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Produced by: Lucy Kippist
Audio and editing by: Morgan Sebastian Brown
With special thanks to: Lily Godfrey and Liz Kaelin
They give business-owing women the support they need to start and stay in business. While Mums & Co celebrates the optimism and bravery of building something new, NRMA Insurance prepares and supports them if things don’t go to plan.
Loved this episode of Mumbition The Podcast? Find out more from our special guest.
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Lucy (00:00:05):
Hello and welcome to our hundredth episode of Mumbition, the podcast. What a journey. I'm Lucy Kippers, the community manager here at Mums and Co. And the co-host of this podcast where we've spent the past 20 months or so interviewing around 99 Australian women about their small business journey. Today we are going full circle with this story and shining the spotlight on our brilliant co-founder Carrie Kwan. Carrie started Mums and Co back in 2016 and has spent the past eight years nurturing it into the community we are today advocates of the 345,000 business owning women in Australia right now with caring responsibilities. Five team members running over 50 events every year, and a team of experts who offer strategic guidance plus a community known for the feeling of the true support it creates for its members. Carrie, welcome to Mumbition.
Carrie (00:01:03):
Thank you so much, Lucy. And gosh, it's on this side of the microphone,
Lucy (00:01:10):
Something different.
Carrie (00:01:10):
Today and what a privilege, what a huge milestone for us to be here. I'm reflecting back on the many, many stories of amazing business only women that we've shared on Mumbition, and thank you for doing this with me. My pleasure. It's, been quite the journey and I think reflecting back on every one of those stories, everyone's had a bit of different detail in that journey of running a business, but ultimately there's something common in all our journeys and that sort of ambition, that drive and trying to give it the space to be nurtured and to ultimately grow. So that's really exciting. And thinking back on when we first started in the early days, that fire in my belly and that ambition was certainly there.
Lucy (00:02:07):
And that's a terrific beginning to this episode because we're going to spend the next hour together talking through the top five lessons for starting a business as inspired by the trajectory of Mums and Co over the past eight years. Let's start at the very beginning. Carrie, could you take us back to 2016 when you first created the community? What was going on at the time for you? How did the opportunity come about and how were you feeling about everything that was unfolding?
Carrie (00:02:34):
The opportunity was to create a community of business only women. Our remit was to actually create this trusted brand, a direct relationship with a woman who is, to be honest, someone that I obviously know, I've lived and breathed running a business, but quite a busy hard to get the attention of everyone wants the attention of this woman and she is kind of looking for connection. So that was the remit. And at the time I just wanted to paint a picture of the landscape. Businesses were not a hundred percent digital at this time. Flexibility was not the norm. So working from home was seen as a bit of, there was a bit of a anomaly. Anomaly. It was before the Me Too movement and not quite the attention that we needed on issues like gender diversity and inclusion, underrepresentation. So it was a really pivotal time and I'm really proud that we took almost that sort of early mover. And whilst I was super excited, super driven, I do have to think that this wouldn't have been an easy journey if I didn't have the support of my husband, Michael. He was sharing the mental load, he was sharing the domestic load, and that's with a very young family. So at the time when I launched Mums and Co, I had a toddler and I was also pregnant.
Lucy (00:04:05):
And we're going to get the opportunity to have a chat with Michael a bit later in the episode, but I just wanted to get a bit more information from you about the community at this stage too, because we're often told now about the wonderful feeling that mums and Co has for our members. But were you clear about what that was going to feel like from the beginning stages?
Carrie (00:04:23):
So thinking about the person that we wanted to connect with our members in the community today, it takes a bit of bravery to step into the unknown and launch and start a business. It takes a bit of navigating in terms of that identity that you're trying to figure out. I'm a mum, I'm a business owner, I've got to work. I don't have ambition and I've got a parent, I don't have work. And there was this little bit, I'm very conscious that there was a stigma at that time that if you're a mum, you weren't viewed as capable and you had to be diminished or even to the point where you're not given the same opportunities and you don't have the support. So when I'm thinking about the feeling that we wanted to create in the community, it ultimately is about connection and support. And that support is because running a business with babies or toddlers or teens is tricky. You need flexibility a hundred percent. You don't need judgement and you
Lucy (00:05:30):
Also need support at home, which is something that you had embedded.
Carrie (00:05:34):
Yes, I think you need support from the whole village, the community. So yeah, Michael did play a huge role in supporting me. And it wasn't just in terms of his belief that I could do it was the little things. It was actually maybe doing more housework than I did in the early stages, or it was just getting on and sharing caring responsibilities for our two young boys, it was things like he would just bring in lunch without me having to ask because it was like 2:00 PM and I hadn't eaten. It's not just if you have your partner's support, we know that we've got a lot of single parents in our community as well. So we need to have other areas in our community, in our village that we can rely upon. And I know that sisters and mothers, aunts and neighbours colleagues, they all play that role in providing support.
(00:06:32):
So I think that's a really fundamental feeling for us is that if you're going to run this business, it is going to be tough. You are going to expose yourself to moments where you have no idea what you're really doing. You are going to expose yourself to new levels of risk and uncertainty. And I didn't want anyone to feel that they couldn't do this, that they were so alone that they couldn't do this, they didn't have someone to turn to, didn't have someone to get some advice from, and ultimately to avoid that feeling of stress, that financial stress, emotional stress.
Lucy (00:07:06):
So now we're going to invite Michael into the studio to have a chat with you about balancing the things that you've talked about in terms of family and the business.
Carrie (00:07:17):
Welcome Michael to Mumbition. It's great to have you here today.
Michael (00:07:21):
Thanks for having me.
Carrie (00:07:22):
Now, I often refer to you as maybe the sixth member of Mums and Co, or even the very first member of Mums and cos an honorary title because you've been so supportive of my business, this business, and also because of the incredibly supportive role that you play in our family. Can you cast your mind back and think on the early days of mums and and share a bit about your perspective of what was happening? How were you feeling at the time? Because there was a lot going on.
Michael (00:07:55):
Yes, there was. So we were quite fortunate because at that time we had sold an investment property. I'd finished up with work, had 10 years long service, you'd been offered a great role to found Mums and Co and you were pregnant. So with that little buffer, we were able to give a period of about 12 months where I could dedicate being primary childcare for Remy and Cohen. How hard could it be? Really?
Carrie (00:08:23):
Two under two.
