Our Story caring for newborn baby care in our home
Surprise
It all started with a huge surprise! We had been married for over a decade but no children. Having tried everything, we had just about given up hope. Then just as you read in fairytales, Hey presto, my wife Tatiana was pregnant,,with Twins! Our happiness is overwhelming, my best description of how I felt comes from a Ben Affleck movie. His son asks him. ‘Where is heaven in the Sky?’ Ben replies ‘This is it right here, we’re in it now’. This is how I felt then and it’s how I feel now. Life is so precious, you must live everyday. It was 2017
Parents of multiples
No matter what anyone says, coping with multiples is not the same as having one, As my father observed during one visit, ‘Twins isn’t just doubling of tasks it’s a quadrupling of them!’ The feeding regime of every few hours lasts all night unless they synchronise, which they seldom do. But when they do, you need a process and a plan. As a modern organised couple, sharing nights seemed obvious thing to do, trying to allow your partner to sleep. Feeding twins how difficult can it be? Often they’d wake one after the other, feed one, back to sleep, repeat. But there’s little hurdle you have to face when both wake at once. You can’t hold two babies and two bottles with one pair of hands. Various solutions were tried, sitting them between cushions and holding the bottles, even trying to secure a bottle with coat hangers and tape, with varying degrees of failure, babies move! There must be an easier way.
Side note - Bottle vs Breast
There’s a huge amount of BS (information) surrounding this topic and the breast feeding nazi propaganda can scare you. Experts agree breast milk has benefits, and there are many woman who simply can’t, don’t give yourself a hard time, do what makes sense for you. Don’t let them scare you with really poor statistics like the British NHS does..
Breastfeeding can help to reduce your baby's risk of:
· infections, with fewer visits to hospital as a result
· diarrhoea and vomiting, with fewer visits to hospital as a result
· sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS)
· obesity
· cardiovascular disease in adulthood
You’d think you were committing cruelty if you didn’t follow this…
Older injured parents
I was approaching 50, no spring chicken and I’d suffered my first ever serious skiing injury the February same year, due to me insisting the ski bindings DIN setting was kept at 10 even though the technician said I wasn’t as supple as I was. As if predicted, a silly accident my bindings didn’t release quickly enough, resulted in torn latissimus muscles in the lumbar region. I my back twinged every time I bent over, constantly on pain killers, really perfect timing! Older parents! What are you gonna do? We bought all-sorts of baby gadgets & furniture to take the load off, bassinets, cribs, loungers, rockers, bouncers, audio / video monitors. But you need to move them, babies need fed, washed, changed, dressed, exercised, photo’d, hugged, & loved.
One day whilst staring at the baby junk in the corner, I grabbed an unused lounger seat and literally taped it to a plastic shop trolley, one with those 360 spin wheels and draped their favourite blanket over it, Voila! was a revelation, Katherine loved it, smiled instantly when sat it, as she was whizzed around the apartment. When Tatiana arrived home from the office, she wasn’t convinced, but when visiting doctor said it was at the perfect angle for feeding, she warmed to the idea, We bought another trolley, I built another one for Alexandra, Life changed, it became a little easier, we were less stressed, it was relaxing to engage with our babies at a comfortable height. We didn’t know it at that time,, the Baby By U was born…
Tiredness & sleep deprivation
Allegedly CIA interrogation teams swear by it. if you want to break someone down, deny and disrupt their sleep pattern is the best way. For parents it’s a recipe for disaster, heating bottles in the dead of night, whilst half asleep, means you’re going to forget something, as you’re not fully awake. Our kids were luckly only a few times did one of us forget to fully screw down the bottle and they got a warm bath of milk instead of a warm tummy. But worse things can happen, no one ever talks about it, there are no official statistics, hospital do report falls of Babies at home, no one ever admits to dropping their baby. My research extends to only, a few beers in the pub with other fathers, who only then admitted it, and they never told their wives. It happens! There is a reason maternity wards use wheeled trolleys to move babies around, imagine tired nurses working a 14 hour shift having to carry babies by hand. They don’t do it! So why do parents subject to even longer shifts. risk it? We loved our Baby By U, no matter how tired we were, our babies were safe, it’s a wonderful feeling and result we had to share.
