Building a company during Maternity leave

I never set out to be an IndieHacker, let alone a successful one with a life-changing exit under my belt. It just sort of happened.

But now that I know it's possible, I feel like it's such an amazing path for women/primary caregivers to find balance after they start families, and I want to share what worked for me in hopes that more people can do what I did.

Taking Advantage of Parental Leaves

I'm lucky enough to live in a country with generous parental leave policies (Canada). After the birth of my first child in 2009, my mother approached me with the idea for a business in her niche of RVing. My experience as a computer engineer meant I could bring it to life, so we decided to partner. She would come and hang out with the baby for 2 or 3 hours a couple of days a week, and I would build the MVP for our business.

Parental leave is a very special time, and those first few months are exhausting. But if you're lucky enough to have a substantial number of months of leave, then finding someone to give you 3-6 hours a week to work on your MVP is amazing. Having an opportunity to focus on something other than your child for those few hours is definitely self-care. And while (in Canada at least) you typically aren't able to earn money during leave without diminishing your benefits, working on an early-stage side project that has no revenue is the perfect way to keep your brain sharp without going afoul of the rules.

Obviously not all people will have their baby's grandmother as their business partner, but partnering with another parent and trading off childcare responsibilities for a few hours each week can be a great way to build a company and a relationship of collaboration between founders.

Yes, you won't get much done in 3-6 hours a week. Once your babe is a little older, you may be able to throw in a few hours in the evenings after they're in bed, if you're not too exhausted. As always, make sure you're keeping the "minimum" in Minimum Viable Product. Don't put too much stress on yourself. I always thought of it as a fun side project and didn't worry about revenue or marketing, and built slowly and steadily. (In fact, I did the building over TWO maternity leaves - I don't recommend this though, just reduce your scope and get it done!)

Launching While Working and Raising Kids

The business we started was a two-sided marketplace, so while we were able to seed it with a decent number of members from my mom's connections (she had a popular series of travel e-guides for RVers and a mailing list), it took time for it to grow. And that worked out just fine. We grew very slowly, much more slowly than would satisfy a lot of people, but when you've got preschoolers and toddlers and are working a full-time job, slow growth of your side project is the only way to stay sane.

At a few points in these years I dropped down to part-time at my day job, and was very grateful to my employer for letting me do that, although I don't think that ever resulted in more time on my business, just less insanity in getting dinner on the table.

While your family finances will dictate what you need to do here, the truth is that even small efforts on your business after you launch can pay off. Remember that things like writing blog posts for SEO can take months to show results, so embracing the slow and steady growth of a side project that only gets a few hours a week of effort after the kids are in bed is fine!

When you do finally have customers, don't get stressed about responding to their support requests immediately. Choose your business carefully to avoid an offering that hinges on real-time support, but recognize that very few customer support requests require you to drop everything. You can generally wait until after bedtime to get back to people. Anything less than one business day is usually a win as far as most customers are concerned.

Growing the Company While a Stay At Home Mom

For my family, there came a point where my husband was travelling for work for almost a week of every month, and trying to shuttle one kid to kindergarten, another to daycare, and myself to a day job solo during those times was just too much. My side business was not anywhere close to replacing my salary, but we were lucky enough that we could manage without it. So I quit my day job and became a Stay At Home Mom -- with a side hustle.

With toddlers and preschoolers, look for affordable programs that can get you a couple of hours of kid-free time a few days a week. In our area, we had an "Early Years Center" that offered free 1-hour programs for kids under the age of 5, and had a common room for parents to socialize in/do work from during that hour. I would bring my laptop, drop the kids off for their one hour of parent-free program, and then get as much done as possible. Later, they attended a 2 mornings/week preschool program at a local community centre for very low cost, and eventually were enrolled in a 3 mornings/week cooperative preschool. (Tip: Co-op preschools where you have a "duty" shift in the class once every couple weeks will reduce costs.) While they were there, I'd nip to the nearby coffee shop or library and get in 2 hours of work. It was fits and spurts, but it added up to something substantial enough to release a few new features and address security patches.

I'd also always have my phone with me and an app for our customer support on it. When I was on support (usually because my mother was travelling, which she often did for months at a time), I'd be able to notice if a message came in, and if it just required a quick answer, I would use voice dictation to bang it out as quickly as possible. I did this while on playdates, at the local children's museum, or whenever it was needed and feasible. I always tried to make an effort to not have my face in my phone when with the kids, but the occasional few minutes responding to a customer while my toddler was engrossed in some play never seemed too neglectful.

School Aged Kids - You've Made It!

Eventually, your kids will be in school full time. Huzzah! This is when you need to decide: am I going back to the working world, or am I going to focus on this business? Take into account that if you go back to work full-time, you'll still need to pay for childcare, and depending on schedules, before and after school care can be almost as expensive as full-time daycare! So whatever you're making from your side hustle now, add another several hundred to thousand dollars monthly onto that when you compare it to what a full-time income would be.

If you can continue to manage without a full-time salary, then here's your chance to really grow your company. After dropping the kids off and picking them up every day at school and the travel time (especially if you walk), you're really only looking at 5 to 5.5 hours of time to yourself every day, but this will seem like oceans of time compared to the 6-10 hours a week you were getting by on before.

I used this time to do a complete overhaul of our product. We surveyed our customers and got a ton of feedback, and integrated all of that into a completely new platform with a modern tech stack, revamped pricing model and a bunch of new, highly-requested features. It took a bit over a year, but shortly after that relaunch, we saw a substantial increase in revenue.

After 5 years of building during naps, preschool and after bedtime, I was so productive in those 5 hours/day that I rarely worked in the evenings anymore. Three years after the kids started school, my half of our profits finally equalled what I'd been payed as a full-time software engineer. And a year and a half after that, we sold the company for a life-changing exit.

Recognizing my Privilege

I recognize that I had substantial advantages that many people aren't afforded that allowed me to succeed where others may have not. I live in a country with a long, government-paid parental leave. I had a mother nearby who provided a bit of childcare when the kids were babies. I have a husband who had an income that was enough for us to get by on.

If you don't have these advantages, it will be harder for you than it was for me. But not impossible. And if you're as lucky situationally as I was, I hope you'll consider launching your own business, so you can watch it grow alongside your kids, and hopefully celebrate one day as it goes off into the world, to carry on without you.