What being a mum taught me about building a business

By Karen Mitault, co-founder of Tweetycam

When I came to motherhood after a long IVF journey, I was so ready for that new stage of my life. Luca arrived in June 2019, and like most first-time mums, I was completely unprepared for how consuming those early weeks would be. The constant low hum of worry that just lives in you when you have a newborn… it was a bit overwhelming, as most mums can probably relate to.

But one of my most memorable experiences at the time? Struggling with baby monitors. I had a background in UI and UX design, so I understood how technology should feel for the person using it. What I kept seeing in baby monitors was technology built by people who didn’t think from a parent’s perspective. They were always dropping off, had complex apps, battery and range issues. But what could I do? I was just a mum.

That question turned into an idea. The idea eventually turned into Tweetycam, the business I now run with my husband and brother. Building Tweetycam while raising Luca wasn’t romantic. It was school runs and Zoom calls on the same morning, or answering customer emails at 10pm after bedtime. All the while, feeling guilty for being on my phone, then guilty for closing it. The mum guilt of loving your work as much as you love your kids is something nobody prepares you for. I still haven’t fully made peace with it. But I’ve stopped pretending it isn’t there.

But motherhood also gave me something special: my instincts. I trusted my gut to build something with no WiFi, no app, no security risk. It works straight out of the box, simple and dependable.

What I didn’t expect was that other parents felt exactly the same way I did. It sold out in days.

And that’s when I understood something you don’t learn any other way: living the problem is what makes you good at solving it. Every product improvement and many accessories since have come from our customers telling us what they needed.

I share this not because the journey has been easy, but because I wish someone had told me earlier that the things that make motherhood hard, like the exhaustion, hypervigilance, the deep need for things to just work… These are also what make you good at building something for other parents. Now, more than 80,000 families across Australia and New Zealand use a Tweetycam every night. We’ve won Best Baby Monitor six times across two awards. And, wanting to support a new parenting stage, we also launched Kiddo Kitchen, our sister brand dedicated to starting solids. We applied the same recipe that shaped Tweetycam: genuine engagement with our community, and an uncompromising commitment to customer care. But it also took the same kind of courage and instincts.

I don’t say that to brag, but because at one point, I was just one mum who was fed up and trusted her own experience. Your lived experience is not a liability, but your sharpest tool.

I’m still that mum. Luca is seven now and Theo is three. I still do the school run in activewear and answer emails from my phone. If you’re a mum with an idea, trust your instincts. There is no big company, brand, or boardroom that knows you and your baby better than you do.

--- Karen x