Michael (00:08:24):
So thinking back, you know how crazy it was for me, it was very chaotic. It was like mayhem. I have literally had a fish out of water mument where I was floundering on the edges just trying to find a way to breathe. It was very challenging, but it was so rewarding at the same time. There was a long period of adjustment though. So that period of adjustment was because there was so much you didn't know. You're looking after a fragile life, the unfamiliarity, the unknown, basically. It was very unpredictable day to day. So that became a big challenge to someone who was working in office for 15 plus years.
Carrie (00:09:05):
Yes. And that chaos, I'm so glad that I had to go through that with you. And I think that you were stepping up in terms of not just the childcare, you were doing almost more of that than I was at that time and also the domestic load because there's all those loads of washing to go through and all that meal prep to do and everything else. So thank you for being amazing and also nurturing, allowing me to nurture my ambition during that phase. So this is back in 2016, and I remember that you were even interviewed on the Sydney Morning Herald about taking parental leave and how it was considered such an unusual thing at that time. And I know some of our friends, our guy, the male friends in our circle had taken, there was one right out, a very big group of friends. It wasn't the norm. It wasn't the norm for men to take parental leave.
Michael (00:10:14):
No, it wasn't. And now today where there's much better pay, parental leave, what I would like to really communicate is to really urge our fathers or partners to take their parental leave to the max so that they can, they'll have an amazing experience, but it was something which was the best two years of my life. I could without a doubt say I sometimes wish I could do it again. But what it's given me is really a really deep understanding of what it's like to raise children from a young age. It is unforgiving in many ways. It's the hardest thing a person will have to go through raising fragile life in their hands. Whilst I had Remi running around and causing accidents. And it was the beauty of also understanding what it's like to be in a woman's shoes, so to speak. I feel like I have even more respect for women in general based on this experience that I had. I often in conversations with other mums where they mention stuff about their partners or things that they're not doing, it's sometimes hard for me to relate to because I've had that experience and I've been able to do that for our children. And I'm just really lucky. I do often sometimes get, oh, Michael's so good at this, or he does this. He's always there. And I'm like, that's just something that I was very fortunate enough to have done in the early parts of our children's lives.
Carrie (00:11:51):
And not only that, I think our kids, I can a hundred percent guarantee that they have a super close relationship with you and they will go to you as much as they will go to me. I think that that's been a gift to establish that early bond together.
Michael (00:12:09):
That goes back to when I mentioned before, I feel like our children have that two mums and a dad relationship with the two of us. Because of that time I have spent and given to the boys, they have that similar relationship with you as well as with me. And that's because I was able to give that time with them.
Carrie (00:12:28):
So that Mums and Co is here to help women essentially start a business and provide a community to help them stay in business. What's one piece of advice that you could share for others that are looking to embark on the same journey?
Michael (00:12:48):
Definitely you have to be very prepared to provide support, understanding and patience to that process. Starting business is really hard work
Carrie (00:13:01):
And I've made Michael go through two this twice. So mums ago is actually our second business that I founded. So yes, he speaks from a bit of experience.
Michael (00:13:12):
Yeah, that's hard work, dedication, sacrifice to your time as a mother, even to the family where you're focusing it on the start of a business, it's time, which you're aware of. And sometimes I hear that there's this thing called mother guilt where you feel like sometimes that can stop you from doing what you need to do. So your partner, people like myself, you really have to be supportive in a way in which you're just doing things, whether it's the domestic workload, it's looking after the kids and those sorts of tasks and not making your partner feel bad about doing it. Don't remind them what you're doing. It's actually just giving them the freedom to do what they need to do for this business. Because the thing you don't want to do is make your partner feel like they're missing out on something or they feel bad about not doing something or being a part of that family circle at the time.
(00:14:15):
Another thing would be just being aware that the lines between work and household become very blurred at home when you start your own business. So what's important is you'll know that you'll see your partner in high stress mode. You'll see them eating dinner in front of the computer trying to finish off a piece of work or something. You'll notice that you don't spend much time, as much time with them or you don't have as much of a downtime with your partner. And I think you just got to remember that that isn't something to be taken personally. It's actually a part of the process of starting a business and being able to show that sort of sacrifice. So just making sure that you are comfortable or able to be comfortable with that sort of scenario, but also knowing you're doing it for the good of your family, your partner, and the new business as a whole. So
Carrie (00:15:09):
Thank you for sharing your perspectives and thank you for being a guest on Mumbition Today.
Michael (00:15:12):
You're most welcome.
Lucy (00:15:15):
Okay, let's jump through time a little bit now and go back to 2018. Mums and Co is now two years old. We're a toddler. What was the most exciting thing that was happening at this point in the business?
Carrie (00:15:28):
So this was a really exciting time for us. The community had grown, so I think we were about 8,000 strong at this point in time, which meant that that's always exciting knowing that what you've built is being of help to people that you intended it to be. We were getting some great publicity, national publications like the Australian SBS and Sydney Morning Herald were taking note and helping us get the word out there, which is so critical at the early stages. And I think at that time I was also nominated as a finalist in the Women's Agenda Leadership Awards. So great to be able to see that there was a need, there was a need and we were solving people's problems.
Lucy (00:16:15):
Yep, that's an amazing feeling. And just in terms of the model of the membership, so we had a pretty sophisticated member platform at this stage.
Carrie (00:16:24):
We certainly did. And this was offering a really great digital user experience, help women start a business, access different support resources that they might need. They could download things, they could access perks. So yeah, I think we've always invested quite heavily in digital, but we also realised that we needed to have the in-person elements as well because we're a network. So we ran lots of local meetups and I think this was the time, speaking of the meetups, Olivia Whiting, who was my first hire, she's still with us in the business today, and she was a community manager at the time, so she was running local meetups and that was using the help of our amazing local ambassadors. We were running them in five different states. And also I think we also introduced Beam Power for the first time. Yes. So Be MPowered was we thought we should have a conference just for business owning women that had been designed by business owning women.
Lucy (00:17:32):
Yeah, amazing. And that was an amazing vision that you and Liv worked together on. So we're going to bring Liv now into the studio to have a chat with you about that.
Carrie (00:17:43):
Hey Liv. So Olivia, you have worn many hats at Mums and Co and now have evolved into your latest role as marketing manager for us. How would you describe Mums and Co at this period of time that we're chatting through now? And perhaps if you could share a little bit about what drew you to Mums and Co at this stage with the life stage and with the young family?
