We met.

Three children in four years is less a life choice and more a logistical identity. It means there is always someone who needs you urgently and someone else who needed you five minutes ago. It means your house sounds like a soft-play centre but looks like a small administrative office- calendars, labels, shoes lined up with militant optimism.

It also means the good comes thick and fast. They are close enough in age to be co-conspirators. They share language, games and indignation. They fight spectacularly and forgive instantly. There is very little silence, but there is a lot of life.

The hard parts are less cinematic. They’re cumulative. The relentlessness of it. The cost- financial, physical and emotional. The way your time fragments into ten-minute increments. The way ambition has to negotiate with bedtime.

It was during one of those daily negotiations, on the well-trodden route between nursery and school that I kept seeing Phoebe. We didn’t properly meet at first, we acknowledged. A nod. A brief smile. A mutual once-over that said: three children, close together, same stretch of pavement, same slightly brisk walking pace that suggests we are already late.

There’s a quiet respect between women doing the same hard thing at the same time. Not competitive. Not showy. Just observational. You know.

For months, we existed in that polite orbit, parallel lives intersecting at drop-off and pick-up. Then my youngest and her middle started nursery together, and parallel shifted to adjacent. Conversations became inevitable. First about the children- settling in, snack preferences. Then about work. About ideas.

Phoebe had one.

Not a vague “I’d love to…” but a formed, considered concept. The kind that has been sitting patiently, waiting for the right moment or perhaps the right accomplice. She mentioned it. I asked questions. She answered. I challenged. She refined. What could have been a passing playground chat turned into a recurring discussion. We kept finding ourselves circling back to it.

There is something powerful about discussing ambition with someone who understands your constraints because she shares them. There was no need to explain why evenings were often better than afternoons. No apology required for background noise. No raised eyebrows at the phrase “I can’t that day- it’s parents’ evening.”

The idea didn’t feel like an escape from motherhood. It felt shaped by it. Three children in four years recalibrates you. It forces prioritisation. It sharpens decision-making. You don’t have time for ego or fluff. If something is going to take you away from your family, even briefly, it has to be worth it.

By January 2025, the talking stage felt indulgent. So we pushed. We set deadlines, we divided responsibilities, we moved from “this is interesting” to “this is happening.” There was no dramatic launch moment, just a series of small, decisive steps taken consistently. And we haven’t looked back.

Working with someone on a similar path changes the texture of partnership. When one of us has a sick child, the other instinctively recalibrates. When momentum dips, it’s understood rather than judged. Our lives are not obstacles to the business; they are the reason it exists.

We met because our children happened to walk the same route. We built something because we kept talking.

Three children in four years has been loud, exhausting, hilarious and humbling. It has narrowed my tolerance for wasting time and widened my capacity for doing hard things.

Some partnerships are born in boardrooms. Ours started on the pavement, somewhere between nursery drop-off and the rest of our lives waiting to begin.