Happy Sunday!
Welcome back to Founders Feature, a weekly newsletter all about the journeys of young startup founders.
For this week's edition, I interviewed Ariane de Bélizal, Founder of Kidways, a private driver service for children based in France.
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Here’s what Kidways is all about:
🏠 The Basics
The Problem:
In a family with 2 children, parents will spend on average 500 hours a year driving their children around by car to school and extracurricular activities. This is an incredible time commitment and one that especially impacts working mothers and single parents. Alternatively, many children aren't able to take part in these activities because the parents simply don't have the time to drive the children around.
The Solution:
Kidways is a private driver's service for kids from 3-18 years old, available 24/7 currently based in Lille and Paris. We offer a fully secured service, and we are the first company offering this service in France. Our app sends real-time notifications to parents about the progress of the journey. All of our drivers are professional drivers and they are parents themselves. We aim to match the same driver to the same family, to ensure the children feel as comfortable and safe as possible.
The Team:
I'm a solo founder and we are a team of 6 people, although not all full-time. I have a great business development intern who was full-time this year, and she will continue to work with me part-time while she continues her degree next year. We are hiring more interns as we continue to steadily grow.
🚀 The Journey
How did you come up with your startup/solution?
When I was younger, I was lucky enough to do a lot of extracurricular activities and my parents were able to drive me and my sister around to everywhere we needed. When I think of my future, I would like to have a great job and also have a family and enable my kids to have the same chances as me. I used to joke with my friends that one day I would send my kids to school by taxi. And one day, I actually realised that this is a business idea that doesn't exist yet!
During my Bachelor's degree at EDHEC Business School, I spent the time during our internship semester to start building my company. This is a path not many students are aware of, but with a proof of business idea and plan, you can do this. During these 6 months, I learned everything from scratch and first launched Kidways. I found our first drivers and worked with them to determine our pricing. I learned a lot from our first drivers. Over time we worked on building the app. It was a much more manual process at the start!
Why is this the right time for this problem to be solved?
When I first started building Kidways there was no competitor on the market, while now a few companies are joining the market, and we are seeing a noticeable increase in people searching for a service like this online. An important reason for this problem to be solved is to support women and single parents in re-entering the workforce, without having to sacrifice on giving their children access to as much as possible.
What is a recent success you are proud of?
Our launch in Paris is a success I'm proud of. We launched just a few days before the first national lockdown, which wasn't a great move, but as soon as the lockdown eased we grew very quickly in a short period of time. Actually, the lockdown allowed us to perfect our launch even more so we were ready as soon as the lockdown lifted.
What is a recent challenge you have faced?
Being a solo founder is very challenging because even with advisors and teammates, the responsibility lies entirely with you. Another thing that is quite challenging as a CEO is having to grow the company while learning so many things you don't know, and yet being a mentor and example for people you work with. As a young founder, this can be especially difficult when your team members are older than you. A lot of people don't take you seriously at the start, and you need to prove them wrong.
What do you wish you knew before you started and is there anything you would have done differently in hindsight?
There are no serious competitors on the market yet, so it would have been really helpful to see an existing, working business model before launching my company. This is the one great disadvantages of being the first-mover. Also, I wish I would have known more about all the regulations we face in our market, from drivers' employment to car insurance, and the safety and security standards for the children. There's a lot to take into account, and there was so much to learn along the way.
🧠 The Lessons
What is the best advice you have been given recently?
A great lesson I learned during the incubator program I am a part of here at Station F is to be resilient. There is a solution to every problem, it might just not be the one you initially anticipated. Be open to going a different path, if it means you still get to continue working on your company and driving it forward.
What advice would you give to other young founders?
Fake it till you make it and never give up. Just keep showing up, doing the work, and the results will show with consistency over time.
What is the biggest lesson you have learned so far?
Don't be discouraged by bad news. I strongly believe that even on the days where everything seems to be going wrong, there is still one good thing that will happen that day. Hold on to that good thing and keep going.
✨ The Inspiration
Who inspires you?
I'm very inspired by Chiara Ferragni. She started as a small fashion blogger and worked her way up in the fashion industry. She was completely underestimated at the beginning and was told she wouldn't make it, but she never gave up and has built an empire of her own now.
What book do you think everyone should read?
American Dirt - Jeanine Cummins
I also love reading the entrepreneurship section in Forbes.