Olivia (00:18:11):
Sure. Yeah. Life at that stage was busy at that point in time. I was looking to return to work after having some time off with my first child. And I think I was going through that stage that a lot of women go through after having their first baby where my whole world had changed. There's nothing that changes your world quite as much as having your first kid. And I don't think I had realised quite how much that would change my focus and capacity. And I was learning all about who I was as a person as well, because all of a sudden I'd gone from being Olivia, the daughter, wife, friend, employee, granddaughter, sister, all those things. But now I had this new role as mother, I'm sure I'm not alone in this, but that it was quite a journey like learning who that person was and I'm still learning to these day all these years later, and I worked out pretty quickly that the role that I had prior to having kids with its unpredictability just wasn't going to work for us as a family.
(00:19:20):
And I remember starting to look around for some new things and see what was on the market. And I remember seeing an ad from Mums and Co and it just felt so in line. Everything in the ad felt so in line with this new world that I was experiencing. And the family friendly ethos was so evident from the job description. And even I remember doing that second round interview and it was a video interview, and I remember feeding my daughter in her highchair stewed peaches on video doing this interview. I had this ambition. I wanted to continue my career and I had the necessity to bring home some money for the family, but I also had these caring responsibilities and that caring responsibility wasn't going to wait for my interview to be over. And I just don't know how I would've managed to grow my career, grow personally, support my family without the appreciation and acknowledgement of everything that comes with being a working parent that you yourself have created as a leader and is supported by the Mums and Co team as well. So thank you. But if I go back to the first part of your question, which was what was Mums and Co like at that early stage? It was very MVP, it was true startup. There was a lot of experimentation. And I think for a while there you and I even shared a desk. There was only one desk
Carrie (00:20:52):
I take collaborating really seriously.
Olivia (00:20:53):
Yeah. I think what I really loved in those early days was we introduced those member meetups and those member meetups were, it was a great way to build our community, really get to connect with people.
Carrie (00:21:08):
So this was a really busy time and I'd love you to share a little bit more about the Be MPowered Concept, which at the time was touted as Australia's first family friendly conference. And we had a tagline which was because business doesn't suit business owning mums.
Olivia (00:21:27):
That's true. And I think that we had both experienced that personally because at the time we were both mums too, toddlers and babies. You were
Carrie (00:21:39):
Pregnant.
Olivia (00:21:39):
I was pregnant at the time
Carrie (00:21:41):
With the second child.
Olivia (00:21:43):
And yeah, we'd both experienced personally getting those invitations to networking brunches or breakfasts and after work drinks and events and things like that as a breakfast event. Where you get to network is when you're trying to get everyone out the door and get their shoes on and get to daycare or those after work drinks and things like that at witching hour when everyone needs to be bathed and fed. It just doesn't work for business owning mums. And so we thought we needed to create a family friendly event in an area where you could bring your child. And so that's where originally the concept of those member meetups started where you could bring your kids along to a coffee meetup. And I remember for our first birthday in 2017, we had our Stronger Together event, and that was a panel discussion. We had some leading women in business including Christie Chung from Modibodi. And I mean that journey for that company has been amazing over the last few years. We had a number of very
Carrie (00:22:52):
Successful multimillion dollar,
Olivia (00:22:54):
So successful
Carrie (00:22:56):
Well done.
Olivia (00:22:58):
And at that event, we actually had a crche for people, an onsite creche for attendees to the kids, could be looked after. Well you attended the panel and networked and connected there. And then the year after, we went to run another annual event. And I remember kind of pulling out the paperwork from the last year to see what we could knock up for this year. And I just remember you sitting there in front of the whiteboard and going Think bigger. And I was like, how big? You just think bigger. And so we booked the International Convention Centre for that next event and that's where Be MPowered was born. And it was a way for us to connect with more mums in business and women in business and not only we have the conference content so you could upskill and learn. We had the networking opportunities, we had the onsite crche, we had kids entertainment during the breaks. It was held during school hours so that the drop off of pickup juggle was achievable and you could come to an event in a central location and we even packed in some extra things to make sure that people got the most out of their day, like the headshot, professional headshot available for free and stuff like that. So that's really where Be MPowered came from. It was that necessity to have a family friendly event because women and mums should be able to connect and grow and we shouldn't be locked out of that opportunity.
Carrie (00:24:32):
So as mums and CO has grown, what do you feel most proud of?
Olivia (00:24:36):
There's so many. Honestly. I mean that first Be MPowered where I was pregnant and it was just you and I packing goodie bags at five o'clock in the morning or something like that, that was fun. The fact that seven years later, eight years later, really we are still here, we're growing the heart of Mums and CO is still there. That really being family friendly, having that ethos, supporting business, owning women and the community being at the heart of everything that we do, I think that's what makes me the proudest because that hasn't changed. That's wonderful to see.
Carrie (00:25:16):
Thank you so much Olivia, for all your hard effort to date all your contributions and joining us on Mums and CO's Mumbition today.
Olivia (00:25:25):
Thank you for having me.
Lucy (00:25:29):
Before we introduce our next guest, we wanted to reflect for a minute on the extraordinary privilege of having this ambition podcast. We've interviewed so many incredible people and it's been so exciting and felt so impactful to hold a space where women can come together and share their stories and their challenges in business.
Carrie (00:25:52):
Of course, there is no business without a customer and perhaps one of the most wonderful metric of measuring the success of a business is your customer experiences and their testimonials. And I wonder, and I'm really, really excited when a business can share that they've managed to keep the loyalty of the customer for more than five years, for six years and onwards. But very proud that we have someone here today and Mums and Co has. And our next guest joined Mums and Co back in 2018. So we've been really grateful and proud to watch her business trajectory over this time and how she's actually played a key role in the trajectory of Mums and co two. So Mel Daniels, welcome to Mumbition.
Mel (00:26:43):
Thank you so much for having me, Carrie. It is such an honour to be here today with you, especially to celebrate such a huge milestone for Mumbition.
Carrie (00:26:51):
Now, Mel, you are the founder of MELD Business Services. You're also a published author and I'm very grateful that you are also part of the Mums and Co expert community sharing your knowledge about content creation and different strategies to connect with the customer. So thank you so much for being such an active member of a community. And could you share a little bit about how you came to join the Mums and Co community?
