Founding story July 2024: heyparents - the digital guide for family-friendliness in companies
© heyparentsKarolin and Stephanie, what is the feedback from the field on your heyparents service?
Our customers are really happy! We recently gave a presentation to one of them at a corporate management meeting - and here, too, we were told that our range of services goes far beyond the portfolio of an HR department. Our users are "beginners" as well as experienced parents and the respective managers in the company. Both receive regular e-mail impulses, such as a discussion guide for possible perspective discussions or handover workshops. During parental leave, the parental context takes priority. This means that we provide content on questions such as "What can we expect in the postpartum period?" or webinars on topics such as "Active fatherhood" or "Proper sleep for the child". Managers receive reminder emails with ideas for questions for new parents - without any professional context. However, relevant company information should also flow during this time. Very importantly, everyone can always take a break with us.
Who are your customers?
Small companies as well as large corporations. We don't want to replace HR departments, we want to support them. The phase of returning to work in particular needs to be well planned and prepared by both sides, which is where our digital assistant helps with the right impulses. It is crucial for everyone to stay in touch during this long phase - and heyParents always provides the right suggestions and tools to ensure this.
Where do you want to go with heyParents in the future?
We want to firmly anchor family-friendliness in as many companies as possible. Our model is easily scalable, both in the respective companies and on the market as a whole. We are therefore confident that heyParents will help to establish family-friendliness in companies as a matter of course. To this end, we are planning to further individualize our platform for individual companies. The self-efficacy of both of us, who are also parenting mothers, already makes heyParents family-friendly for us. To accelerate this vision, we are looking for investors. Anyone interested in using or supporting heyParents is welcome to contact us!
What are your tips for other start-ups?
Founding in a team was and is immensely important for us in terms of an intensive exchange. We are very lucky that we both share our values but bring different strengths to the table - that is a gift. Be open to feedback and don't be too in love with your entrepreneurial idea. You must also be prepared to implement changes requested by your target group. Founding a company is a marathon, not a sprint! We've established a habit of celebrating our successes instead of always looking at what's not working - and we're doing really well with it!
How did hannoverimpuls support you?
The hannoverimpuls team is incredibly supportive and the Startup Impuls competition, in which we were actually one of the winners, is great! Even now, in retrospect, we still receive an incredible number of door openers through it.
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© heyparentsheyParents
Karolin Gaßmann
Phone: 0176-46027402
E-mail: karo@heyparents.de
www.heyparents.de
Karolin and Stephanie on their collaboration with hannoverimpuls:
We had not expected this long-term and proactive cooperation with a genuine interest in the growth of our company.
Anke Pawla, Project Manager Start-up and Entrepreneurship on the collaboration with KarolinGaßmann and Stephanie Höfer:
In times of a shortage of skilled workers, the offer of both is elementary for companies of all sizes. No one can afford for qualified employees to leave because the company is not family-friendly. Based on their own experience as managers and mothers, the two women have launched their service with a perfect fit and are rightly winners of the Startup Impuls start-up competition in the Team-Start category.
