Roshni Mahtani
Besides creating culturally relevant content, the founder and group CEO of parenting website the asian parent wants to help reduce stillbirth rates in Southeast Asia
Theasianparent founder on reducing stillbirth rates
Even before she became a mother, a 25-year-old Roshni Mahtani, who was working as a babysitter and journalist in New York City at the time, started the asian parent (TAP) in 2008 as an online parenting resource with an “Eastern perspective”. Now, 12 years later, the parenting portal has grown to become the largest of its kind in Southeast Asia, with 35 million monthly active users from 13 countries across Asia and Africa, and also includes a mobile app.
In November 2019, Tickled Media, the digital company behind TAP, where Mahtani is group CEO, raised a seven-figure sum in Series C funding from the Seoul-based Mirae Asset-naver New Growth Fund. This was in addition to an eight-figure sum raised earlier in July the same year in another Series C round, led by Chinese conglomerate Fosun International. With this injection of funds, Tickled Media will move into manufacturing its own range of baby and maternity products as well as building up its tech infrastructure.
The company recently launched Project Sidekicks, a campaign to prevent stillbirth during pregnancy. It added new features to the TAP app, including a tool for mothers to count fetal kicks. Mahtani, who is now a mother of one, tells us the motivation behind the new initiative and what it means to build a safe space for parents.
Project Sidekicks started because we wanted to be there for our mums.
The idea came when we did a user behaviour analysis and found a pattern of mums suddenly not using our app midway through their pregnancies, but not deleting it. Later, we found out they had experienced either a miscarriage or a stillbirth and, for some, the app was a way of keeping the memory of their baby alive.
Our platforms operate like communities
and have grown into safe spaces for parents because we take a non-judgemental approach to parenting. We also employ a “hyperlocalised” strategy for our content and channels, based on information we have gathered about the needs and habits of consumers in each market.
It was always my goal to be an entrepreneur—as
my uncles will tell you. They were my first customers when I managed to convince someone to help me buy some bottles of whiskey at the duty-free store at the airport, so I could sell them to my uncles for a profit. (Kids, don’t try this at home.)
One aspect of entrepreneurship people don’t talk enough about
is that the work never ends. Some things get easier, but it is like having a baby. When you think you can handle anything your child throws at you, a new stage of parenthood begins.