Ari Last started Bubble after despairing at how difficult it was to find childcare for his kids.
How do you measure success in business? Ari Last admits to it being a “double-edged sword” as CEO and founder of the UK’s biggest childcare platform.
“One of the most stressful and satisfying things about being a childcare business is that your product really matters to customers,” says Last, who launched Bubble in 2017 and has grown the business to a multi-million pound turnover.
“It is stressful as the expectations are incredibly high on something that matters. But the pay off is that you get a massive amount of satisfaction as we are constantly referred to as a life-changing service. We use that as a yardstick for what we measure ourselves by.”
The Bubble app lets parents discover and book flexible childcare on-demand. It is used by over 350,000 parents — predominantly joining word of mouth — with over 40,000 approved sitters or carers also on the platform.
Having studied broadcast journalism before a stint working as a football commentator for Uefa, Last pivoted to marketplaces prior to Bubble, first with Betfair on its graduate scheme before joining a fintech company in 2013.
It wasn’t long after his first born of three children that he experienced the parental pain point of finding childcare. Last also had experience when a personal recommendation helped them out at short notice, and he realised that a digital product was needed.
Bubble launched a campaign with amusing billboard ads in 2022.
“I remember being struck by the lack of options of what is a fundamental challenge for millions of parents: trying to find a nanny or babysitter,” he recalls.
“Having been a big user of consumer tech, I remember being annoyed at how this problem had been left alone. I knew it lent itself to a marketplace business.”
In Last’s business “trust is everything”. He says: “You have 30% of a parent’s disposable income being spent on childcare in the UK but this problem has been left alone by investors or entrepreneurs as the trust barrier is a difficult thing to solve."
In their research — Bubble was also co-founded by fellow entrepreneurial dad Adrian Murdock, who left the business in 2019 — Last spoke to more nannies than parents for research, the former’s work typically based on a text from someone they didn’t know, with no community support and security system in place.
Bubble uses tech data and social validation from consumers' communities to earn trust on the app.
“The nature of what we do has forced us to focus on the product and spend time getting it right,” adds Last. “What Bubble was built on was not a nanny agency but that we are going to show you the carers that exist in your trusted circles."
Currently UK only (London heavy but with communities from Edinburgh to Brighton) but with plans to expand, Last says that Bubble sees organic growth with up to 3,000 carers signing up monthly, despite the company focusing on how to grow its brand amongst parents.
Since launch, the Bubble app powered 5 million hours of childcare ·SolStock via Getty Images
“You can never fully digitise the childcare experience for a parent and so one of the strengths of Bubble is the human customer support," says Last.
At heart a consumer business, flexible working patterns post-Covid saw Bubble enter the corporate space. Used by Uber (UBER) and Deliveroo (ROO.L) to support its riders, the platform also partners with corporates including management outfit Boston Consulting Group and law firm Slaughter & May to offer childcare help to their staff.
“What they get from Bubble is a stress-tested, high quality consumer on-demand platform,” says Last, “and they are opening it up to their staff, where they might give 50 or 100 hours of care throughout the year to be booked on our platform.”
Last recalls reading an interview with Tom Anderson, Myspace’s founder, who had tried to get a babysitting service off the ground as his first venture.
“I always say that the issue we’re solving is conceptually such an easy problem to understand but so difficult to solve,” says Last.
Today, Bubble is turning over close to £10m annually. “We are just scratching the surface when you consider the billions of pounds spent on childcare,” he adds.
“There are lots of businesses out there doing incredible things but not that many where the customers refer to them as one they can't do without.”
CEO Says: Ari Last on…
How to get your first 100 customers
It is the first challenge of any business and the go-to market of how to win the first 100 or 1,000 customers is so important. When I think back we were doing a lot of planning and I always remember on launch that I didn’t think about marketing enough.
We like getting involved in pitch decks and designing a product but the hardest thing in business is acquiring customers. We did a lot of scrappy stuff that doesn’t scale like hyper local work handing out stickers outside schools.
Founder Ari Last has grown the business to a multi-million pound turnover.
It’s sometimes hard to see the direct impact that has but it got us off the ground. As you grow there are then other marketing channels to use and a temptation to stop being hyper active. It’s important not to lose sight of that as you scale and how to make those channels more scalable rather than flipping attention quickly.
We had to work hard on word of mouth growth and ultimately it’s down to having a great product that customers love and also being able to talk to customers.
Word of mouth just can’t be beaten and it’s hard to scale a business otherwise. If you don’t have it and you start spending money, it is a tell-tale sign of whether you have a product that is providing value or not.
