In our ‘Inspiring small businesses’ series, we share and celebrate great stories from small business owners who started and run their own business. By bringing you closer to these inspiring businesses we hope that you find motivation, tips, and ideas for building yours. In this weeks interview, we heard from Claire Cole, Founder of Movement for Mums a home fitness platform for mums.

Movement for Mums is a live streamed home fitness platform for busy mums to help boost mental health.  The ethos behind Movement for Mums is quick, effective 25 minute workouts you can do anywhere with no space or equipment, designed by a mum for mums.

What's the story behind your business?

In my 20’s I was agoraphobic and in my 30’s I was on the verge of postnatal psychosis.  I returned to work when my second son was 6 months old, to a brand new Corporate job with an Investment Bank. Even though this is only 4 years ago there was no mental health or physical health support for me at work.  Fitness had always played a huge part in my mental health healing journey and I knew 4 years ago that I wanted to create a fitness brand to support maternal mental health and Movement for Mums was born, albeit in my head at this point!  I went on to talk about it for 3 years before last year when I took the plunge. I had one of those teary conversations with my husband that ended in either “you believe in me or it’s divorce” and I did it.  Back at the end of 2019 I launched my live streamed home fitness website to support mums with their physical and mental health.  This was born out of me juggling the kids, husband’s and boss’s demands and having no time for me and my mental health heading once again for the shredder.  I knew I wanted to take my Corporate skills coupled with my fitness and wellbeing knowledge and create a fitness brand centred on improving mental health.

What inspired you to start your own business?

I recently left the Corporate world at the end of 2019 to launch Movement for Mums, my ethos is fitness to boost mental health to help support women and mum’s with fitness that makes them feel good.  I was working full time, juggling being commander-in-chief of my household and trying to meet the kids, husband’s and boss’s demands with very little time for me.  During this period my mental health was taking a battering and I had always been a lover of going to the gym to make myself feel good in mind and not just body.  So I decided that there were probably other mums who didn’t have the time, energy or money to try and fit fitness into their busy lives and I decided to provide a platform of free live streamed fitness classes daily to support those mums.  I am now on a single-minded mission to inspire women to achieve their full wellbeing potential.  Understanding first-hand the struggle of balancing career and family life helps me relate to the challenges faced by my clients and I’ve combined my extensive knowledge of driving successful behaviour change in the workplace and my fitness and wellbeing knowledge to deliver effective and motivational coaching, that comes from the heart.

What is the most difficult aspect of running your own business?

The finances!  My husband sends me weekly monetisation spreadsheets and is fully supportive but he does remind me frequently that a business needs to generate income or it’s a hobby and I’ve really struggled with the social responsibility of wanting to provide a support structure for mum’s and actually running Movement for Mums as a business.  A large part of my business is free, I don’t believe that you need lots of time, money or fancy gym memberships to workout to feel good so I offer a large part of what I do for free to help support maternal mental health.  I’ve also become a full time mum so I’m juggling my business with the kids and their demands and this is much harder than actually going out to work everyday in the Corporate world as I now need to literally do everything and find some time for me.

What is the best thing about running your own business?

The joy of receiving emails from my community of mum’s telling me that I’ve made a difference to their daily lives and their mental health, it’s what I set out to achieve and why I started Movement for Mums. 

How has your business been affected by coronavirus and how have you adapted?

Back in December 2019 before Coronavirus, I was a very unique business with my own live streaming fitness platform.  Peloton was really the only main player in the market who was live streaming classes whereas every fitness provider has now had to pivot their business model and I am now one of many so I have lost in part, some of my uniqueness. However, Coronavirus has also completely opened up the market of home fitness and made it mainstream and I don’t think we will return to commercial gyms and studios in the way we did before the virus so this is a huge positive for what I do.  My ethos is fully centred on supporting and improving maternal mental health through fitness made easy and I am partnered with several maternal mental health charities. I’ve pivoted my initial business strategy which focused on individuals to opening up my platform to corporates to enable The Movement for Mums Method to be offered to employees as part of a wider corporate health and wellbeing strategy.

What advice would you give to someone looking to start their own business?

You will think it will be tough but it will be a million times tougher than you imagined so you have to stay true to why you want to start a business and don’t let what others say or do sway you from that mission. I will always be the lighthouse for mum’s with no time, energy or extra cash who want to find quick, effective, low cost ways of incorporating more movement into their daily lives to boost their mental health… Oh and do it, yes believe in yourself and do it!

To find out more about Movement for Mums visit their website or follow them on Facebook and Instagram.