Is this a decent business idea for pregnant women/mothers?

[neewred]

I'm a midwife wanting to increase my earning potential and looking to leave the NHS soon for a while host of reasons.

Still a very early idea, but was thinking of opening a centre that offers services such as:

Pregnancy/postnatal yoga
Pregnancy aromatherapy, massage, acupuncture etc.
Antenatal classes
Breastfeeding support
Perhaps private antenatal/postnatal appointments
Tongue tie cutting

You get the gist.

There must be a reason nobody is doing this yet? I feel like I'm missing something!

Well, I'm pretty confident the librarians aren't doing it!

For the record I paid for private postnatal midwife support from a wonderful lady who is a midwife; IBCLC and tongue tie practicioner. She came to me at home which was brilliant.

This would be popular where I live- lots of it already going on although not all under one roof.

I’d prefer different specialists for different services not one woman running around like Miss Rabbit doing everything. In particular keep the yoga and massage separate from the more medical services.

A cafe area would be good too.

Surestart provided a lot of that....

You might have more credibility by opening a centre and having classes which are a mixture of you doing your specialism and getting some specialists in for otter things.

I imagine you'd have a very transient client base as your clients return to work/have another baby/move house.

I think this would work, mainly because we have something like this near us and it’s incredibly popular. However, it’s a social enterprise/charity so able to offer stuff at very low cost cause it’s essentially not-for-profit.

That said, almost all the new mums I know have shelved out hundreds on either lactation consultants or sleep consultants (or both!) so if you can provide a ‘premium’ feel you’ll likely have customers

I wish there was more support in my area for babies who don't sleep well. So I knew it was normal and that it wasn't just my baby. Also everything seems to be geared towards stay at home mums. Having things happen at the weekend would be great for those parents who work full time.

You may need to blend it with some online options as well. If you start building an online audience (e.g. a Facebook group) then you may be able to offer online 121’s or group memberships. From a business point of view you’re going to either need a small amount of people paying a lot or a large amount of people paying a little.

What would your market size be if you took say a 30 mile radius, the number of pregnant women/new mums, then how many would look for and want what you offer and then how many could afford it.

I think the main reason no one is doing "this" is because "this" (in the opening post) is having dedicated premises. Which is expensive.

All those services exist round here, but they use church halls, community centres etc. And the practitioners are qualified in maybe a couple of areas and build their reputations in them (word of mouth matters)

Independent midwifery is very expensive to insure, and outside very affluent areas, very few women have private care in the first place. And those who do, often do so for continuity of care - and so if you're not offering actual childbirth services, you will not attract that group.

Antenatal classes, in places where NCT etc cannot satisfy demand would be a good service (but I know someone who was a qualified Active Birth tutor, pregnancy yoga teacher, post natal and lactation consultant, and really it was a filler occupation whilst her DC were small as she didn't make much actual money, but did it from a sense of vocation.

Be aware that many physiotherapy practices offer small group post-natal safe exercise classes. And in areas where there are yoga studios, there's bound to be a properly qualified person offering ante/post natal yoga.

But if you're sure there is a gap in provision in your area, then go for it. Just be realistic about how much you would make, and drop the idea of dedicated premises

Quite a lot of negativity in the responses - I tend to agree about breastfeeding qualifications for example, but if I’d been to you for yoga and liked you, then I’d use that to assess my trust of you in other areas.

I was willing to pay well for pregnancy yoga as I went to a few regular yoga classes where they’d give me adapted moves but I didn’t feel there was enough knowledge.

I think trying to offer lots of things is a good idea, making yourself the selling point. If people like you, word spreads and you get ideas of what people locally want.

Maybe you could try to seek some feedback from some local woman at an antenatal class/ postnatal service or the like, on what they’d want to see?

It will be the cost of running the centre. I ran a community centre and despite a nursery hiring half the building Monday to Friday and it being almost full the rest of the time with bookings it was just about breaking even. After the gas prices increased we had to have grants from the council just to stop closing. That was being fully run by volunteers too.

Yep. Op, do you enjoy sales work and are you good at it? Because you'll probably have to spend more of your time working as a salesperson than on delivering these services.

You shouldn’t be offering breastfeeding support unless you’re an IBCLC.

Startup business consultant here! I also attended classes at a similar space with my little one 12 years ago.

It doesn't work as a bootstrapped business model because of competition, lack of customer "stickiness" and cost.

After 9 or 12-months your customer doesn't need you anymore. So you have to constantly be marketing.

At the same time, there's competition from NCT, NHS, online communities and the ultimate foe: doing nothing.

Energy and rent will be high. As Will salaries. You'll have to invest in aesthetics/interiors because people want a premium experience.

Marketing a place like this will also be time consuming and costly.

And this all assumes you live in an affluent are where people have disposable income to invest in such services.

I'm in Surrey and, as I said, it wasn't viable here and those were the times of 1% interest rates and banker bonuses.

If you had between £100k - £250k in seed capital (excluding rent) you could take a shot.

These are low ball numbers though - from experience I'd say you need £300k - £500k to give you 18-24 months of runway before becoming profitable. You wouldn't be able to pay yourself more than £15k though, it will have to go into the business.

You could use the Brighter Spaces model where you're effectively subletting space to the folks who deliver the services you described.

