived and used the vital first 1000 days to their full. I wanted to make sure that every parent understood the impact they could have on the outcomes of their baby through the tiny playful moments they shared together. In all the wobbles I have kept focused on that and on the belief that I had to make this work for the baby’s sake.

If I can do it, you can too. I urge you to apply for the challenge. It IS a challenge and you might not win, but it might just change your life – you never know!