Every little bit counts
As the babies grew bigger heavier stronger, we appreciated their mobile chairs even more, We could comfortably sit on the sofa an engage with our babies, reading to them, attaching mobile toys to the handle, watching them slap the fluffy toys dangling above, was such fun, The chairs just fit into our lives, and we got on with nurturing our babies, whatever we needed to do around the home wasn’t a problem we just wheeled the babies with us. they were always by our side, Supervision was easy in our home, although I didn’t fully understand the implication of this at the time, My partner did. She experienced a near death accident when she was a child, she had swallowed a coin from the floor, which became stuck, turning blue she was saved by a swift impact on her back, it was pure luck someone understood the situation and took action. The statistics on child injury by swallowing, coins, batteries, washer tablets, magnets etc.. is truly upsetting, keeping child off the floor & supervised we are convinced is a major contribution to reduction of accidents. Our babies were safe, supervised and happy to always be with us, and the mobile baby chairs were a major factor in making our lives just that bit easier.
Growing up..Chair graduation!
As all babies do, they begin to walk, Katherine first by a few weeks stood by her chair and used it as a walker pushing it around the home...and slowly experimented in letting go. Her first major dash was to grab the TV remote control on the sofa next to dad and run away as fast as she could! Alexandra looking on in shock as she witnessed the theft from her chair. It wasn’t long before both graduated from their chairs. For 10 months they had been looked after by these taped together contraptions. They’d done their job during the initial stressful months, they had made coping easier, they had reduced stress and saved my back. They were relegated to the pile of unused baby furniture in the Garage and that would have been that… but two things happened that would change everything. It was 2018
Parents of singles get tired and stressed too.
We were visited by friends who just given birth to their first. They were younger than us and they asked to borrow one of our chairs? I said they could have it, but why? They only have one baby. Why would they want one? Our friends explained that during their birth an the body sometimes releases an overdose of the hormone ‘relaxin’, to assist the birth and in some cases this huge dose adversely affects the muscles, and the recovery period was much longer, making lifting difficult if not impossible. Moving the baby around would be much easier if they could borrow one of our chairs. One of the chairs left the home, and when our twins saw it leave both Katherin and Alexandra burst in tears for the rest of the evening. The message was clear, these chair aren’t just for older parents with multiples. New couples are tired, stressed too…who knew! The second thing that happened was incredibly sad
Every parents worst nightmare
A story was recounted to me by friend from the south of England where I grew up. It had happened to a local family, so its pure coincidence that this story came to me. This family had suffered a heart wrenching child bereavement, both parents at home. The mother put her newborn in the cot and went for a bath whilst the baby was sleeping. The baby monitor was on, the Father working down stairs on his computer. After just 40 minutes the mother found her baby had suffocated, the weight of the head across the edge of the drop side cot had compressed the windpipe. Their baby monitor didn’t signal any warning. It hit me like a ton of bricks, our babies were always ‘By Us’, we had monitors, but never relied on them. If you are the type of parent that wakes at night to listen to the child breathing you’ll know. But it was supervision that was the key factor. We’d stumbled across a very convenient way to increase supervision, which prevent accidents! If this mother used a Baby By U either parent could have had the baby close by.
Necessity is the mother of Invention
The Light bulb went on. My career in technology meant I knew tech engineers and, designers, and my work in startup communities meant I knew investors! Of course.. this was meant to happen, its Karma right? We were meant to create a baby product that made parents lives easier and babies a little safer. We set to work.. We’d already identified the need we were living proof of this. What is needed is to understand does anyone else already solve problem? Yes there are literally hundreds of baby products aimed at helping parents cope in the initial months with a new born. I know, we bought most of them! and most of them never got used. We researched, the top selling baby products, and narrowed it down to the must haves. Our Baby By U chair did fit a gap in the market.
Feeding Chair, Bassinet/Crib, Lounger/Rocker, the top baby furniture products new borns at home. I joined ‘Mumsnet’ internet community and started asking questions. It quickly became clear many parents struggled with the same things, and were looking for solutions to cope with this same things, back ache, arm ache, tiredness, distraction, supervision. It was also clear many relied on older grandparents as carers, bending down lifting and carrying babies isn’t just a problem for injured skiers. The market research had produced some very interesting numbers 9 million babies born in US & western Europe every year. This is a massive market projected to be worth $45bn by 2030. But how to make a chair that everyone wants?
