Growingmom offers online childcare counseling
Lee Da-rang, a veteran child and youth counselor with more than 10 years’ experience, had an opportunity to consider her job more carefully when she took maternity leave to take care of her newborn.
She was able to put theory into practice better after becoming a mother, but on the other hand, she realized that there were not many ways for parents to check for signs of any psychological problems their children faced in advance.
“Parents had to physically visit counseling centers to see professional counselors only after the problems became serious,” she said during a recent interview with The Korea Times. “These thoughts encouraged me to develop online child-rearing counseling services, which are much more accessible and cheaper.”
Lee, the mother of a seven-yearold son, founded startup Growingmom in 2017, focusing on offering more accessible and cost-effective services.
“When using child-rearing counseling services, about 90 percent of expenses occur when parents meet counselors at offline centers,” Lee said. “I thought it was difficult to resolve the cost issues with offline services, thus I came up with idea for an online service.”
She said online counseling services could successfully resolve the cost and accessibility issues, but also had limitations in the initial stages in offering accurate analysis and advice as there were not enough valid data.
In order to address the risk resulting from a lack of information, Growingmom asks parents to fill in online questionnaires designed to examine the temperament and character of their children, or upload video clips, for example, showing them playing with their offspring.
Then, professional counselors analyze the test results, or the behavior of both parents and children, making a diagnosis of the problem and suggesting solutions.
The online counseling services offered by the Seoul-based startup is about one-sixth cheaper than those offered by offline centers, according to Lee.
“If our analysis reveals some serious problems, we also help parents connect to offline centers more easily,” Lee said. “As we offer analysis based on data, the results are now credible and reliable.”
Growing mom has hired about 30 professional counselors who work part-time.
Lee said counselors are required to go through a tough two-month education course designed by her company.
“Some counselors quit in the middle of the education, but those who complete the course work for a long time here, contributing to offering stable and reliable services,” she said.
The startup is pushing to sign a business agreement with an offline counseling center within the year to secure a bigger pool of talent.
“This will also contribute to simplifying procedures when parents and children are transferred to offline centers,” she said.
Lee said she has devoted a great deal of time to building up brand image and reputation as it is one of the most important aspects to promote the reliability of services offered by a company.
“I have written several books and given lectures at companies such as Amore Pacific, and culture centers operated by department stores to raise brand awareness,” she said. “When Growingmom is trusted, counselors belonging to the company will be trusted as well.”
Millennial parents
Companies across a number of industries have been redoubling efforts to release distinguished services to attract elusive millennials, the generation born between the early 1980s and the early 2000s.
Lee said Growingmom is in the same situation as a number of millennials are either already parents or are considering having children.
“I believe millennial parents have two conflicting desires at the same time - one desire is to do a good job in raising their children, while the other desire is to maintain their own identity and life rather than just being a mother or father,” Lee said. “They do not like services focused only on their children but want to talk about themselves at the same time.”
In order to meet such demand, Lee said her company carries out twoway discussions and open debates during offline classes, allowing young parents to talk about themselves and share views with each other.
“We have received a lot of good feedback regarding those programs,” she said.
Growingmom, which has offered its services through a webpage, plans to release a mobile application both on Google Play and Apple App Store next month after having run the beta version since November 2017.
“Currently, we have one engineer, but plan to increase the number of engineers to offer more stable mobile services,” she said.
Other than offering cost-effective, convenient services for parents, Lee has another goal to make Growingmom a great company for mothers to work for.
“After I became a mother, I realized that there were not many jobs favorable to mothers as it was difficult to return after a career break,” she said. “I wanted to make this a great company to work for, thus I tried to find optimized ways for mothers to work.”
Most of employees of Growingmom are mothers, she said, noting that her company refrains from letting employees work overtime at night, while allowing them to bring their children to workplace.
“Even after my company grows further, I want to keep supporting a child-rearing and work-life balance of my employees as well as myself,” she said.
For the global expansion, Growingmom is preparing to release services in China first as Korean-style child-rearing counseling services and solutions have become popular among the upper class of the country, Lee said.
Before setting up her company, Lee participated in Google’s startup incubating program for mothers, called Campus for Moms, in 2016.
“Although I decided to launch a startup, I did not know what to do first,” she said. “I submitted my business proposal to Google and was allowed to participate in the Campus for Moms. The program helped me a lot as it provided entrepreneurial and human resource support. I was also given a chance to verify whether my business plan was feasible.”
If our analysis reveals some serious problems, we also help parents connect to offline centers more easily.