Mel (00:27:20):
Oh my goodness, I love this story so much, Carrie. I just share it with anyone I possibly can because it's such an unusual way that I came across Mums and Co. So back in the very beginning of me starting a business, I actually didn't tell anyone about it. I was just really scared of failure. I was scared of what people would think, but the two people that I did talk to about it was my mum and dad. My mum and dad have always been so supportive of me and so supportive of everything that I do that it was just something that I naturally told them about. Now whilst they didn't really understand the technicalities of the job and I put inverted commas around that itself because I started as a virtual assistant, they didn't quite grasp that concept. They did grasp the concept of me working from home and me supporting my family in a financial way as well as being a previously full-time mum.
(00:28:15):
So it was really great to be able to share that information with them. Shortly after sharing that with them, my dad sent me a link to a Sydney Morning Herald article with a really quick note basically saying, I read this article and I thought of you, it may be a great opportunity for you to connect with this community. And I read the article and immediately I was so drawn to the ethos of Mums and Co because it just reflects my values of connection, community and family. And of course that particular Sydney Morning Herald article was about you, Carrie, and Mums and Co. And so ever since then I have been following the Mums and Co journey. I've been part of the community and I have just really, really enjoyed watching all the different iterations of Mums and Co and being a part of that as well.
Carrie (00:29:09):
Thanks for sharing that, Mel, and shout out to your supportive dad and parents because that CO is so, so important as well in supporting our ambitions. And yes, I remember you have been such an active participant in our community. You've been attending meetups in person at Dulwich Hill. I think you've been to every single Be Empower that we've hosted. We're now in our sixth of that annual conference. I know you've actually met lots of other business women in that community and today you still hold true to connecting with them and having them as business contacts and also I think friends now a great story and thank you for sharing that. And when you reflect on your own business journey over the last five years, what role would you say that I guess mums and Co has contributed to that?
Mel (00:30:12):
Oh, I would say a really huge role. Carrie and I haven't really sat down and thought about this a lot, but from two different perspectives, it's had such a huge impact on my own journey from a business perspective as well as from my own personal perspective. So from a business perspective, it really gave me, particularly in the early days, that connection and that community that I really, really craved and really needed and I didn't know that I needed at the time, but I really needed in order to feel a little bit more courageous and just feel a little bit more supported by like-minded people who were going through exactly the same things as what I was doing, harmonising that family life and the work life with Play Life as well. It was just an amazing opportunity to be able to connect with them and be supported by them.
(00:31:03):
Like you said, I have met some of my closest friends through those meetups. Funnily enough, I actually met up with one yesterday for a coffee who I hadn't seen for ages. So the connections and the bonds are still there even over such a long period of time. So I would say that in that respect, Mums and Co have been really important as well as the learning opportunities and the opportunities for inspiration. So like you mentioned, the Be MPowered conferences have been a huge part of my learning experience and just being inspired by other people as well. And the networking as well has been absolutely phenomenal. I love the online networking sessions that are currently in place, so you just get to meet new people and connect with them and that's what life is all about. Connection. And from a personal perspective, I'd say that it's really given me far more courage and confidence that I have a message that needs to be shared with the world and that I can do that on my own terms as well. And that we all go through seasons of life and those seasons of life are just a natural part of life. And we can go with them, we can flow with them and harmonise them and come out the other end as beautiful, confident people.
Carrie (00:32:20):
Thank you so much for sharing how we've supported your business journey and you're such a critical path. I really love that it's come full circle. I hope that like you said, we helped you during those early days of starting, but you've also contributed so much to the community and now with your expertise. So thank you and thank you for joining us today on Mumbition. Thanks for having me.
Lucy (00:32:49):
So now I want to take us back to 2020, 2021. Pretty unforgettable years really when you factor in that it was pretty much in the middle of Covid time. What was happening at Mums and Co then Carrie?
Carrie (00:33:02):
So thinking back on this time, I was very relieved that we were a hundred percent digital. So whilst we had business operations in place, we could still connect with our customers and we had a great team and we had a great community. We couldn't necessarily control what was happening in the market for customers who were going through a pretty tricky time at this time. I had Sarah join us, Sarah Nelson, who was our first chief of staff and head of partnerships. And the first initiative that we kicked off together was the mums and Covid task force.
Lucy (00:33:43):
Very clever plan on words there. Yes,
Carrie (00:33:45):
You saw what we did there. And this was actually bringing together 18 experts in our network, cross-functional experts that could answer the questions that everyone was asking. What happens when we go through a pandemic and a lockdown but still have business and still have children? Well have children at home and we're doing homeschooling. There were lots of things on people's mind. So that covid task force was to bring together expertise and provide them moments of connection, moments of information, and upskilling delivered through webinars. So in the first month of Covid, I think we ran about 30 events and we also launched an award winning chatbot.
Lucy (00:34:30):
So this was a particularly terrific innovation at this time really and a really crucial innovation for business owners at this time too. So can you talk to us a little bit more about that?
Carrie (00:34:41):
Yes. I've always been a really passionate advocate and believer in technology and it probably there's a sense of curiosity and generosity that I think technology enables. It probably goes back to my time when I created the first lifestyle app on iPhone with my first business,
Lucy (00:35:07):
The Daily Addict
Carrie (00:35:08):
That was daily addict that in. And I remember we were tweeting from the runways of Australian Fashion Week and New York Fashion Week and just the power that had to connect with people through technology, through a digital platform and connect with people that are in not only your immediate space but also your other countries. So I've always thought that technology has enabled that, and so it was a really critical time to continue investing in technology. I've experienced firsthand how technology can enable you to be more productive, to enable you to collaborate, to be more effective as a team. So more than ever, I think during Covid we needed to invest in technology. So that's what we did, creating the chat bot. And in order to do that, we needed to also have clever people to work with. So that's a core belief in terms of not being, you never should be the smartest person in the room and to bring in that sort of smartness or people that can enable you through technology to achieve that aim.
Lucy (00:36:24):
And that's when you brought in Aoife O'Connell to the business. And we're going to bring Aoife into the studio now to chat a bit more with you about that.
Carrie (00:36:35):
Welcome Aoife. So good to have you here today.
Aoife (00:36:38):
Thank you. Now
Carrie (00:36:39):
Tell us a little bit about how you first connected with me and Mums and Co
Aoife (00:36:44):
Wild. I'm trying to think back how I met Carrie was through a professional circle and through working together, I was a social media manager at the time, and I remember Carrie in the startup stage of mums and Co in this tiny office around the corner of a corner of a corner. And she was with Olivia at the time and you were so bright sparks. And I'd walk in and they'd be like, hi, how are you? And that was where I first connected with you. It was the
Carrie (00:37:11):
Garage, right? It was like a very white, sterile, small little office in a corner.
