Sara Campin

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The Nourish App

Hi Sara,

Tell us about your business and the type of products you sell?

The Nourish app is a new wellbeing app for mums, offering bite-sized emotional support and calm in mum’s pocket. It’s a broad library of practical wellbeing tools in audio, video and written format. You’ll find positive psychology, mindfulness, yoga, nutrition and much more to empower time-poor, busy mums to look after their mental health and find more connection, compassion and calm in the chaos and pressures of modern mum-life.

I launched the Nourish app together with 18 amazing wellbeing experts on a shoe-string budget, off the back of our mission to transform motherhood and thanks to a successful Kickstarter crowdfunding campaign in 2018. We first launched the app on both Apple and Android phones in 2019 and have been growing our customers primarily through social media. Early this year we received some early stage investment to further validate the product-market-fit and test different marketing channels. We are now looking to raise further investment to grow the team and take the product and the business to the next level.

How did you come up with the idea and what motivated you to go for it?

Four years ago I hit burn out with work and mothering. I was irritable, shouty and stressed a lot of the time, consumed by feelings of guilt and failure, and a feeling that I was completely alone in my struggles. I was a long way from the mum I wanted to be, but I knew there had to be a different way. So I set out on my mission to find more balance and joy in motherhood, and that was the beginning of my journey with self-care. Learning how to take moments of calm in my day, to soothe my frazzled nerves and top up my energetic bank balance, has transformed my love of life and of motherhood. It has allowed me to show up as the person and mum I wanted to be. And, not only has self-care had a huge impact on me, but it has also had a hugely positive impact on my relationship with my husband and the happiness of my kids.

On my journey with self-care, I felt frustrated by the lack of easily accessible, practical wellbeing resources tailored to the emotions and challenges we face as mums. I started a blog and Instagram account sharing not only my honest and real struggles of motherhood, but also tips and strategies I learned along the way to find more balance and joy. Through this I connected with an amazing group of wellbeing professionals who were sharing their expertise online. I thought wouldn’t it be amazing to bring all these fabulous women and their positive and uplifting tools and practices into one, easily accessible place on our phones, devoid of any pressures or judgements, that mums could reach for anytime, anywhere, to feel held and understood, and find more connection, compassion and calm. And so, the Nourish app was born!

I know I’m a much better version of myself when I’m practising self-care, but I also know how hard it is, especially as a mum. We struggle to put ourselves first, we’re all exhausted and importantly we don’t have any time! I want to make self-care easy, by giving time-poor, busy mums a rich toolkit of bite-sized, multi-disciplinary self-care tools at their fingertips. I want to give them choice depending on their needs and preferences in different moments. Both in those tough moments of stress, exhaustion and overwhelm, but also to support them in proactively looking after their mental health and refilling their energetic bank balance. The Nourish app therefore helps mums take time for themselves to destress, relax and restore. It helps mums boost their own happiness, which in turn bays dividends for her whole family and beyond.

What is your best selling product?

Within the Nourish app, the yoga nidra and mindfulness audios are used the most often, but we’re really pleased that mums dip into a wide range of different content. So many mums are feeling really exhausted and they turn to the app over and over again to get well-needed, rest and restoration. They also tell us that they love our psychology articles which can completely change your mindset in a matter of minutes, having a ripple effect across their family and the rest of their day.

What do you love about running your own business and what do you find hard?

I love the interactions with other people (colleagues, contributors, clients) and knowing that we are really making an impact – supporting mums with their wellbeing and helping them navigate this crazy journey of motherhood. In a way, having the flexibility in my day to get my work done when I need to is a real advantage but it makes it really hard to switch off sometimes. My children see me working more than they would if I were in an office, which I think can be hard for them. I’m grateful of the fact that remote working and online businesses make it possible for parents to cut down on commuting time, to have more time with kids, to be there to pick them up at the end of the day and to launch a wash in the middle of the day!

What is a normal day in your life like?

