Holly Zoccolan, founder of the Carol App
Holly Zoccolan is an entrepreneur and Founder of new parenting app, Carol. Before Founding Carol and entering the tech space, Holly built successful online wellness brand The Health Zoc in 2016. Carol aims to connect and support mums through their journey. Mother of one Holly found herself living in London without family around her or a group of friends she could relate to.
Having no support system to help raise her son, Holly was looking to find other mums that also didn’t have a key support system around them, but there was no place for her to meet relatable mums. This is where Carol was born. Holly wanted to create a place where mums could find their relatable community, have honest conversations, make friends in similar situations and get advice all one ONE place and for FREE.
What were you doing before launching Carol?
After studying law at Newcastle University, then going on to complete my Nutrition Studies at the Institute of Integrative Nutrition, I started my journey as an entrepreneur by building a wellness brand The Health Zoc in 2016.
Getting involved in Tech is still a hot topic for women, what was the motivation for you?
When I was pregnant with my first child, I kept being told that 'it takes a village to raise a baby' but I knew this wasn't going to be a reality for me. My mum passed away when I was 17 and I had no real support system or family living close by in London and when our son was 1, my partner's mum tragically passed away, so we really had no 'village' to rely upon.
There was nowhere for me to meet mums who could relate to our position of raising our son without a support system, or a 'village' as some refer to it, and therefore Carol was born! We wanted to create a place where mums could find their community, have honest conversations, make friends and get advice all in one place. It was important for us to create an app that not only connected mums, but also supported them with answers to the most frequently asked questions in one place. Scrolling the internet trying to find the answer to even the simplest of questions isn’t ideal with a screaming baby!
We couldn’t find an app that not only connected mums but supported them, particularly with things like going back to work after having a baby and maternal wellbeing, so we built it! We found the few Apps that were available only tackled half the problem and missed a key element of the Motherhood journey - support.
Carol is a mobile app that connects mums based on similar interests, location and children of the same age and offers expert-led resources across Pregnancy, Postpartum, Baby Sleep, Baby Feeding, Baby Development and The Early Years all in one place. Think of the resources as the encyclopaedia of all things Motherhood with answers to the most frequently asked questions all in one place!
How have you found your journey so far and what has been your greatest accomplishment?
The journey so far has been great. In the beginning it took a while for me to find the right developer for us to work with to develop our app as I’m not from a tech background so making sure I did all my research was so important and we found someone who completely understood our vision and was perfect for us! Our greatest accomplishment so far has been when Baby Magazine wrote an article about the Top 22 Parenting Apps and we were at the top! Very surreal and very proud moment for us.
What has been the most challenging thing so far?
The most challenging thing is finding the right people to hire to work alongside you! We are self funded so making sure we hire the right people straight away is really important for us so we don’t waste money and time and to make sure that they understand our vision, who we are, the brand and where we are going.
What has that process been like for you?
Making sure we speak to a number of people before we hire, being patient and then going for it! I’m definitely not someone who hesitates if my gut instinct tells me it’s the right thing to do, and especially with people I get an instant sense of someone’s energy and always have, so this does make it easier!
Who is your target audience?
Our target audience is pregnant mums and new mums who are looking to make like minded friends with similar interests, live close by and have children of the same age, as well as get answers to their questions around motherhood and parenting all in one place.
What advice would you give to fellow entrepreneurs stuck on mapping out a strong business model?
Really think about your why, where you want to go and how you will get there. What will your route to market look like? Who will you need on your team to help you get there? I would start with the basic questions such as those and then as you move through the business you can adapt. Don’t put too much pressure on yourself to know all the answers straight away, especially before you have even launched your product or service!
I would also say, hire a team to support you - understanding your strengths and weaknesses is really important for growing a business and delegating helps make sure the right person is doing the job! Be patient, this is something I’ve definitely had to learn! And finally keep going, if you believe in what you are building, who’s to say you shouldn’t give it a go? I really think being focused and looking straight ahead is so important if you’re building a brand, product, app - whatever you’re building. Stick to your vision, work hard and try not to be distracted by the outside noise too much.
What plans do you have for Carol over the next two years?
Our plans are sustainable growth, hiring a number of other positions but keeping out team small and international expansion! We also aim to work with Employers to best support their employees when they return to work from maternity leave.
How exactly does Carol work and what problems does it help solve?
Our mission is to help improve maternal mental health through connection and support. We do this by enabling users to connect with likeminded mums who have children of the same age and live close by as well as create their own groups, join groups and build their mum community. We support our users by providing them with access to 100’s of expert-led resources across Pregnancy, Postpartum, Baby Sleep, Baby Feeding, Baby Development and The Early Years, all in one place. We believe that Connection and Support go hand-in-hand which is why they are both equally important aspects to Carol. 80% of mums say that they feel lonely, and this really needs to change. By enabling mums to share similar experiences, they know that they aren’t alone in their Motherhood journey and that their feelings are valid, too. Not only this, but a study has shown that only 17% of women felt confident on returning to work following maternity leave and 37% felt so unsupported and isolated on their return that they considered handing their notice in. There is so much to be done to better support mums, and we are happy to be at the forefront of this change by providing mums free advice and guidance on returning to work after such a huge life change, within our resources.
There isn’t an app on the market that connects and supports mums and we felt that they both go hand in hand. We all know that the internet is a minefield, especially when it comes to questions around motherhood and parenting, so we’ve done the hard work for you and have the answers to the most common FAQ’s within the app making it very easy to find the answers to the questions you have as you move through motherhood, and all for free!
From our market research we found that a huge barrier to entry for mums when using Apps such as ours, is that the sign up process takes far too long. The need to fill out an in-depth profile meant that there was a high drop off rate before they had even signed up to the app. This meant that when developing the app we added Social Sign Up to make it really easy for mums to use Carol, as well as enabling mums to use the App for the Resources without having to fill out their profile! We wanted to welcome as many mums as possible to Carol. We therefore allow mums to simply browse the resources and become familiar with the App before inputting their information. Mums are also able to complete their full profile enabling the App to connect them with mums who live close by, have children of the same age and have similar interests!
