Ann Nolan is the founder of babysitterdirectory.com.au – a successful online business started in June 2008 that connects Australian based parents with quality babysitters and nannies.

The site has been launched in beta since June 2008 and there has been no charges for babysitters, parents or nannies to use the site. But from Friday 4 April, this changes when a small membership fee will be introduced for parents to assist with administration and growth of this online community.

Here she talks about identifying an unfulfilled need in the market, fostering online communities to help achieve commercial objectives and her advice for other women thinking of starting up an online business.

Q) Tell us a bit about babysitterdirectory.com.au. How did you come up with the idea?

In 2006 my husband and I and our two kids (at the time!) moved to the Gold Coast for a year with my husbands work. It was a wonderful opportunity and something we were really excited about.

However with two young children and no family in Queensland, not to mention the fact both of us were working (I was working part time with an online recruitment company) we soon discovered we needed to bring in outside help for childcare and occasional babysitting.

I started asking other mums for possible babysitting contacts at the local playgroup I was attending but noticed people were reluctant to share the details of their wonderful babysitters!

I rang up some agencies but for us we found the cost prohibitive. By the time you had paid the babysitter and the agency fees it made for a very expensive night out.

Eventually I turned online and discovered that there was only one website (at the time) offering a facility for parents to directly contact parents and babysitters but I felt the payment model it offered -  a subscription – wasn’t something that enticed me as a parent.

It was expensive, restrictive and not very Web 2.0 friendly.

This made me think there was a gap in the market to create an online community for babysitters, nannies and parents where they could connect with each other, where the membership fee was not cost prohibitive and where greater use was made of social media, forums and blogs to allow members to interact with the site and each other. And so Babysitterdirectory.com.au was born!

Q) You describe babysitterdirectory.com.au as “an Australian online community connecting parents with babysitters and nannies”. In your opinion what place do online communities have in today’s business development?

You could say the very fact you are asking me that question indicates how important it is!

In any business spending time creating a dynamic and active online community is money well spent I think.

Fostering online communities can help businesses achieve commercial objectives and also increase growth and brand recognition.

One of the key tools I think in growing an online community is providing a forum. Forums are  a great way to bring people with a common interest together and to allow you as a business to you  keep a finger on the pulse of what’s going on with your market, what’s concerning them, what’s hot and what’s not.

I also think forum are excellent for assisting you with market development, product development, customer service, brand growth and of course the all important connecting with your industries “influencers”.

Q) What’s the number one piece of advice you could give other women thinking of starting an online business?

If you think it’s going to be hard. Multiply that by ten!

But seriously… I think there are three important things to remember when starting an online business.

1. Do your research
2. Know your competition and
3. Know what your unique selling proposition is.  It’s no good repeating what the competition is doing you have to look at ways you can do it either differently or better.

Finally with the growth of social media it’s vital if you run an online business you are also tapped into social media.

Of course it’s difficult to do it all – Facebook, Twitter, blogs, articles etc etc especially if you are starting out and it’s just one person – you.

But if you are not making an effort to connect with your customers on different points its a bit like opening a shop down the back of a lane way and hoping somehow that people will stumble in!

Q) What was the toughest part about getting up and running?

By far it was locating a web development company that was highly skilled, reasonably priced and with excellent customer service skills to build the website!

I found that many web companies were great on the customer service skills but were also very quite high priced which is great if you are a large company with a big budget but not so great if you are a start up with limited resources.

Those that were reasonably priced many times had no idea of customer service and would barely return your phone calls.

I ended up going with a large web development company who positions itself as the online solutions provider for SME in Australia.

I was very clear about what I wanted with an extremely detailed brief. It was probably the worst decision I’ve made so far and in hindsight Id say to anyone looking at building a website to only engage a company who you have a recommendation for.

That way you know that the company can come up with the goods. But you learn by your mistakes is what I say!

Q) What are the three most important factors to running a successful online business?

There are lots but here are just some of the ones I think are important!

1. Be passionate about what you do. If you aren’t passionate you’ll never last. Running an online business is basically living and breathing it 24/7 so you need to have the energy to go on even in the bad times.
2. Put your networking hat on! When you are a start up it’s vital you network to get your name, your brand and your products/services out there. More importantly though networking is about learning from what other people are doing, being open to new ways of doing things and new happenings in the industry.
3. Recognise your personal weaknesses and strengths and be prepared to ask or bring in outside assistance for the business areas that you are just not strong on.

If you are fantastic at concept development and web design but not strong on business development or marketing you’ll soon find you have a great website but may lack the skills to monetise it and take it to the market successfully.

Admitting this and knowing when to bring in outside assistance or support is important and will help your business grow.

Q) What’s the wildest success story you can imagine for the future of babysitterdirectory.com.au

As a Work At Home Mum my key aim is to be able to establish a business that is financially viable, profitable and allows me to be master of my own destiny!

That being said the aim for the site is to build a large and dynamic community  of Australian parents, babysitters and nannies.

The forum that we are launching later this week I see as an important feature that will facilitate this, as is the establishment of a unique directory especially targeting parents as well as nannies and babysitters that we will launch later this month.

If we build this community well who knows where the site may end up!

I’ve got another website project in the works which is totally unrelated. It’s only at concept stage at the moment but I’m incredibly excited about it as it would be the first of its kind in Australia. There are plenty of possibilities on the horizon for 2009!

Please visit babysitterdirectory.com.au to find out more.

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Filed under: Interviews, Tips