Behind the business with mykidsy.com

Yasmine Madmoudieh is the founder of myKidsy.com, a site that offers afterschool, weekend and holiday classes for London-based children between the ages of 3-15 years old. The internationally acclaimed designer and interior architect drew on her own experiences as a mother to create a site that aims to help parents find courses to motivate their children with hobbies while also developing their extra-curricular education. Yasmine took Bdaily behind the business, to find out more.

Tell us a bit more about myKidsy

myKidsy aims to provide innovative after school, weekend and holiday activities for kids. Our goal is to save parents’ time on planning, so you can engage in quality time with your children. But MyKidsy is much more than just an activity finder. myKidsy helps parents steer their kids free time into educational fun. It is about finding the most novel and educational activities that go way beyond the music class in the neighbourhood.

It is about helping parents of the new digital appeconomy find trusted courses that will incentivise and motivate their kids into hobbies and activities that will contribute to their further education and growth into becoming citizens of the future society: with empathy for nature, love for the Arts and sciences and in touch with their bodies and being active.

What key challenges has your company recently faced?

The challenge was to move quickly. That entails working on all different levels. From designing and finalisng the product to building up a passionate young team with some senior advisers and getting the best board of advisers.

What is your biggest achievement over the past 12 months?

To launch the site as I envisioned it - led by design and high functionality. I want to develop a brand with my mascot kidsy that appeals to children and adults alike. I commissioned Mariscal who is the world renowned graphic artist and designed the mascot for the Barelona Olympixs, The World Expo Hannover etc. Also, we have over 900 activities only in London covering all boroughs. In addition, we are implementing free coding classes for kids in conduction with CoderDojo.

What is your most important focus for the coming year, and what do you hope to achieve?

I want to have registered users of 100,000 in the next 6 months. I aim to be the number site in London to source not only activities but the best educational programs and a social site. It is my personal wish to change the obsession with TV or electronics and not waste the most important time of a child’s life which is the target group of my site.

What excites you most about your industry and business?

I am very excited because I can reach the world. With my design work I was working all around the globe but it also meant traveling heavily which is ok when you do not have children yet. I want to conquer the world form my desktop and do not need to move all the time around as I used to and when mostly with my children.

The internet is still at its beginning. Our world is changing and people are not even aware. I try to solve the problem each parent faces how to juggle their own career with the best education for their children.

What do you wish you’d known when starting out?

Well I am not really a start up since I started my design and architecture company when I was 26. There were many things s I wished I would have known at that time. Today I know processes take longer than one wishes etc . however things are going pretty well and the resonance on my vision for kidsy is incredible .

What will be the “next big thing“ in your industry, and how do you plan to handle it?

I want to cover all major cities. Soon we will be in Paris then Berlin etc. I have many more very useful services that will be offered solving other issues for families to make myKidsy one day the best platform for children needs in the world. I want to empower children at an early age therefore I will launch over myKidsy in collaboration with thought leaders as Alan O Donohue for example.