Design
I grew up appreciating design, my father was in the Royal Air Force, I once heard pilot say ‘If it looks right it flies right’, this stuck with me my whole life, there was something very attractive about classic objects. They blend form and function. They are aesthetically pleasing and actually do the job intended. We wanted the By to be a multi-function do the things our Frankenstein chair didn’t. We wanted it to be ‘Simple, Safe & Smart’ A very basic shape presents itself. I drew up some basic sketches, my designer friends rendered them in Solidworks, computer CAD. then called my British design engineer contacts, who had worked on baby products previously. Due to the focus on simplicity the work proceeded quickly, we had a partial first prototype, then a second within months. We chose the best safety regulations for similar products and exceeded them within our design.
The design process produced an extremely strong ‘Safe’, lightweight chassis that could be adapted by ‘Simply’ and easily changing the textile. A ‘Smart’ one handed operation, as you always need a hand free when caring for a baby! We built a third prototype and used a textile design specialist to advise on best performing materials. The cost of the project were beginning to increase. We needed a business case to justify the investment. If we were going to produce our Baby By U, what would it cost, to manufacture, package, distribute, market and sell? Where do you find factories that have experience of metals, plastics & textiles? China
China
Is a big country, with multiple industrial centres, it would be impossible to cover in a single trip. I used the online Alibaba & AliExpress to reach out, to potential factories, but producing quotations proved elusive. Fortunately, there are annual exhibitions for various markets. The Stroller show in Guangzhou is the largest, when you have registered to attend the travel visa process is straightforward. The organisers also help foreign attendees and offer translation services free of charge which is very helpful. Armed with Chinese Non-disclosure agreements, I went to China to find a manufacturer partner.
The exhibition was massive, it quickly became clear many were resellers not factories. I needed to approach only those with ability to make our Baby By U. Chinese are very tech friendly, if they didn’t have anyone who spoke English, we used phone translations apps. I had whole conversations via these apps, and everyone was perfectly comfortable with it. WeChat is a must doing business in China BTW 😊. After the first day I had shortlist of factories and scheduled visits for the rest of the week. All picked me up at the hotel transported me to their factories for a tour and meeting with management. I drank a lot of tea, a lot, I mean a lot. But could we build trust and understanding? Could I find a partner to build the By U?
Our Story continues..
China....
It opened my eyes to how China is developing and how industrialisation is progressing very fast. The infrastructure is truly amazing. The new parts of the cities shame the lack of investment in most western European countries. I whizzed about southern China on high speed rail covering huge distances Macao to Guangzhou, or to Shenzhen is hours. The short list got shorter and agreements signed with some factories to produce some quotations based on a progressive startup basis. I found professional, experienced engineers and management at factories who in most cases had a good command of English which made things straight forward. I also observed some factories that used contract labour, who were kept in dormitories that resembled prisons for the period of their factory run. There are different tiers of working practices in China, and although I am not an expert in how countries are run. I wanted to ensure my Chinese partner was ethical in its operations. I returned home and awaited the quotes. Could the By U be produced at a cost that normal parents could afford?
Yes We Can!
In under a month the quotations from China arrived. The estimates were based on digital CAD engineering files created by our British engineers. All were within expectations, which mean we could produce the Baby By U at a competitive price parents could afford. We were really happy. We had a great Idea, We had a great design, We had a great cost structure, now all we needed was to understand, packaging, shipping, import taxes, distribution, stocking, advertising and marketing costs, costs of sales, logistics, returns, warranties and insurances, business costs, offices, warehousing, employee costs. We needed a fully costed business plan with a full financial business model. So we did that (phew) and were ready to go. Oh no! We knew from our personal experience that the By U helped, but this was a new design it had to be best, We hadn’t tested with real babies it was Dec 2019.
We were close…but it needed to be tested…luckily everyone was stuck at home…
Covid hit, no travel. China and the world was in chaos.
We were lucky, many of our younger friends were giving birth and many were willing to help out with testing. You think you thought of everything and it was clear from the testing the parents instantly got the idea of the Baby By U, it fits into your lifestyle, it helps out when you need to be busy and it keeps your baby safe when distracted. Working from home (everybody was) Doing everyday chores around the house, it’s brilliant. Helping older carers and grandparents manage, It delivers great peace of mind, for tired, stressed, parent It’s a god send. But the major impact of testing for me, was seeing the babies put into the Baby By U for the first time, beamed with a smile. It reminded of my own childhood, the play pen was a prison. Testing over performed expectations. We had to build this but we needed to protect our hard work and investment. We needed to apply for a patent…
China Factories & Covid
I was in regular contact with China throughout Covid, Wechat and email, they were under really strict conditions and my contacts were careful with what they shared. They were quite unaware for a long time how Covid had affected the rest of the world. All of the contacts were from Guangdong region of China, but due to high speed rail, people can travel quickly easily around China. Their lockdown was strict and groceries were gathered from designated locations where bags were distributed at the end of broom sticks. Factories were shut down, some never re-opened. Some of my contacts moved jobs some I never heard from again. It was a tough time for everyone. The delay to our project was inevitable and costly.
