Sudden entrepreneur

How Justine Roberts, CEO of Mumsnet, built a behemoth

New motherhood can be an isolating time, especially for first-time parents thrust into a world of sleep deprivation and dirty nappies. After a disastrous family holiday, new mum Justine Roberts resolved to change all that. She realised clueless parents were crying out for guidance, just as she was. So she started Mumsnet, a website that began from the back bedroom of her London home, which is now visited by 10 million users every month. Here, Roberts shares her advice.

Ideas can come from anywhere – but especially by

the pool. After spending years slogging away at Deutsche Bank, I’d left to have a baby – I knew I wasn’t going to be able to be an involved parent if I stayed. The turning point came in November 1999, when my husband and I embarked on a so-called family-friendly holiday with our one-year-old twin daughters. As new parents, we knew nothing and ended up choosing the wrong destination, with a terribly long flight. We were sitting around the pool, with other families, all moaning, saying, ‘if only we had known’. My big idea hit me: tap into the wisdom of other parents via this new thing called the internet.

If they don’t come to you…

I met my co-founder Carrie Longton, who had left a demanding job in television production, at an antenatal class and together we raised £20,000 to get the business off the ground. Another friend, Steven Cassidy, could code, so by March 2000, the first beta version of Mumsnet was up and running. My first focus was to build the online community, which started with me on the chat forum creating multiple nicknames and essentially answering my own questions like, ‘How do you get rid of a dummy?’, until others got involved.

Harness the power of your

network. The site grew, rather wonderfully, through word of mouth. We didn’t have any money, so I cajoled friends and family into writing the site’s content and my mum kept our books. Trying to raise investment that first year was gruelling. One investor was willing to put forward £4.5 million, but wanted a 25-year-old man to run it, not me – and I wasn’t ready to resign.

Work with what you have.

Carrie and I worked from my back bedroom until we got an office in 2008. I remember being interviewed on Radio 5 Live and my twin toddlers were hammering on the other side of the door, while I was holding it shut, trying to stay composed. Mumsnet’s revenue model is based on advertising and advertisers were sceptical about social media. They didn’t want to advertise on a platform where people could talk about their products in a negative way. It wasn’t until Facebook and Twitter came along, and brands were really talking to audiences, that things changed.

Controversy can sometimes

be a force for good. In 2006, we were sued by the childcare expert of the day Gina Ford [for publishing comments by readers that she said were defamatory]. We led the news cycle, and it was one of the things that helped propel Mumsnet to fame. We also started doing web chats with senior politicians. One of David Cameron’s advisers had come across Mumsnet and loved the idea of real communities talking directly to people. So after Cameron became leader of the Conservative Party he did a chat with us.

Go at your own pace. It’s true that most entrepreneurs are never finished because there’s always more they can do. But it’s about the ability to work to your own pattern and around the things that really matter to you. mumsnet.com