Kemi Olawoye, a Nigerian entrepreneur building a fast-growing parenting community  — Lionesses of Africa

Startup Story

Kemi Olawoye is the ceo & co-founder of Babymigo, Nigeria’s largest pregnancy and parenting community. She is a veteran entrepreneur and an award-winning business leader. Kemi’s business focuses of building an easily accessible online community for mums to gain information and bridge the communication gap on maternal health in Africa. She founded the business in 2018 and has over 150,000 members across Africa. The business employs 12 people.

LoA learned more about this exciting, high growth parenting community on a mission to help parents raise healthy families from founder Kemi Olawoye this month.

What does your company do?

Babymigo is a fast growing parenting community for Africa. We’re building the most trusted support network for every mom and moms-to-be irrespective of their social status or geographic location. Our vision is to help empower 50 million parents to raise a healthy family, thereby reducing avoidable maternal and infant mortality by 45%.

What inspired you to start your company?

Years ago, I worked as a Physiotherapist in a private hospital in Nigeria and led the women’s health unit of the department. During this time, I interacted with several pregnant women who constantly shared their challenges with me. These challenges included untimely access to trained medical personnel, lack of culturally relevant health information, resources and tools, and inadequate hyper local support services, among several others. Subsequently, I met my co-founder who had a similar experience working in a Primary Health Care Center. We decided to leverage technology to solve the problem and founded Babymigo.

Why should anyone use your service or product?

At Babymigo, we partner, equip, and empower expecting mums and parents with innovative tools, information, and resources to make their parenting journey easier. Our solutions are also geared towards reducing maternal and child health indices in Africa.

Tell us a little about your team

We are a largely remote team working across the country. Our team consists of hardworking, passionate, and committed people who are dedicated to our vision of reducing maternal and new-born mortality in Africa.

Share a little about your entrepreneurial journey. And do you come from an entrepreneurial background?

My mum is and has always been an entrepreneur. She started off trading clothing items and has since grown to add other businesses while also increasing her reach across the country. 

Entrepreneurship can be a very lonely journey but I’m thankful for my team. There will always be the highs and the lows, especially in a country like Nigeria, but you must keep going.

What are your future plans and aspirations for your company?

To continue to launch and deliver innovative solutions to help members of our community. To expand our reach outside Nigeria to other parts of Africa.

What gives you the most satisfaction being an entrepreneur?

IMPACT. As a company, our greatest joy comes from moms and parents who share the life-changing impact of our platform on their parenting journey.

What’s the biggest piece of advice you can give to other women looking to start-up?

As a female business leader, you may need to work twice as hard as your male counterparts to get a seat at the table, but work extraordinarily and lead exceptionally.

Contact or follow Babymigo

WEBSITE | FACEBOOK | INSTAGRAM | EMAIL kemi@babymigo.com