Protecting your Idea
Patenting protects your product from being copied or re-sold by a competitor. It’s a really complicated process and it needs professional legal representation. It requires accurate descriptions of your ‘Invention’ with accurate pictorial diagrams explaining the operations. You apply for patents in the markets you intend to distribute your products. Worldwide patents are possible but extremely expensive to process and maintain. We believed major western markets USA, Europe would be our most important so, we applied for patents , Brexit had complicated Europe as Britain would no issue separately. US would be handled by US based team. We had decided on the name Baby By U, and also applied for trademarks in same regions Europe was granted in 2020, UK granted 2021. The US was not so straightforward.
US Patent & Trade mark objections. The first objection was from Brigham Young University ‘BYU’, was their trade mark. Even though ours included Baby they didn’t want to allow us to use Baby ‘BYU’ However they very sensibly pointed out they’d seen our website www.BabybyU.co.uk. And they were Ok if we used a space between the By U. This was always our intention, but it required an amendment and extra fees for the US lawyer handling the application. The second objection was with the technical descriptions of the operation the chair, and they objected to the wording. The wording in the application was exactly the same as in the European and British patent applications. But due ‘unfathomable’ reasons they wanted it changed.. more fees for US lawyer.. the Patent was granted Dec 2023.
Cost of living crisis
We had been paying the expenses of this Baby By U project with savings, and it was manageable, but as soon as Covid went, and more chaos entered the world. Russia conflict in Ukraine sparked energy and financial inflation and Increased fears of China invading Taiwan. Chinese factories were slowly getting back to work and updated me that various costs were increasing. It became apparent we would need to seek investors to help us pay for factory costs to start this. We needed a fully costed business plan, a pitch deck, and a compelling investor proposal…but most frightening of all we needed to start marketing via social media to prove there was a market and parents did actually think the Baby By U was a good idea. Brochures, Graphics, Videos, Instagram, Facebook, X and TikTok,all stuff that I’d basically ignored for most of my adult life was about to become really important to the success of the Baby By U
Finding money to start a business - Venture Capital (VC)
Finding an investor in your great idea, is something very few people do. Access to Finance is a key factor in a successful businesses and economies, but I’ve been around this most of my career, I’ve worked for a venture capitalist, I know investors this should be a doddle. Then you realise that unless you’re an AI, Fintech, SaaS, Lifestyle, tech startup with a fully working tested app with paying customers. The list of venture capitalists who will actually read past the intro email is about 0.1%. All of the top firms have employed experts in AI & Fintech, these highly intelligent people all focused on finding the next billion dollar unicorn. 1000 VC’s all investing in companies that will never succeed.
We’ve been turned down by all that have seen my Baby By U investment proposal. I am not surprised! Earlier in my career I had attended VC investment meetings. The genius investment heads were asking themselves how they’d missed out on this particular company that just exited for X$billion. They literally had turned them away ‘They failed their ‘Assh*le’ test’ They discussed how they disliked the founder, as he was really unreasonable. There was a pause in the conversation, as they mulled this reasoning. I spoke up - So none of you would have invested in Steve Jobs in that case, seems to me you should looking for more ‘Assh*les’ . Maybe I should have quoted George Bernard Shaw instead ‘All progress in made by unreasonable people’..but who said I was a reasonable person? 😊
Finding Investment - Crowd Funding)
So where do people with simple non fintech/AI ideas go to find funding?
Crowd sourcing is where random strangers on the internet become investors in your idea, they may want to help or they actually want to buy your product. If your can connect with 1000s of investors, their small investments can add up to more than your need.
So that’s why writing this story. I hope if you found it interesting or useful you will share it with your contacts, after all it will be decades before AI app actually helps a busy tired parent or makes a baby safer and in the great scheme of life what is more important than that?
So here we are posting our story online in the hope in will educate and inspire people to follow their dreams. It is a short version of a very long story about life and ‘This is it right here, we’re in it now’
We will be posting details of our Crowdsourcing campaign this Summer, we really need your support… thanks.