Whilst Raising Young Children and Balancing Family Life – With Natalie Dowsett
Today, Elizabeth is thrilled to have Natalie Dowsett on the Work It Like A Mum podcast. Natalie is the co-founder of OX Delivers- a company that aims to provide affordable transportation for small-scale farmers to deliver and sell their products in emerging markets. Their mission is to create a self-reinforcing cycle of economic growth and social impact.
Natalie will be discussing her reasons for starting OX Delivers, including her passion for creating positive change and her desire to address the challenges faced by people in developing countries.
She’ll talk about her experiences fundraising for the business and how she successfully grew Ox Delivers into a global enterprise whilst raising young children.
Throughout the conversation, Natalie offers insights and tips for other mums looking to start and grow a business while balancing work and family life.
She’ll share her challenges and triumphs and how she overcame obstacles to make her vision a reality. This conversation promises to be inspiring, informative, and full of practical advice for any mum looking to create a successful, impactful business.
Key Highlights
[00:02:13] Introduction to today’s guest: Natalie Dowsett
[00:03:35] The idea behind OX Delivers
[00:08:15] Natalie leaving her automotive manufacturer job and becoming a mum
[00:12:16] What OX Delivers does
[00:15:39] Finding grant opportunities and fundraisers
[00:20:38] OX Delivers Rwanda project
[00:22:49] Natalie’s career as an engineer
[00:24:51] Why engineering is a male-dominated industry
[00:26:53] Why women should consider engineering as a career
[00:29:26] Juggling between being a mom and career life
[00:33:12] OX Delivers looking for business partners
Notable Quotes
● What we’ve seen with our customers, where we are providing this logistics service, is that they can increase their incomes and spend less time doing it. Their goods arrive in better condition, and this increase in income is critical to supporting the growth of local economies.
● When I’m talking about the UK government, this is to encourage angel investors to invest in these early-stage and smaller startup businesses, so they make them economically good. It is a tax-efficient way to invest your money, which is great for people like OX Delivers who want to raise funds; you know you’re a risk to an investor, but they can do it tax efficiently.
● We wanted to be pretty pragmatic with how we started this, so we didn’t want to work hard developing this electric truck, get to the end and then go into the market and find that our business model assumptions or the demand weren’t quite right. So what we decided to do was develop the electric truck in parallel to test the business model assumptions.
● I’m pretty confident that this has been the right call because we’ve learned so much, and the whole time, it’s informing the development of the technology. It’s an incredible element of how we’re designing.
● Sometimes, it’s just starting very simply by showing people the practical application of what engineering is. It’s everywhere, and for many children who won’t necessarily understand what engineering is, their first point of contact with engineering will set that preconception.
● If you want to be a present parent and partner, but you also have a passion that is outside of the home that you are, really wanting to put everything you can into it, there’s a pressure, there’s a tension that comes from that. However, there’s a benefit to it as well, because I truly believe that if I didn’t have that pull to be a present parent and partner, this business would consume me. After all, I’m so passionate about it; there would be no natural boundary, and there wouldn’t be anything to say, “You need to stop now.”
● You can have all the energy, and you can throw yourself at it, but at some point, you’re going to burn out, or you’re going to run out of energy, or it’s just not sustainable to continue. If you can maintain that at a consistent rate, it’s much more sustainable and easier to maintain. People know what they’re going to get from you, and it’s just a healthier way of going at it all around.
● This is a massive problem that we’re tackling, this lack of transport for so many people, and so not one business will be able to tackle this on their own. It’s going to take partnerships, it’s going to take ecosystems, and so we’re always on the lookout; we’ve got our ears open for anyone who wants to reach out and talk to us about how we can work together to find the solutions that are going to be sustainable and work in the long term.
Show Links
Work It Like A Mum Podcast: Work It Like A Mum
Investing in Women Flexible Working Website: Investing in Women
Facebook: Facebook
LinkedIn: LinkedIn
To connect with Natalie:
LinkedIn: LinkedIn