Meet Melissa Gauge, founder of SpareMyTime
I’m Melissa Gauge, founder of SpareMyTime. I left my corporate role in 2016 to set up a City-based business with a couple of partners and another business by myself, an online platform. The City venture was a success and I sold back to the other founding partners, however, the online platform was a valuable introduction to how hard it is to start a business from scratch. I had no prior knowledge, no experience and I certainly embarked on making every mistake available.
By 2019, I’d realised that I wasn’t alone in the challenges of starting a business. I was meeting other founders in similar predicaments: our growth was slowed by a lack of access to time and skills.
Simultaneously my children went to school and I was shocked at the number of talented parents excluded from the workplace due to the inflexibility of childcare. This started a passion for resolving both issues – to provide top-tier flexible support to businesses and to retain women in the workplace.
I started experimenting and took on one admin client who I looked after myself. By the end of the year, it had become our largest revenue stream. At that moment I realised, I had a workable business model and best of all, I loved every moment of it!
What’s the biggest lesson you’ve learnt so far as an entrepreneur?
It takes time and patience. There are no shortcuts.
How did you conquer those moments of doubt that so often affect entrepreneurs or stop many with great ideas – what pushes you through?
A determination to keep going! My times of doubt are normally linked to doing too much at one time and feeling overwhelmed. If I take a step back, I find I gain a new perspective. My goal is always to be moving forward, even if things don’t go to plan. Loads of things we’ve done haven’t worked but we have always gained something worthwhile from it.
I’ve also got a healthy belief that if others can succeed, so can I!
How did you fund the business in the early stages?
In the first year, my dad gave me a £10k loan that we subsequently converted to equity. It was incredibly helpful at the time. Luckily we have a profitable business model and our funding requirements have not been onerous. Being profitable and self-funding has been a focus for me as I didn’t want to raise equity until we were in the right place to do so.
What does your business offer its target audience?
SpareMyTime provides founders with high-quality outsourcing of admin, bookkeeping and digital marketing - unlocking time and potential. Our UK-based VAs are recruited for their experience, with the intention to retain exceptional talent in the workplace. Our innovative structure focuses on virtual, flexible work; many of the team are mothers.
Many founders are reluctant to employ or outsource due to risk, cost and time. By combining quality people, technology and experience, we minimise the risk of outsourcing. We partner with our clients to understand their needs, advise on options and provide solutions. Our offering has grown to reflect our client’s requirements, whether they are start-ups, scale-ups or corporates. Being scalable, reliable, transparent and holistic offers clients the opportunity to request additional support across service lines. Most importantly, our clients trust us as their chosen outsourcing partner.
What’s the most common problem your customers approach you with?
Most clients come to us not knowing what support they need – either in scope or skill. They know they need support but they don’t know what that will look like. Our expertise is in working through their pain points to find solutions. We make sure all our solutions are flexible; our belief is that businesses are organic so our support should reflect the client’s needs at all times.
How do you set yourself apart from other businesses in your industry?
Our quality, reliability, approachability and our holistic model. Many clients share our desire to retain talent in the workplace; many want to work with a female-led business. On a business level, our approachable service removes risk and increases ease, speed and confidence in finding skills and capacity.
On a more humanitarian level, I believe that by building a business based on understanding, with a strong moral code, we can set a new standard of inclusivity and acceptance in the workplace.
Keeping an eye on the numbers in any business is important. How do you ensure that you’re always up to date?
I’m really geeky about numbers! We use Xero software – which is essential, and I look into our numbers on a daily basis. I enjoy bookkeeping which certainly helps but I like to keep an eye on what is going in and out of the business.
What plans do you have for SpareMyTime over the next two years?
There’s so much that we have planned for the next couple of years! Predominantly, we want to reach more businesses, proving them with the support they need – whatever that may look like. We also want to open up more opportunities on the team to those unable to work in a classic 9-5 culture.
How important is company culture and what is your top tip to get it right?
We have a very strong company culture. It oozes its way through everything we do! I’m a big believer in excellence, acceptance and encouragement. Many of our staff join us low in confidence and with low expectations of their abilities. With acceptance and encouragement, it is heartening just how brilliant the team have become. All it takes is belief, ability, determination and opportunity!
My top tip would be to base your culture on who you are and your passions. It makes it much easier to uphold a culture based on something you truly believe in.
What are your thoughts on automation and how it could impact our economy?
