Jolene Roelofse gave birth to her son in November 2014 and this was when she decided to start her business, Mum and Baby Affair. Her company provides fashionable and practical maternity and breastfeeding friendly clothing and in addition to this is preparing to launch pamper boxes for expectant mothers.

Said Jolene, “The reason for me starting my company was initially to spend more time with my son, who was born in November 2014.  I started with providing marketing and communication support to Momtrepreneurs (mothers who have started their own company, mainly to spend more time with their children, like me), but realized that there are other medium sized companies who require the same services.  They don’t need an ad agency, they need someone to come in, do a marketing/communications audit and a marketing strategy and plan implementation.  It meant that I could use my Marketing and Communications experience of over 10 years, as well as my MBA, which I obtained from the Copenhagen Business School in Denmark in 2012.  I also started running MARCOM and social media workshops for entrepreneurs and start-up businesses where we do a skills-transfer and give them the tools to implement and manage their own marketing, communications and social media strategies.  Most entrepreneurs and start-up companies cannot afford to hire a marketing person or a consultant and at least with the right toolkit, they can manage their own.”

Jolene then went on to start Mom and Baby Affair and uses her marketing experience to market her own brand. The one thing she missed working for herself was the interaction that takes place within an office environment. To combat this, she has just, unofficially partnered up with another Entrepreneur with whom she co-shares office space and skill-sets, which means that she has someone to work with on certain projects and someone to bounce ideas off in an office environment.  For her, the biggest lesson on her journey to be a Mompreneur has been that collaboration is key and necessary for growth while still maintaining independence.