The Ties That Bind The co-founder of Lottie is here to debunk the myth that family and business don't mix

Contrary to popular belief, starting a successful business with a family member is highly advantageous, as my brother Chris and I co-founded Lottie in July 2021.

Combining Chris's tech expertise and my experience in social care, we aimed to improve elder care standards globally. Lottie emerged from our personal struggles to find suitable care for loved ones, and it now helps thousands of families across the UK.

Despite challenges, including the COVID-19 pandemic's impact and adjusting to each other's working styles, our complementary skills have driven Lottie's rapid growth.

Today, Lottie is a trusted and respected brand, leading the later living marketplace in the UK and valued at US113 million. Our journey shows that family partnerships can thrive in business, driving positive change in a competitive market.

Disgruntled by our own experience of finding a care home for our grandmother, Chris and I founded Lottie as a care home marketplace. Our aim is to transform the later life sector by connecting care seekers to the UK's best care homes at a fair price.

Before co-founding Lottie, I spent over five years advising the UK's leading care and retirement operators, and I was also part of the property team that helped the National Health Service (NHS) throughout the COVID-19 pandemic.

Chris has a strong background in digital and tech. Prior to co-founding Lottie, he was the founder and CEO of Verb Brands, a company he launched at university and grew organically into one of the world's leading digital and tech agencies.

The idea for Lottie was born when Chris' expertise in technology and my experience in the social care sector were combined.

Exactly three years after launching, Lottie continues to empower care seekers by simplifying the process of searching for care, i.e. care homes, home care, and retirement properties. We blend innovative technology with market-leading human expertise (through our free concierge service).

Each care provider and retirement living property listed on Lottie is reviewed by a team of care experts using "The Lottie Standard" for outstanding care, facilities, and homely environments.

This Lottie Standard is constantly being reviewed and updated, but it currently considers industry-accepted metrics like the UK's Care Quality Commission (CQC) ratings (per category), as well as more subjective measures like external reviews.

When we first established the Standard, we used it to dictate which care homes we would target to partner with Lottie. In the future, we will also consider new data points that will benefit care seekers.

To date, we've placed thousands of residents into Lottie care homes; compared to the industry-wide rate of 44% of care seekers regretting their care home decision, our move-out rate is incredibly low.

Our company's pre-launch financiers included Tom Blomfield (founder of Monzo), Victoria van Lennep (founder of Lendable), Jacob Haddad (founder of AccuRx), Jamie Bolding (founder of Jungle Creations), and Dominic McGregor (founder of Social Chain/Fearless Ventures). In August 2023, we completed our Series A funding round backed by leading investors, including Accel, General Catalyst, and Kindred Capital. Three years later, Lottie is now valued at GBP113 million.

However, our successes haven't come without challenges. The pandemic heavily impacted the care sector, making our mission to drive positive change even more challenging. We knew this was an obstacle we needed to overcome from the beginning, and we are pleased to share that through Lottie's bold pink branding and creative marketing strategies, we have successfully addressed common misconceptions of care.

In November 2022, we launched our "Nights On Lottie" campaign, pledging 1,000 free nights for UK carers. Partnering with Unplugged, a company who offer a variety of digital detox cabins in the UK countryside, we gave away 100 free 3-night stays in one of their cabins. Endorsed by Anton Du Beke, best known for being a professional dancer and a judge on the BBC One celebrity dancing show Strictly Come Dancing, the campaign was launched on the ITV television show, Good Morning Britain, on Carer's Day.

This campaign raised Lottie's awareness and generated over 1,000 nominations for carers. We are now surprising our first winners with their well-deserved breaks. Additionally, it fostered sector unity, with care operators supporting our nominated carers with respite care.

Building on this success, our latest PR campaign, Meet The Senior Swifties, featured care home residents recreating Taylor Swift's iconic album covers, went viral, while also demonstrating that age is no barrier to enjoying music.

Campaigns like this make us proud to see how far we have come, and we're excited to see the positive impact our marketing activity can continue to drive within the social care sector and beyond.

However, one of our biggest challenges has been addressing the long-standing status quo in a stagnant market. For too long, the social care sector has needed more innovation that benefits care seekers and their loved ones.

As a newcomer to the market, we're constantly reviewing our business services to show how we're revolutionising the care sector. For example, in May 2022, we launched Care IQ, Lottie's proprietary data insights tool offering unrivalled insights into the UK elderly care and retirement living industries.

Care IQ has supported over 20 clients in confidential projects totalling over GBP1 billion of deal activity, including mergers and acquisitions and operational performance reviews. Care IQ's clients include some of the industry's largest real estate investors and lenders in the UK and European markets.

We also recently launched our home care marketplace, which connects care seekers directly to home care and support providers. We're proud to share that with the launch of our Homecare Marketplace, we now cover all three core types of elderly care—care homes, home care, and retirement living.

My advice for anyone looking to start their own business, especially in the healthtech space, is to always have a purpose behind every decision.

Lottie was born from our struggles to find suitable care for our family members, which drove our mission to transform the elderly care sector. Staying true to Lottie's mission when making important business decisions has helped grow our success over the last few years.