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The tech entrepreneur behind Malaysia’s first on-demand childcare service says the right timing is crucial to executing the most brilliant business ideas
“A customer once texted me saying ‘You guys saved my life',” Nadira Yusoff recounts. “I responded with ‘Happy to help!’, but she replied, ‘You don’t understand. You literally saved my life’. Then she called me to explain the whole story.”
For context, Nadira doesn’t often get calls like this one. She founded Kiddocare in 2019, an app that connects busy working parents with qualified and vetted babysitters, who in turn get to earn income as professional nannies or develop their skills further via The Kiddocare Academy.
The woman on the other end of the phone call with Nadira, in this case, was of the former group: a struggling mum with two sets of twins who worked long hours as a doctor in a Covid-19 ward during the pandemic. “The working conditions led her to depression and suicidal thoughts. At her lowest point, she contemplated taking her life and the lives of her children,” Nadira explains. “She looked on YouTube for videos on how to take her own life when she came across a video of Kiddocare. She reached out, used our service for two weeks, got some time for herself, sorted her life out, and today she’s happy.”
An electrical engineer by training, Nadira’s passion has always been about using new technologies to empower people, especially women and children.
In 2002, she co-founded Nadi-Ayu Technologies, an IT company providing solutions to the education sector. “I always thought that if I built the coolest products, people wouldn't hesitate to throw their money at me,” she says with a self-deprecating grin. “In 2006, I created a children’s online learning platform for kids 12 years old and below. It was a cool, fun concept that just didn’t work for its time, and it was a regal failure."
As a bright-eyed young tech entrepreneur, she was anxious to build new tech products and would often get consumed by the process. “You get so caught up building a product that you start to think that your product is the best, forgetting to check whether or not the product fits the market, or whether you can actually sell it.”
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Despite numerous setbacks and what she playfully deems ‘glorious’ failures, the tenacious mum of six remained unfazed. She had first-hand experience of the challenges of being a single working parent, and was convinced that there was potential for a tech platform that would improve Malaysia’s underserved care industry.
“I’ve had experiences of leaving my kid in the childcare centre for too long and forgetting to pick her up. My daughter even told me once, “Ibu, do you not love me anymore?',” Nadira says. “When we started Kiddocare, there were platforms like Grab; there was already a level of technology-enabled trust in the market. That was the right time to launch it. The challenge was how to get people to move from dependency on their parents or the mothers to look after their children, to a total stranger doing it instead.”
Above Nadira at the launch of Kiddocare's 'Care for Empowerment' series in 2022
Nadira at the launch of Kiddocare's 'Care for Empowerment' series in 2022
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When Kiddocare started in 2019, the demand in Malaysia for childcare services was approximately 42,000 centres, a staggering figure in comparison to the 4,000 centres actually available. “There was no other way to accommodate this great need but through technology," Nadira says. "On one hand, you have a need for childcare providers and on the other, you have women who wanted to go out and earn extra income. If we trained these carers to provide quality service to working parents in their own homes, it would be a perfect match.”
Kiddocare’s focus is two-fold. It ensures rigorous assessment of care workers, with background checks and proper safety training. It also ensures that these care workers are matched to a safe home environment and are decently paid, with access to clear career progress.
“Both in Malaysia and globally, childcare workers are among the lowest paid in any field. Where Malaysian childcare workers used to earn only about RM700 to RM1,200 in childcare centres, they can earn up to RM2,000 per week with Kiddocare,” Nadira explains. “That’s a huge change. We see carers now being able to send their kids to college, get a car, invest in farms—we’re seeing the direct improvement on women’s lives.”
Above Photo: Imran Sulaiman/Tatler Malaysia
Photo: Imran Sulaiman/Tatler Malaysia
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Kiddocare’s service is more in demand than ever, with plans to integrate Internet of Things (IoT) and artificial intelligence (AI) systems to help monitor the quality of services and to conduct mass trainings for carers as the business scales exponentially.
“In another year or so, a lot more automation will take place, and it’s very exciting,” says Nadira, who is also head of the ASEAN Women Entrepreneurs Network (AWEN) and was a speaker in the UN Women #WeEmpowerAsia panel at AWEN's ASEAN Women CEOs Summit 2019 in Bangkok. “I think the fact that my background is in technology and engineering is helpful. My training has taught me to establish processes, which is important in product development and entrepreneurship.
“As a nation, we’ve come a long way enabling businesses through investment via crowdfunding or angel investors,” she adds. “What hasn’t changed, sadly, is how people view women in tech startups. Till today, I have investors asking me the same question they did 20 years ago, which is ‘Who’s backing you? Who’s behind you?’. No matter how long you’ve been in business or how much you’ve built your credibility, there will always be people who think that women can’t run a tech business at this scale. Maybe they’ve only ever seen men succeed in business; maybe we don’t talk enough about successful women. The reality is, women have to work twice as hard to be taken seriously in this industry. It’s an unfair world, but it’s up to you to do your research, to go in with sound knowledge, and show people that you know exactly what you’re doing and that you're not messing around.”
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Credits
Photography: Imran Sulaiman
Previously contributing to Esquire Malaysia, Expat Lifestyle and Newsweek, Tania oversees digital stories across Tatler’s key content pillars, also leading the Front & Female platform exploring issues and topics affecting women today.
