60. Digital Mums

Founders: Kathryn Tyler and Nikki Cochrane
Founded: September 2014 (Launched January 2014)
Website: www.digitalmums.com

Whilst running a marketing agency named Hackney Social, Kathryn Tyler and Nikki Cochrane came across a report that said almost three times as many women as men have suffered long-term unemployment in the last three and a half years.

Setting out to rectify this, they realised mums could be the perfect solution for social media management as they are often highly skilled but lack the time and flexibility for full-time work. Together, they launched Digital Mums: an online platform that trains mums to be social media managers and matches them to businesses and charities that need their help to get digital.

The company takes a fee off every mum for the two different six-month training programmes, as well as a fee for businesses that take on mums in training and a placement fee for those that take on graduate mums. To date, Digital Mums – which recently closed a £285,000 funding round – claims to have worked with over 300 mums and 300 businesses, with 100 having graduated and the majority going on to flexible work.

The next year will see the 22-employee strong company (18 of whom are flexible working mums) scale throughout the UK, with a target of having 1,000 mums create employment for themselves. The business also has plans to expand internationally – all of which could see Digital Mums reach its projected revenue of £1m for 2016.