Aoife (00:37:22):
You had to continuously go around it to find you. I remember so well. And that's where we first connected and I got introduced to mums and Co was pre motherhood. So I was just inspired by your entrepreneurship and your startup energy and hustle. I believe you even decorated, acquired chairs from around other area parts of the building, very stylish ones. And I just was inspired by it. And then of course I became a mum and went on the journey of startup and started yarning. And that's how our friendship continued and the circle remained in my exposure to the community and all that you've done and connected me with thereafter.
Carrie (00:38:04):
You know what, you always struck me as this walking encyclopaedia of social media and digital knowledge. And you had a huge energy too. And I also knew that you're a fierce advocate of women and female leadership. So I actually knew I wanted to work with you from the first get go meeting and gosh, I think you made me work for it a little bit because the first time I asked to work together, it's perfectly normal, but I think you had too many priorities at that time. So I came back again and when that was back in 2020 in October, cast your mind back to then. And that was when we created a chatbot together, that little chatbot ended up taking out a global award, the Stevie Award for best use of social media during Covid. There was just, I dunno, maybe about 1,500 applicants for that particular award. And we were also a finalist in the Social Media Marketing Institute awards. Thank you so much for doing that with us during that time. Take us back to that experience, what we did and what problem were we trying to solve for our customers, which were business only women.
Aoife (00:39:21):
Look it was a challenging time. I think that was the first and foremost. And you as a team were addressing real problems for businesses and particularly women in business as parents. There was so much information out there and the problem we were connecting them with was to identify what you should know and how can you know it fast in the middle of the night at 3:00 AM potentially doing a feed. And I remember Carrie goes, I can help you with that and this is your solution. And it always comes back to the pulse of, I think it's a really fond memory for me in a particularly time in our lives. That was chaos, right? We couldn't control it. And I remember we united together to have this shared vision to be able to do such great work together. And that's what the chatbot really got established was.
(00:40:20):
And when I reflect back, this has been five, nearly five years on now, is it four, four years maybe? And the innovation and you hear conversations in the marketplace, AI is every second word. And I just think back specifically that it's about the need, intent and hustle to actually expose yourself to different technologies to create something that is actually meaningful. And that was the technology that provided the bot to then help your community solve a problem in real time. I'm super proud of it. I'm grateful for the opportunity because at that period in time for me in the world of chatbots and ai, it was very much around education and people weren't picking up what I was putting down. And I remember you so specifically believing in your mindset of the future of communication and how people are connecting and how we can do it better within yourself and then how you can bring that to your business model. So I met various people that period in time, and maybe that's why the initial approach, I was so busy trying to convince other individuals to say this is the future of how we are going to communicate at scale. You had to come back second round.
Carrie (00:41:34):
And I think that takes a lot of education as well, a lot of energy. You were your own small business owner at that time too, so I don't take it personally. And we got you in the end. In fact, that chatbot enabled us to be one of the first Australian business women's network to respond. That's it, right? Because everyone was literally locked down, paralysed, trying to figure out how to communicate with their teams, their customers and everything. And we already had that and we stood that chat bot up in three weeks. Yeah, three weeks. So it's amazing what you can do when you are driven, purposeful, you have some smart tech in your stack and some very passionate women in the same quarter.
Aoife (00:42:26):
It really was. It was a testament to the United team. I think everyone brought their amplification of what we were trying to do. And I don't think we could recreate that in a period of three weeks ever. Again, if I'm honest. It's a super fond memory.
Carrie (00:42:41):
Thank you. And now I think moving on to this sort of collaborative power, I think Sarah at the time then connected you to another member in our network, the fabulous Maxine Sharon who was running the Spark Festival at that time. That's a festival for very much grassroots entrepreneurship. Why do you collaborate or what do you love about collaborating with other business women?
Aoife (00:43:10):
Oh, I think it's just you're on the same path together and Maxine is an amazing example of that. And the gratitude I have for Sarah actually engaging us is immense because her network is then again tenfold. So you have these individuals that are like-minded community that have their soldiers behind each other that then you connect and grow your base of community and entrepreneurship and small business is incredibly isolating and it's lonely in a sense. And to be able to come as you are with people that get it and that you don't have to go into the depths of trying to communicate where you're at as well. And you're in different seasons of business. You're the startup season or you're alternative in the middle and you're scaling and growth and the challenges that brings. And allowing a community to be able to connect you into the like-minded in the same period in time and season is undoubtedly the success that everyone should deserve to build on that. And that's why Mums and Co and when I became a mum post being engaged in being introduced pre motherhood was immediately a part of the community to be able to get that skillset and just, yeah, peership, right? And then you couple it with the challenges and the other,
(00:44:40):
I guess, necessarily challenges, but other focuses that you have of growing great humans. And that's really important to have it in both. And you can't find that inclusively just with an entrepreneurship group. And it's a really beautiful thing when women and mums come into a room with fierce with vision and their ambition, with ambition. It's incredibly powerful and it's what the world needs more of and we need more people to support people to bring these ideas to life because it will be a better place if we're allowing our humans to thrive in business. And that's why I love the community of Mums and Co. I couldn't have done it genuinely without it, especially in the period of time of those 24 months when we connected in a professional and actually grew together. Yeah, it's incredibly important.
Carrie (00:45:36):
Thank you for sharing that. And I know I actually remember when you, because it was actually quite early stages of your business at that time, and it was just fascinating to see that there was so much trust there. We were aligned on values, we were aligned on purpose, we were aligned on what the task was at hand and to bring that to market and work collaboratively and just be really driven to do that. So thank you for helping us create such a useful communications tool to help women through that period. And so great to have you as part of our 100th episode of Mumbition.
Aoife (00:46:12):
Thank you for having me, Carrie.
Lucy (00:46:19):
Okay, we're now moving in to around the year 2022 in the immediate post Covid period. And our story continues here at mums and Co with some terrific changes, which spoiler alert ultimately lead to our new relationship with IAG. So tell us a bit about what was happening now.
Carrie (00:46:38):
Well, gosh, I think it was really about keeping the lights on for many small businesses at this point in time. And whilst we were doing some great work, I think people were quite tired and feeling burnt out and just dealing with the overwhelm of Covid. There was a concept of pink recession as well. I think that the government was actually trying to do more to help support those that were affected by covid. So we saw the introduction of different grants at that time too. So the boosting female founders grant, and I think that also led to probably a bit more competition too. And thinking back on this time too, we probably had gone through a couple of funding rounds, investment rounds, and having to know what our next pathway to growth is. Probably quite a stressful thing for a founder to go through. And any team, there's a lot of energy that's put into an investment round. I remember the time when Sarah, my chief of staff and I came together and we had some late nights, we had meetings, we had lots of whiteboarding and writing board papers to figure out what our funding options were to continue that ultimately led to Mums and Co being acquired by IAG, our long-term partner and working under the NRMA insurance brand.