They bring their own customers and you're the property manager/marketing.

This means you'll need to market to BOTH practitioners AND customers in the first instance as this is a marketplace model for all intents and purposes.

If you're looking to move away from midwifery there are other options.

For example, I helped a former midwife set up a "mental fitness" and coaching service that is delivered directly to midwives via local trusts. It solves the problem of retention and burnout.

You could also investigate women health tech platforms that connect the dots between practitioners like yourself and affluent people who want private healthcare.

The US market would be good for this as they are used to paying out of pocket and midwives aren't easy to find but there's a demand for less medicalised pregnancy care.

So yeah, there's my two cents 😝

There is a lady who has a place pretty much exactly like this near me, she's a doula so doesn't offer the midwife specific stuff. It's got a great reputation and she seems to be doing well, it's very popular. She offers a kind of enhanced antenatal course which includes postnatal support including breastfeeding (though I'm not sure who provides this, whether it's an IBCLC or not). And also shorter courses as well as doing coffee mornings and baby groups. She also uses the space for acupuncture, pre/post natal yoga and things like that. Also 1.1 antenatal support/,tailored support (which I accessed 2nd time around).
Her space operates from a building in the grounds of her (rather large) house so that would probably make it easier than hiring a place but there's definitely a market for it (here at least) if you can make it pay.

Her space operates from a building in the grounds of her (rather large) house so that would probably make it easier than hiring a place

...er, that's not some kind of minor incidental. That's probably the only thing that makes her business profitable.

I mean I think this is blunt but I agree, this was moly first thought.

I think I'd be really wary of a one-woman business claiming to be expert in so many things, especially as each thing is quite safety-critical.

The kind of women who have money to spend on these things will pay for separate experts in each thing, imo.

Training in acupuncture involves three years of study at degree level.

I don’t think a one woman business for all of that would work.

Whenever I’ve looked for breast feeding support or tongue tie support I’ve looked for specialists in that field. I’d be very wary of someone appearing like a Jack-of-all-trades as I’d assume they didn’t specialise in any of it.

I think you’d need to be in an affluent area and work out the offering. I know people who have paid privately for tongue tie and sleep consultants but I think your market would be limited to rich demographics.

I think you would also need to do baby classes to get the throughput. I don’t think it would just be enough to do antenatal yoga etc. There is a wonderful company near me who do antenatal as an alternative to NCT and then baby classes. They don’t have their own dedicated space though anymore but used to- they rent halls etc and you’d have to look v carefully at the numbers as I’m not convinced they make a lot of money. They get specialists in to run courses like sleep consultants etc.

Your marketing has to be shit hot (which will cost you money) as people know of the NCT and will go there automatically or will do classes through Nhs. It will take time to build up a client base and realistically you are constantly losing women as they go back to work so it is a continual thing until you get word of mouth recommendations.

There is someone like this in the town I live in. She is very popular. She offers birth prep / breastfeeding advice / birth debriefs / baby yoga / new mum groups etc. she works hard to be a member of the community so I guess a lot of her customers come from word of mouth. It's a 'naice' town though which probably helps customer wise. She definitely focuses on the more wellbeing / supportive side as opposed to anything medical though even though she was previously a health visitor.

Things I’ve paid for: lactation consultants, tongue tie referral (later snipped at an NHS clinic a helluva journey away), sleep consultant, pregnancy massage. But those were all separate experts: I’d be wary of one person qualified in all those roles, though I would find the “under one roof” service useful.

What I’d be more likely to pay for if I had No3 (never never never) is in-home help from a qualified midwife: someone to do that brisk, efficient, swaddle and settle thing they do, and magically routine a baby while somehow also magically establishing breastfeeding (ime the routine and the settling and the manic clusterfeeding and feeding on demand are all
incompatible). Basically a newborn nurse for a few days – packages according to budget – to get things going before I embroil myself in sleepless chaos once again.

I would have paid a premium for additional postnatal support, as a first time mother with no family support.

Like how in some countries, they have a maternity nurse that comes and visits mum and baby at home every day for the first 2 weeks. I think there is a gap in the market for this.

YY to pregnancy appointments being out of working hours. I have no idea whether you’re legally allowed time off for antenatal yoga, but no one vaguely professional is going to ask for that.
I just checked and according to ACAS that is correct. I am astounded. It does have to be on medical advice though, not just because someone fancies doing it.

Anything involving diagnosis, treating a disease will require regulation by the CQC. So be careful about what you offer. Also you will need ICO registration, and check you are working within your scope of practice. Your indemnifier will be able to advise you.

Pregnancy/postnatal yoga
No interest in this
Pregnancy aromatherapy, massage, acupuncture etc.
No interest in this
Antenatal classes
Already a lot of providers. We chose NCT but were offered it at the hospital and other cheaper companies than NCT also exist
Breastfeeding support
Was fortunate not to need this once hospital supporters had helped me figure it out but if they hadn't this is the one I would have used
Perhaps private antenatal/postnatal appointments
No interest in this
Tongue tie cutting
Didn't need this but I would be wary if I had needed it to go anywhere other than the hospital I suspect

The breastfeeding support one is the one it would be most useful to have over a wide portion of the day and to be available at no notice.