I don’t plan to make this blog a clas­sic prod­uct review plat­form — there are enough good ones out there doing that already. 

But I do plan to share inspi­ra­tional sto­ries of other suc­cess­ful Mumpre­neurs and their prod­uct or ser­vice. First and fore­most, I sim­ply feel tremen­dous respect for what they have accom­plished. I know from my own expe­ri­ence that suc­ceed­ing in prod­uct devel­op­ment, brand­ing, estab­lish­ing an IP port­fo­lio, con­vinc­ing part­ners and poten­tial cus­tomers of your idea, sourc­ing man­u­fac­tur­ers, going to trade fairs and, last but not least, rais­ing the cap­i­tal needed is a daunt­ing and 360 degree chal­lenge. So, these Mumpre­neurs deserve pub­lic­ity and that we help spread the word about them. I also sim­ply feel extremely encour­aged and inspired, as they are liv­ing proof that they can be done! I hope they will inspire you as much.

Today, I would like to put Solvej Bid­dle in the spot­light. She’s a clas­sic Mumpre­neur and has built her busi­ness while rais­ing two chil­dren, now aged 6 and 4. She is the inven­tor behind Content&Calm Cot­Canopy, which already is sell­ing well in the UK mar­ket. The Cot­Canopy is a clever baby sleep solu­tion; con­sist­ing of a light-weight canopy  that you can mount over your baby’s travel cot, to cre­ate an instant night time feel­ing. It will allow your child to stick to its rou­tine and sleep well wher­ever you go. Check out the video where Solvej explains in her own words what the Cot­Canopy is all about. The awards and press cov­er­age has come rolling in dur­ing 2009, the Cot­Canopy is sold online and also stocked at some major UK retail­ers. Solvej is now busy with expand­ing into sis­ter prod­ucts such as a canopy for the car seat, and will expand into a full prod­uct range.

Solvej orig­i­nally had the idea for it in 2003 when she took her first child, Andrea-Anna, with her on trav­els and out­ings as a baby, and found her­self strug­gling to pro­vide a fit­ting and prac­ti­cal sleep­ing envi­ron­ment for her child. I’m sure you recog­nise the sit­u­a­tion: you are away at friends for din­ner on a summer’s evening and strug­gle with hang­ing up blan­kets for the win­dows to black­out the light. Or your baby wakes up at home in at 5 a.m on a summer’s morn­ing when the sun comes up, but nei­ther baby nor you has had any­where near the amount of sleep you need to feel rested. With the Cot­Canopy, this is no longer a chal­lenge, as the lit­tle one can enjoy his or her own per­sonal dark­ened and famil­iar envi­ron­ment, even when the lights are on or the room is light.

Obvi­ously, the Cot­Canopy first and fore­most helps to us as par­ents to pro­tect a lit­tle one’s pre­cious rou­tine and I think a reg­u­lar, good sleep is one of the num­ber one things we as par­ents all aim to pro­vide for our kids.

But impor­tantly, this prod­uct also has ben­e­fits for the rest of the fam­ily. It avoids putting every­one else in the room in the dark when baby needs a nap, and grants us that flex­i­bil­ity to travel or stay­ing with friends. In all hon­esty, at least I find that it does kind of took some of the fun out of the hol­i­day to turn out the lights at 19h30 while on hol­i­day, and spend the rest of the evening your­self fum­bling around a dark hotel room so that baby can sleep.

Now, that is my kind of prod­uct — it meets the needs of both the chil­dren and the adults in the fam­ily. It is use­ful, it has been designed to meet real needs. And it has been cre­ated and brought to mar­ket with pas­sion and perseverance.

That is inspi­ra­tional! Con­grat­u­la­tions and good luck Solvej.

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you sub­scribe to my RSS feed!