Lucy (00:48:07):
And what do you see as the best thing about our alignment with NRMA insurance?
Carrie (00:48:13):
So IAG, which owns the NRMA insurance brand, their purpose is to make the world a safer place. And what that means to me is it's about a notion of protecting what matters most to us. And that to me is livelihood. It's my family, of course, it goes into my assets as well, like my home and my business. So what was really apparent from working with them for so long was that they really do take that to a very community-based level as well. And that shows up in a lot of underrepresented communities. I love that they actually are really believe in climate action in a friendly workplace. They're really active in reconciliation. So those values really, really do align us having a corporate partner means that we can continue to deliver on our promise. And it's kind of quite rare that you have a startup that's backed by a corporate. And personally during that time, what was really important to me was that we could continue being Mums and Co. We could continue helping at the grassroots level, these women that really, really do need that support could I could provide safe passage for this incredible team.
(00:49:44):
Everyone's looking for financial security as well. And then maybe selfishly it means that I could continue to make the impact that I wanted to, the biggest impact that I could with mums and and with the backing of ig.
Lucy (00:49:59):
And to continue the conversation about this great partnership with NRMA insurance, we're going to invite Matt Bennett and Julie Batch from NRMA insurance to have a chat with you.
Carrie (00:50:11):
A key person here at NRMA insurance has been Matt Bennett, the executive general manager distribution. Matt, our big welcome to Ambition the podcast.
Matt (00:50:21):
Oh, thank you so much Carrie, and it's wonderful to be here.
Carrie (00:50:23):
You've been a terrific advocate for Mums and Cos since we joined IAG. Why have you supported Mums and Co?
Matt (00:50:29):
A lot of your listeners will know about NRMA insurance and the products and offers we have, but what they might not know about NRMA insurance is that we really endeavour to play a leading role in supporting and helping communities. And that includes micro businesses and small businesses. So for instance, understanding the important role of women in micro business is really important to us and that's why we proudly support Mums and Co. Now I know some amazing women led businesses and just often so impressed by the women that run these businesses and they're so talented, they're brave and often have a really strong personal connection to not only their business but also the customers and suppliers and really are balancing their careers, their family commitments and a lot of different things. And I'm always super impressed with how that's done. So I'm really proud to play a part in supporting women and having a positive impact in society through Mums and Co.
Carrie (00:51:26):
And what do you see as some of the key opportunities for our ongoing relationship?
Matt (00:51:30):
So I think Mums and Co and NRMA insurance make a really powerful team. So whilst Mums and Co celebrates the optimism and bravery of starting something new, NRMA insurance can really be there to support business owners and particularly women business owners when something goes wrong. So I think there's value add offers to anyone wishing to start a business with access to Mums and Co events and also rewarding those current insurance customers with Mums and Co membership to unlock access to more experts and more events and resources.
Carrie (00:52:06):
Thank you so much for your support for being a great champion for us and for joining us here on Mumbition Today.
Matt (00:52:12):
My pleasure, Carrie, and congratulations on your hundredth episode and also for sharing so many stories about inspiring women.
Carrie (00:52:22):
Another key person in the Mums and Co evolution is Julie Batch, the CEO of NRMA insurance. And she's been kind enough to join us on this special edition today. A big welcome, Julie.
Julie (00:52:33):
Thank you for having me, Carrie. It's a pleasure to be here.
Carrie (00:52:35):
Now, Julie, you are the first female CEO of NRMA insurance, a company that's about to celebrate 100 years of being in business and helping the community. Now I know that gender equality and women in leadership is something that's very important to you. What's one lesson or an insight that you could share with our community?
Julie (00:52:56):
Thanks for asking that, Carrie. I mean, it's quite interesting being the first female CEO of NRMA insurance. I remember when I started at the company nearly 20 years ago, we used to walk through the executive floors and see paintings, oil paintings of all the men that had run the business before you. So that's quite daunting. We don't have oil paintings now. We have podcasts. So it is my pleasure to be here with you today celebrating your birthday and ours that's coming. I think if I look at, or if I think about what's been important to me as a female and I spend a lot of time with women both in our company and across our industry, talking about what it's like to kind of build a career and think about your value, I'd probably say a few things. So first of all, most importantly, know your strengths.
(00:53:49):
We spend a lot of time with people telling us why we won't succeed or what we need to build or what skills we need to learn or develop so that we can be more effective. And I think all of that's just a load of rubbish. I think everybody's got an amazing set of strengths, particularly women. And the more that you are able to emphasise those strengths, understand them, take the time to understand what you're good at and really be able to articulate that well. You can find lots and lots of different places to apply those strengths in. So it gives you the opportunity to explore different businesses, different opportunities, different domains, and I'd very strongly advocate for that. And the other thing I'd say, you asked me for one thing, but I'll give you two. The other thing I'd say is just be, and it's a little bit behind your brand name or your branding, the way that you think about your business actually Carrie, but be ambitious.
(00:54:48):
So think about what your opportunity is and go for it. Again, a lot of women will talk to me about being scared of failing. I don't contemplate that at all. To me, something's always going to go wrong and it's never going to go exactly to plan. That's a learning experience to me. I don't see that as a setback. I see that as an opportunity to step forward. But I hear a lot of women talk to me about not wanting to try in case it doesn't work out. I'd say be ambitious, have a go. Failure's a learning opportunity and persevere. And that would be my advice to any women that I work with.
Carrie (00:55:25):
And Julie, you were a board member for Mums and Co back in 2019. What did you see in the business back then?
Julie (00:55:35):
Well, I was a board member, but I also had a very long history with Mums and Co before that. So just as you sort of stepped into our organisation and started to work with our organisation, I think what I saw was just this amazing untapped network of beautiful women that had made a set of choices about how they wanted to live their life, taking control of their destiny in a way by blending together what we all many of us face. So the motherhood, being a mother and then deciding how you wanted to run your career. And what I saw through your business was the bringing of those two things together. So allowing women who wanted to be at home and or build their businesses in a different way and support their family, not have to put their career aside, but actually build something completely different.
