A Chronic Entrepreneur: Kelly Northey
Kelly Northey is an entrepreneurial spirit, working across multiple businesses driven by purpose and passion. She is the founder of The Caring Kind – practical products that change lives (check it out here!). Kelly’s journey to entrepreneurism happened simultaneously with her diagnosis of Rheumatoid Arthritis which happened after the birth of her son. After years of building her business, alongside being a mother and managing her chronic, Kelly now works as a full-time entrepreneur across her businesses and loves every second of it (challenges and all). Read about her journey and how’s she’s thriving below.
What’s your Chronic?
Rheumatoid Arthritis (RA).
Where/when were you diagnosed?
I was first diagnosed with RA after the birth of my son. This was over six months following the birth, and also after spending most of my maternity leave with excruciating pain in my feet and joints that felt like walking on glass or as if I was someone’s voodoo doll. RA is also quite a systemic chronic illness that results in extreme exhaustion and often sickness and the immunosuppressant treatment isn’t greatly compatible with sleep deprivation and the run of illnesses that having kids brings with it naturally, especially when they’re in childcare from young ages!
What does being an entrepreneur mean to you?
To me, being an entrepreneur is bringing a product or service to the world in a way that’s unique, that fills a need and will ultimately support you financially while also providing a sense of purpose and career fulfilment.
What came first, the chronic or the entrepreneurism?
Actually, they both came at around the same time.
How did this path come to you?
My first product wasn’t one I planned to actually make a business from. My son suffered from quite severe eczema from birth and once he reached the age of nearly six months, and was starting to roll around, I was no longer able to safely swaddle/wrap him to prevent some of the scratching damage that he was doing to himself, especially during sleep times. So, really it was out of desperation, a need for more sleep and a way to keep all his creams on him. I made him a baby sleeping bag with enclosed sleeves, from lightweight fabric so it wouldn’t overheat him and further aggravate his skin.
It wasn’t until his scratching started being a real problem, when I returned to work and he went to childcare, that I started sending his homemade sleeping bag along with him. I was actually a bit embarrassed when I did, but one of the childcare workers was the one who actually commented to me about how much better it was for him. She also mentioned she’d seen so many eczema babies over the years who this could have helped too and asked me if I’d ever thought of selling them!
Of course, I really hadn’t, I thought we were the only ones who were going through this, but after she planted the seed I did some research and discovered what a huge unfilled need there was for these types of products. Then after testing many different types of fabrics and prototypes, my first product – the Bamboo Bubby Bag was born! Since then it’s become a practical and popular choice amongst parents worldwide, minimising damage caused by scratching from eczema, dermatitis and even chicken pox as well as stopping thumb-sucking and even helping babies who would wake from cold hands.
The range over the past six years has also grown to include options for eczema sufferers of all ages from babies through to adults, both day and night.
After starting this first business, approximately four years ago another product range opportunity landed my way, allowing me to start The Yummy Mummy Food Company which provides healthy food products to help pregnant and breastfeeding mums with morning sickness and milk supply. These two things were something I could personally relate to struggling with alongside RA, so I jumped at this chance to help others hopefully have better experiences and outcomes than we did!
With two quite separate retail businesses that also both had active manufacturing and wholesale branches to them, a couple of years ago it started to become apparent that an overarching business was needed to help bring everything together more and provide a clear overall structure to the whole business which could then allow growth to occur through the addition of future brands and products. And so, The Caring Kind came into being.
I often feel like this business journey of mine is a bit topsy turvy and that I’ve done, six years on, what I should have done in the beginning. But I guess that’s all part of the business journey, especially one that’s grown quickly from just one little idea.
Did you go through any sort of 12-stages of grief with the diagnosis or take it in its stride? How did the process manifest itself? Did you immediately reassess your life?
Actually I never really thought about that, but I probably did. I know I felt really angry, because I spent most of my maternity leave in a lot of pain and was dismissed by my doctor as it being ‘just a new mum thing’. And then I was also angry when a different doctor picked it up, because by that point I’d already returned to work. This meant that accessing any help to be able to take time off via income protection insurance was inaccessible as I’d already returned to work (even though I was a really unwell person at this point in time).
I do remember feeling quite lonely in it all too. Going to the string of appointments once diagnosed and trying various treatments with a young baby in tow, while juggling it all around working most days, is exhausting to say the least. I think you probably go through a whole rollercoaster of emotions about it all daily.
It does sometimes take something like this to make you reassess your life and for me having my little spark of a product/business idea building around the same time as the diagnosis did give me something positive to be focusing on, as exhausting as it is to try and design, implement and launch a small side-line business around everything else, usually during the hours between 10pm-3am!
As much as I knew my previous occupation was really no longer working for me, I LOVED my career. I have three different qualifications that I worked really hard to get, so I found being seen to ‘give this up’ really difficult. It actually took me a really long time (years) and moving through several different job roles to work out that building my own business was where I needed to be full-time and that I could bring all the skills I’d learnt in all my previous roles and degrees to this new one.
I also wasn’t in a financial position to take the leap to leave paid employment to pursue my own business, so it also took years of building the business in the background, working through sickness and extreme exhaustion daily, to be able to make the leap so I could do it successfully and continue to pay myself what we need to live!
Did you seek out or join organisations representing your chronic for support or did you find comfort and answers elsewhere? What would you recommend in hindsight?
Not actively, but am grateful after posting (probably complaining!) about it once or twice on Facebook that another school friend made contact who’s also had RA for a long time. She then started a Facebook group, which has really helped a lot of people to talk through issues and get support from one another.