I normally wake up 20-30 minutes before the kids and lie in bed and do a mindfulness meditation before the morning chaos and school run kicks in. I then like to go on a short run or do 15 mins yoga before I sit at my desk (although that doesn’t happen every morning). I normally grab an oat Latte while I’m out too as a little indulgence to start my day. I use this as a trigger to think about my intentions and plan for the day. I’m normally then sat at my computer navigating zoom, google docs, trello, slack and more until I pick the kids up from school.

Recently I have been trying to get out for a short walk at lunchtime as well to get the circulation going and to clear my mind. I might also do a short meditation before getting stuck back into work. Depending on whether the kids have after school clubs or not, I might sit with them and read with them or do a colouring activity or similar before putting the supper on and doing another hour at my desk while they watch some TV or play. After kids’ bedtime I am normally working for a couple of hours again before taking time to chill – watch some netflix, have a bath or read a book. I normally do a mindfulness meditation before bed as well and might listen to a yoga nidra to help me get to sleep. It’s definitely more work than I’d like, but I guess that’s what happens when you have your own business. Luckily I love what I do. But even so, I have to continually work on my boundaries.

What has been a particular highlight for you since starting your business?

I think the biggest highlight for me is when I receive feedback from mums on how the app has helped and supported them. When I realise that all the hard work has paid off.

It was an amazing achievement to see the app come together and launch it on the app store and I absolutely loved the face to face launch events we did last year when we bought together mums and experts in a room – the buzz was amazing. I would love to do more face to face events when this pandemic is over. It was also amazing to secure investment and be selected by Apple as App of The Day. But the feedback from real users on how the app has impacted their life, is definitely the biggest highlight.

What’s next for your business?

At the moment we’re talking a lot about diversity and inclusion in the team. We are asking ourselves how we can include more people in our community. As a B2C app, we have had to start as a very niche offering, focusing mainly on meeting the needs of mums that are already interested in wellness and active on social media. Now we want to show that self-care and wellness isn’t a middle-upper-class topic and that dads can benefit as much as mums from taking care of their mental health and wellbeing. We are also thinking about how we can take the app to the next level and not only share brilliant content, but also tools to help embed self-care habits. Other than that, we want to do more of the same, working with fantastic contributors, collaborators and people who share our mission to empower parents to look after their mental health and wellbeing.

What advice would you give someone who was thinking about setting up their own business?

Before you commit to doing anything, think about why you’re doing it, what you want to achieve and write it down. As times get tough, it’s helpful to have that reminder along the way of what you set out to achieve and why. Don’t forget your needs along the way and don’t be afraid to be honest with yourself if your needs are not being met. These might be financial or non-financial, like recognition, creative freedom, structure etc. It’s important to find ways to resource yourself as you’ll need plenty of energy and resilience on your journey!

Learn to let go of perfection. This can be really hard, especially jumping out of the corporate world. But our need for perfection and fear of failure can really hold us back. As business owners we need to be agile and continuously testing, learning and adapting. Remember to stay grateful for the possibilities that we have to grow, develop, create and reach out to others. The scale of the opportunity can feel overwhelming at times and it’s easy to feel impatient when things aren’t moving as quickly as you’d like, but the possibility is there and that’s a good thing. Lastly, find a great support network. We need to be able to talk things through, have accountability, receive constructive feedback, bounce ideas around. Collaboration is key in today’s world so if you can build that into your plan from day one, the journey will be more fun and ultimately more rewarding!

What is your favourite Social Media platform and how has it helped in your success?

We have been really active and engaged on Instagram and it’s really where and how our business began. I originally reached out to these amazing women who were in the same space, creating content that really spoke to the needs of busy, stretched mums. We’ve been supporting each other over the years and months and it’s been a pleasure to see these accounts and communities grow.

Tell us 3 facts about you…

I love dancing – house music makes me feel alive. I went to Ibiza on my honeymoon. Although it seems a very distant memory now and I can’t remember when I last went proper clubbing!
I can (could) kite-surf. Again I love the adrenaline rush.
I love all things Africa. My mum was born in Kenya and grew up in South Africa. I spent a year living in four different African countries in my twenties. I love the people, the culture, the nature, the adventure.