As a lover of systems and efficiencies, I love automation. However, there is a time and a place. Too much automation feels like spam, not enough automation breeds inefficiencies. Like all things in life, balance is key.
Automation can affect the economy in so many ways – it could make it slicker, more effective, and cleaner but also there is no denying that automation takes away roles previously done by humans. As a support business, we certainly see that all the time!
However, it’s worth remembering there is something for everyone. For every one of our clients who would like to automate a process, there is one who would prefer to have a human performing the same role. It really depends on the client, their business, and their customers.
What would be your top marketing tip, to grow a business that is niche?
Start networking. Join a networking group to get used to speaking about your business. Listen and observe people’s reactions when you tell them what you do. Adapt. Don’t hide. You’ll learn so much about how to deliver an effective ‘elevator pitch’ and the levels of interest in your product or service. Finally, by talking to others you stimulate a waterfall effect. If each of those people goes and tells two others about your service, you’ve got the best marketing effect ever!
Is word of mouth working to your advantage?
Yes, 100%. All our growth to date has been built on word of mouth.
What social media channel would you say has worked the best for your business and why?
Instagram. On Instagram, you can be yourself. We use it as a second website. People search for our company, find our website to know what we do and then find our Instagram to learn who we are and what we’re like. By the time it comes to a discovery call, prospective clients often know and like us which makes the conversion process much smoother and easier. It also means we attract like-minded clients which are a dream to work for!
What impact would you like to have on women around the world through your business?
In 2023 it’s clear that the loss in lifetime earnings experienced by women raising children has become the most significant driver of the gender pay gap. In the UK, childcare remains cripplingly high and there has been a slow take up of shared parental leave by fathers. Without more available, affordable childcare women will continue to take the lion’s share of childcare responsibility. (ONS Data 2023; PWC Women in work index 2023). The founding principle of SpareMyTime was to retain women in the workplace, despite childcare restrictions. If we can have one impact on the world it will be to establish a profitable model that demonstrates equal opportunities for parents and indeed anyone else unable to work a classic 9-5 office role.
What are your top three tips to hire and develop new talent?
Be yourself. Both during the recruitment of new staff and in managing your team. By being yourself, you avoid sending mixed messages to your staff and prospective employees; making it easier for them to deliver their best.
Focus on strengths. Everyone has areas of strength and interest. Encourage staff to explore those areas – your business will be the beneficiary.
Create an aspirational workplace. By creating a working environment that our team loves, we’ve found that others aspire to join it. In turn, this means we’re attracting top talent that might otherwise be unavailable to businesses of our size.
Describe your business in three words.
Aspirational. Exciting. Fun
Why do you think your business has had such a positive impact across your industry?
Our quality, reliability and our holistic model. Many clients share our desire to retain talent in the workplace; many want to work with a female-led business. All embrace that our approachable service removes risk, and increases ease, speed and confidence in finding skills and capacity. We
find the correct support, from our team of employees, who we know well
scale up or down their capacity as their business grows
provide additional resources immediately – either for capacity, skills or compatibility
provide junior or senior staff, depending on need and budget
provide a range of services with quality assurance: admin, bookkeeping and digital marketing - ‘a one-stop shop’
take the responsibility for managing their team
advise on best practice
recruit high calibre staff, who would otherwise be excluded from the workplace
provide founders and CEOs with a personal sounding board
What’s the most important question entrepreneurs should be asking themselves?
What’s working well in my businesses and how can I do more of it?
What would be your top three tips to fellow entrepreneurs to look after their mental health?
Take a break. It’s amazing how solutions present themselves more readily when you step away from the problem.
Be kind to yourself and others. You’ll feel better for it.
Outsource. Having assistance helps in 3 ways 1) it can fill a missing skill set 2) it can free up your own time to focus on issues that are more pressing and, most importantly, 3) having someone to speak to and bounce ideas off is invaluable.
How do you believe the evolution of tech will impact your industry over the next 10 years?
Support roles are the first to get automated so yes tech and automation will affect our industry. However, as a business, we embrace tech. We love systems and we love (appropriate) automation. If something can be done in a more effective and efficient manner then we’re first to embrace it! We still however believe in original thought. Much of what we do is not templated and requires creative thinking, solutions and proactivity. As we’re seeing with lots of new software such as ChatGPT, humans and tech can complement and enhance each other’s abilities – we’re all for that.