(00:56:30):
And what I loved about your business is it wasn't telling people how to do it, but it was helping guide all those mums out there that were wanting to build something and unleash that ambition for your words, wanting to build that and your business, providing a platform to help them do so just with the advice, the marketing, the way to run finance and accounts, all those things that when you're busy and you've got a lot going on, you take for granted inside an organisation. I just thought it was really special that your platform was helping support people build on top, build their dreams on top of it basically.
Carrie (00:57:08):
So we're now part of the NRMA Insurance family and it's a real exciting time for our team, for our community, and I think there's a real alignment in terms of your vision on helping Australians like no one else. And on our vision, which is to help women start in business and have a community to help them stay in business. What are some of the plans to build further on our relationship?
Julie (00:57:34):
Maybe just a little bit of reflection on NRMA insurance first. So we are 99 years old and we've been doing a lot of thinking and a lot of soul searching about what we want to be when we grow up. We're going to be a hundred next year. So it's about time we figured that out really Carrie. But you will have just seen a lot of our branding and our rebranding that we've done through supporting Channel Nine and its Olympics coverage, talking about being A Help company. And if I look at where we started, so 99 years ago we started as a business thinking about how we helped, basically when a new technology turned up in Australia, which at that time was cars and engines, and our job at the time was figuring out how we built roads and connection and so on, so we could take advantage of this amazing technology a hundred years later.
(00:58:30):
And lots of innovative companies started at the same time. So there were supermarkets, banks, Vegemite, and so on and so on. A hundred years ago, a lot of pretty amazing things happened in Australia, all supported by this new tech of cars, roads and the ability to move things around and create connection. I think today we're in a similar space and a little bit like you envisaged 10 years ago about what digital could be for your community. That's very much where we are in a world where connection is really now being enabled through digital technologies, their digital pathways, not physical pathways. We are trying to rethink what our business needs to be and how we help our customers in that environment. So a help company is all about that. We want to be there for small businesses all the way across the country and knowing the incredible work that so many women do, building their businesses and contributing back to the economy often in a really local micro way, that for us is really important. And so it's thinking about how we work together to help small businesses, particularly those that have been led by women, find their pathways for the future.
Carrie (00:59:45):
Amazing. Thank you Julie, for your leadership, for your ongoing support of Mums and Co and for joining us here on Mumbition today.
Julie (00:59:53):
Thank You. It's a pleasure and happy birthday again.
Lucy (00:59:57):
So we've almost reached the end and perhaps the most important lesson of them all, Carrie,
Carrie (01:00:02):
And it's about people. People are the cornerstone of any business. Invest in them and attract the smartest people that you can. So people has been at the focus and the centre of the mums and CO as a business. It's been the focus of us as a community and whilst we had a tech platform and we have this community, I think that's also something that I really wanted to create by attracting a people centred team because they're the ones that are going to be doing business with our members. They're the ones that actually get things done. So I think wherever I can, I've always tried to invest in the team and hopefully it aligns, it hopefully aligns with their progression, what excites them, what they want to work on and when they grow we can also achieve mums and CO's vision.
Lucy (01:01:00):
Absolutely beautiful vision there. And also a perfect segue to our last guest, Sarah Nelson, who joined the team in 2020. As we talked about earlier, Sarah was the Mums and Co-chief of staff and partnerships principal until about July of last year where she stepped into a new role with IAG. And we're going to invite Sarah now to join us in the studio.
Carrie (01:01:24):
Hi Sarah, great to have you. Thanks so much for joining us today. Of
Sarah (01:01:29):
Course. Nice to be here.
Carrie (01:01:33):
Okay, so I have often referred to you as the co-founder that I never had. I would describe you as my right hand woman when you were with us. You joined us in 2020 and was really significant in terms of where we were going with Mums and Co So can you take us back? What initially attracted you to Mums and Co? And then what made you stay? What
Sarah (01:02:01):
Attracted me to Mums and Co was the strength and creativity and warmth from the very first time I heard of you was a phone call from Susie who used to be one of your partnerships managers from an article that I had published in Women's Agenda about how come we have these baby showers and weddings and all these celebrations and occasions for our lives, but never women starting businesses. And so we should have this concept of a business shower. And Susie reached out with that Mums and Co warmth and strategy. She's like, I love it. I work for Mums and Co. We're backed by IAG, let's go. So that's how I first heard of you. And Susie came to the business shower and then we connected when I was very early on in my own business journey as starting my own consultancy. And there was just that click. I found my Co.
Carrie (01:02:58):
And I remember that I think we met at a cafe and you're another person that instantly I think we had that energy and yes, you are running these amazing events because let's face it, as a small business owner, you don't really celebrate those moments. So love the concept of actually you've started a business. If we're celebrating the birth of something, let's have a business shower for it and right back at you in terms of that energy, that warmth and that, I think you said something around your legacy is to redefine Australia's version of the divine feminine. Have I got that? Maybe those words was right. It was,
Sarah (01:03:46):
It's so beautiful to hear it back because I'm obsessed with the concept and that's sort of the precursor to the business hour events and starting my own consultancy is being proactive with your legacy and absolutely. I'm all about Australia being that creative and innovative and just so trusting and feminine force with our innovation and our entrepreneurship and our phenomenal natural beauty and warmth. It's so feminine. We're so lucky. So yeah, supporting the 345,000 business owning women, it was just so natural to be a part of.
Carrie (01:04:23):
And what made you stay?
Sarah (01:04:25):
A couple of things. The span, the breadth. It was that national breadth so that the purpose, that community of supporting women all across Australia, every single state and territory in that vulnerability that, but yet the confidence and that excitement of something so new and so important to them. Their identity, their legacy, their family, their incomes, et cetera. And then the partners, you just get so into detail and such beautiful relationships of the lives of your colleagues that the lives and the dreams and ambitions and desires and needs of our members of the Mums and Co members, the strategies of companies and partners supporting us. And that sort of intellectually was really, really fascinating. How can we help? We know that women are so important and their power in controlling the household purchasing decisions and that sort of wave of pink beanies and everything happening in the world, it's like we have to be more sincere and we have got this huge opportunity of being more strategic in really thoughtfully supporting women across Australia. So combination of the team and the sort of collective minds at work from partners, be they sponsors like Dell or IAG and the surrounding strategies and of course the members themselves.