How have you changed, if at all, in your relationships, decisions and values?
It’s probably difficult for people who don’t suffer ongoing daily pain to really understand what it’s like living with it, day in and out, and that can definitely place a strain on relationships. I think I’ve definitely changed a lot in how I value my time and what I decide to do or not. I’m grateful every day now to be able to work around how I’m feeling on the day. I would, over the course of the week, put in more than full-time work hours, but the ability to do it flexibly now has helped my health no end.
What is your life philosophy and has this changed?
I’m not sure I ever really had a life philosophy, but I did used to think that the harder you worked and pushed through things, the more you could gain and this definitely worked for me to a point. But there comes a time when you can’t do that anymore and you need to step back a bit and work out how to work smarter, not harder and to let some things just be and trust that the universe will have your back. This is a hard thing to trust, but is probably what’s changed in my outlook.
What do you wish you’d known before?
That your own health matters.
Are you on any treatments? Why/why not?
After trying conventional medicine for several years, I’ve had to concede that as much as I wanted it to ‘just work’, it really wasn’t and for me the side effects of these treatments were far worse than the disease.
I’ve found that I can manage my pain most of the time through the right types of exercise, food and trying to maintain a more balanced lifestyle than I was previously able to lead before I worked full-time for myself and this is what works for me at the moment.
What advice do you have for others starting out on this journey?
Listen to your body and don’t fight against it. It doesn’t mean giving into the chronic and being overcome by being a ‘sick person’. It means giving yourself permission to take care of yourself and give yourself whatever you need to heal whenever you possibly can.
What is a ‘bad day’ for you?
These days for me, a bad day is waking up extremely fatigued, often for no real reason, which also will manifest as bad migraines resulting in a loss of pretty much being able to do anything for that day (or at worst) until it just passes.
What do you do on a ‘bad day’?
There’s really not a lot I can do except to resort to painkillers and try to rest on the days this happens and think, this too shall pass, while waiting for it to do so.
How do you deal with stress?
In the past, probably not well and would have pushed through stress, which may be what brought me to this chronic in the first place if I’m really honest. I had a lot of symptoms long before having my son, but the strains of pregnancy and again pushing through pain and complications would have been what physically pushed me over the edge.
Now I’m more conscious of the fact that I can only actually cope with so much stress and if I’m feeling it, I pull back and give myself permission to rest, go for a walk or whatever feels like it will help at the time, rather than fighting against it and pushing through it.
What do you struggle with the most?
Taking on too much – work, life, everything and saying no without feeling guilty.
What are you most proud of?
I’m proud to have not only created products and a business that helped my son and now thousands of others suffering the same, but that I’ve also been able to grow this business and add other products and brands that help in different ways (like The Yummy Mummy Food Company which helps pregnant and breastfeeding mums), which now fall under my overall business structure called The Caring Kind.
I’m also proud of the fact that I can run these businesses in a way that works for me, not against me. My quality of life and that of my family’s is definitely better for it!
Who are your back up dancers?
It actually takes quite a few people to be your backup dancers when juggling business and family – with our without a chronic being involved.
There’s definitely key friends and family who truly understand both your chronic and how your business runs to provide support when needed. I’ve been lucky to have a small group of both who back me regularly in different ways. Sometimes it’s a trusted ear to listen to a problem, sometimes it’s someone leaving a meal on your doorstep or turning up bearing pizza and a few drinks because they know you’ve been so busy you haven’t had time to cook, eat or sit even for days!
I’m also definitely grateful to the people who work for my business in the various ways they do – sometimes its short-term outsourced work, sometimes it’s more ongoing, depending on what the needs are, which do change a lot as the business changes and grows. They each play a part for it to function as best it can and I value it all.
Best bits of being a Chronic Entrepreneur?
The highs that come with being successful in business, but also the empathy for others that having a chronic can give you that is sometimes forgotten in business and helps provide real value to customers.
Worst bits of being a Chronic Entrepreneur?
The lows that are always part of any growing business and the frustrations of sometimes not being able to physically put in what you’d like to – but that’s across life in general, not just business.
Are you a 5-year planner or are you winging it?
While not necessarily on paper, I’m definitely a big picture, long-term planner and do have a clear picture of how my business and the brands I could add to it can help it to grow into the future. I’ve also had to become a much better short-term planner to prevent a lot of the winging it that can happen in business. That only works up to a certain point before it can be fraught with chaos.
Dream weekend plans and have these changed?
Quiet times, not having to race around anywhere much and just hanging out with a few key people. Oh and sleep, more of it than a now eight year old boy allows!
Ultimate dinner party guests?
Anyone who brings dinner!
What advice would you give your younger self?
That it’s not a race to prove yourself to the universe or people who don’t matter in the bigger scheme of things. And to walk away from situations or people that no longer serve you sooner rather than later.
What’s next?
I’ve done lots of work ‘on’ my businesses over the last couple of years to implement systems and a lot of things that people don’t really even realise or see, but things that help them to ‘tick over’ like they do. Now that I’m in the final throws of this type of work, I can begin growing the brands I manufacture and distribute to help other people in other niche ways.
How can people find you?
I’m always happy to chat with anyone through any of my businesses social media channels at:
Overall business The Caring Kind:
www.facebook.com/thecaringkind
www.instagram.com/thecaringkind
Bamboo Bubby (eczema & sensitive skin):
www.facebook.com/bamboobubby
www.instagram.com/bamboobubby
Yummy Mummy Food Company (pregnancy, breastfeeding & family wellness)
www.facebook.com/yummymummyfoodco
www.instagram.com/yummymummyfoodcompany
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