Having moved to Jersey from South Africa just before travel and work restrictions were introduced earlier this year, occupational therapist, best-selling baby-and-parenting author and serial entrepreneur Meg Faure found her move stress-free – and believes that in Jersey she has found a platform for evolving and growing her new digital venture that just makes sense
Can you explain a bit about your business in Jersey?
In a nutshell, I work with parents and their babies to give them support and guidance through the early years.
After qualifying as an occupational therapist in Cape Town, I wrote Baby Sense – a best-seller that helps parents with nurturing their little ones.
In 2004, I founded my company, Baby Sense, manufacturing and distributing baby products.
After selling Baby Sense, I launched a new venture, Play Sense, an educational platform for two- to four-year-olds.
The content from Baby Sense, and the subsequent seven parenting books, are being made accessible through my Jersey company. Sense-IT focuses on creating digital platforms to make my various parenting and education businesses and the content from my books accessible to the global market.
What made you consider Jersey as a place to move to?
I was very aware that parents were becoming increasingly interested in accessing information in so many new and different ways, so I started to explore how I could use all of the content and work I had done over my career so far and digitise it.
The idea was to create something that could be tailored to the needs of different parents and give them access to what they wanted, when they wanted it and in a way that suited them.
While I was looking at ways to get this new venture under way, I became attracted to Jersey because of how it was positioning itself as a centre for digital businesses.
That really resonated with me – and so I got in touch with Digital Jersey, who provided me with the information I was looking for and convinced me that Jersey was a good option.
My focus here now is to grow my new app development company and build the digital parenting platform. In April, I launched Parent Sense, an app that brings together all of my experience and knowledge and aims to provide parents with access to bespoke advice.
Was the set-up process straightforward?
There’s no doubt it was a challenging time to move to a new place, given the circumstances – but really, of all the places we could have moved to, Jersey was really quite stress-free.
What I have found about Jersey is that there are always people who are happy to hold your hand and guide you through the necessary processes.
After my initial conversations with Digital Jersey, for example, I was put in touch with Locate Jersey, who were able to help me through the logistics of relocating. It’s an impressive infrastructure and journey – you don’t get that everywhere.
How is Jersey suited to you and your business?
From a business perspective, as well as the digital ecosystem and expertise that Jersey offers, the overall ‘open for business’ approach is really important to me at this stage of a new venture.
As well as Jersey being an English-speaking location – so there are no language barriers – the island offers me the scope to grow, with specialist expertise readily accessible and an investment-friendly environment.
In fact, I have already secured some start-up funding from venture investors. I feel that the platform I have found here is a perfect fit for evolving my business.
From a personal perspective, too, the overall lifestyle proposition has really added to the appeal. In many ways, Jersey’s outdoors lifestyle is pretty similar to life in South Africa.
We feel really lucky to have found a location that can offer such a rewarding environment, both in supporting my business goals and in providing a rich work/life balance.
How do you see your business evolving?
My potential market is global, so really I’m aiming to grow both Play Sense and my new Parent Sense app globally.
Remote working and all the pandemic restrictions we’ve seen over the past few months have really drilled home how important digital accessibility is, and I think there will continue to be huge scope for bespoke, digitally delivered support and advice for parents.
With that in mind, I’ll be exploring all sorts of digital avenues to reach that audience. And as the business grows, I’ll be looking to upskill people locally to support me on the development side.
I’m sure that I’ll find time to carry on writing too…!
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This advertising feature was produced in association with Locate Jersey.
Visit www.locatejersey.com
• This advertising feature was first published in the August/September 2020 edition of Businesslife magazine