Carrie (01:06:01):
And I think that is true. I think how we've always approached it is that like an ecosystem and the area that you played in was you have this magic ability to link someone's someone's objective or someone's mission or someone's need
Sarah (01:06:18):
And make it my business
Carrie (01:06:21):
And make magic happen. Yes, yes.
Sarah (01:06:25):
Well it just comes from that. I've worked with brands and companies and founders who do things from that perspective of alignment and consistency and vision and compare that and the ease of that and the strategy and grace of that compared to someone who's just like ping pong, ping ponging and nothing's tidy like your home. I mean parallel number 486,072 of motherhood and business is keep your house in order, keep it tidy. If there's a link, if there's a meaningful link, make it shout it from the rooftop so that everyone understands it's such. I love that.
Carrie (01:07:11):
Now you have definitely been an integral part of a
(01:07:16):
(01:07:16):
pretty tumultuous stage of a business journey if we take back to, it was during, just before Covid, during Covid post Covid, things were hard, market conditions were hard. Our members who were small business owners were also pretty tired and we had to navigate a few tricky moments of the business. And I always like to say that the people in our team help you through those. We celebrate the moments that we are achieving, but you also stick with us during the tougher moments as well. And I think we had a pretty tough moment at one phase. It was very late night, it was a very late night. We were ordering takeaway in the office and I think we fondly refer to as the come to Jesus mument. So yeah, I just wanted to recognise that our success and navigating those tough times was because we had great people, we had a great team and I had your support at that sort of level as well. So thank you for that.
Sarah (01:08:30):
You're so welcome. But I hope it is so lonely and you are surrounded by that support and that kind of support that you've had for so many years before me and before so many people. And after there have been so many different versions of Mums and Co and you are the constant. So I wonder if, and I hope you have reflected on that as well, that yes, it's really important to have your co yes, you need your village, all of that, but your inner strength, the way you support you because you are the one that has kept on going for nearly eight years. So shout out
Carrie (01:09:22):
To you. Oh thanks Sarah. And no, it definitely is. I feed off the energy too, right? You is actually getting everyone towards that same vision, but thank you. What role does company culture play in attracting and retaining top talent and what did we do at Mums and Co to cultivate that?
Sarah (01:09:44):
There's that saying that culture eats strategy for breakfast and it kind of makes sense when you apply it to a startup environment because when you're constantly iterating and trying to find what works or you've got a new opportunity that you want to run after your strategy changes so that if you want to be able to keep on changing your strategy to be agile and clever and quick and creative, you've got to have your culture because that's the only constant that's the foundation. Exactly. So obsessed with culture, I mean it's basic. It's what you want to walk into, it's what you want to do. You want it to feel warm and pink and fuzzy and lovely, or do you want it to be cold and grey and something that you need an umbrella for? And we created a whole, one of my favourite things about Mums and Cos the way that we ceaselessly created this language, it started with that framework of ambition, livelihood, and wellbeing. And we really taught each other that ambition is livelihood, is wellbeing. And that triangle is so linked, you cannot have one part of it without another. And we lived that. We would remind each other to go to Pilates, we would be so, and probably helped by Covid all working from home. But we really did make the effort using our platform such as Slack to just be open and communicative, putting on some laundry, getting the kids going into deep focus mode, see you in three hours.
(01:11:30):
Just that it's so simple. But we forget that communication builds trust and only when you trust each other can you have a deep and meaningful relationship. And then you can do whatever strategy is required. But it starts with the comms. So we built such a beautiful culture through our comms, our communication and our language and just the way that we were so candid and yeah,
Carrie (01:11:57):
We showed up exactly how we were at that point in time. So right now I'm looking, we've got all the glitz and glam because we've got our makeup and our hair, but there are very many more moments where we have just literally showed up with our trackies, no makeup, and we're just getting the work done. And that was okay. And if kids were flying into Zoom calls or video conferences, it's just a mument where we have to go, is there something, are you hurt? Is there something that you need urgently and not be apologetic about that because that happens. And yeah, you're right. I think we created a whole new language in many ways to the point where we were trademarking new terms, right? Mumbition is a trademark term and it's the unapologetic blending of motherhood, ambition because a lot of the language that we need doesn't quite suit us. So I love that the ambition, livelihood, wellbeing, recognition, it's such big part of our culture at Mums and co. And thank you for helping us get to this new language.
Sarah (01:13:15):
Well, it's a framework, so thank you. Now I'm in a different role, but I apply it every day.
Carrie (01:13:23):
Thank you so much, Sarah, for joining us at this special episode today.
Sarah (01:13:28):
Very special episode. Yay. Mums and co.
Lucy (01:13:32):
It's time now for us to say goodbye. Carrie, I want to thank you for being the most wonderful guest on your own podcast.
Carrie (01:13:41):
Such a pleasure.
Lucy (01:13:42):
You've been a perfect guest, but also thank you for paving the way for not only the women in our team, but also our community. It's been an absolute privilege to be part of your vision and your advocacy. And as we've heard from every single guest on today's episode, your kindness, your integrity, and your genuine passion for supporting women in business in Australia has been a hundred percent realised. So I hope when we celebrate this hundredth episode, you can take that into your heart and know that to be true. Thank you so much for sharing your journey with us.
Carrie (01:14:18):
Thank you, Lucy, for having the opportunity to reflect on what's been an incredible eight years. And I always think about, hopefully we've been the catalyst to help another woman continue to grow, to connect, and we may not ever know that we were the catalyst, but I really think that what this amazing team does is enable that.
* Offer only available to people who redeem a complimentary 12-month Mums & Co Community level subscription using the promotional code NRMAINS51 from 00:01AM on Monday 24 July to 31 December 2024 by following the process outlined above. Offer is limited to one use of the promotional code only per eligible person, and the promo code NRMAINS51 must be applied to be eligible for the Offer. A maximum of 500 Mums & Co Community level subscriptions are available under this Offer. This Offer excludes Mums & Co annual Standard level subscriptions, quarterly Standard level subscriptions and annual Premium level subscriptions. The Mums & Co Community Membership subscription is valued at RRP $49 AUD. The Offer only applies to the first twelve months of the Mums & Co Community level subscription and will not apply to any auto-renewal of the annual Community level subscription after the initial 12-month period. After the initial 12-month period, the Community level subscription will auto-renew using the credit card details provided unless the subscription is cancelled before the end of the applicable subscription period. Any redemption or use of the promo code is subject to the Mums & Co Membership Terms and Conditions available at https://www.mumsandco.com.au/membership-terms-and-conditions. Offer may be withdrawn at any time.
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