Sam and Gemma met at a time in their life where it felt impossible to know where to buy clothes to dress their post-baby bodies. So, they decided to do something about it. When their babies were only eight and ten months old they launched ThisIsMothership.com a mama’s destination for all things fashion, beauty and baby. Today, the website has 15,000 readers a month. 

What are your day-jobs?

Gemma: I’m a freelance fashion and celebrity stylist.

Samantha: I’m a beauty editor working on magazines like Stylist, Grazia and Glamour.

You both have the perfect backgrounds to launch a website like this… 

Gemma: I guess so, but we had no intention to start a new business when our babies were so young. It was born from our friendship and a realisation that something was missing for new mums. 

Sam: We met on our maternity leave and realised that as relatively young-ish, thirty-something, new mama's with a cool-ish edge (so we like to think) we both felt ignored by what was on offer blog/website/magazine-wise. And, given our experience we felt we had to do something about it!

Was it difficult to setup? 

Not at all, we just did it. We had the idea, bought our domain name and started on the website the next day. We built it at Sam’s kitchen table using the online web developer Wix and it was launched within three weeks.

How often did you update the website when you first started out? 

Three times a week

And what we all want to know - how did you manage to do this at the same time as being mothers?

We made it work at odd times, fitting our phone calls, blog writing and email admin into nap times, evenings and on our commutes to work.

What was the biggest challenge? 

Time. There will never be enough. And guilt at replying to emails while your child is stuck in front of Paw Patrol not playing a game with you.

What does a typical day in your life look like? 

We both wake around 7am, scroll Instagram and WhatsApp each other a brief of the day. Our days will be filled with shoots, meetings, press launches or writing up content for the website. Neither of us will miss giving the kids dinner and putting them to bed, then we sit on our laptops sifting through emails. If it’s a day with the kids, then we try to juggle playing and emailing at the same time but we do try to switch off from work to focus on them.

Did you get help with childcare in the first year of the launch?

Our kids are in nursery full days. Belle is in two days a week and Leo is in three days. 

What good to your personal lives has come from this?  

It's meant that Sam has given up her day job to become freelance which has enabled us to have a better work/life balance and close our laptops at 9pm rather than sitting on the sofa on the phone to each other doing email admin until 11pm at night. Being a mum enables us to be the best multi-taskers out there!

Any tips for new mums?  

Give yourself time to get your head together. Your brain seriously goes when you have no sleep and are learning about your baby daily. So many women message us to say that we've inspired them to do something on maternity leave. Don't put pressure on yourself to be thinking of a new job or business to launch.

What are the future plans for the website?

We're planning a redesign soon - and of course, to take over the world!