Like many expectant parents, entrepreneur, Jennifer Shaw found herself micromanaging her first pregnancy to such a degree that she spotted an interesting gap in the market and together with her colleague turned business partner, Claire Finnan, they set about launching an event aimed at the parents of the more than 70 thousand babies born in Ireland every year.

Claire and Jennifer both Joined Richard on The Business and told him that The Pregnancy and Baby Fair business has grown significantly over the past seven years with them reaching 9,000 Mothers at their events plus the 30,000 Mothers online.

At their weekend events, Claire and Jennifer would typically see more Mums on a Saturday than Dads, alas on a Sunday the male presence would be more prominent. Claire emphasised that the men are ultimately the decision makers for the bigger purchases.

“You see them checking out all the buggies. So a lot of the time the Dads are the decision makers on a lot of the big purchases.”

Both Claire and Jennifer reminisced with Richard when they featured on The Dragon's Den some years ago as they first started up their company. Claire shared with Richard that they were very naïve and green when they pitched their idea of the event to the Dragons. To emphasise how green they were, she remembers asking one of the producers before they were to go on air, what the term "net profit" meant.

“I remember asking one of the producers ‘what’s net profit’ was before we went on and that's how green we were before we went on for the first event.”

Besides all of this, both Claire and Jennifer got all five dragons on board and when they held their first event in the RDS they had an overwhelming turnout of 10,000 people, which was over three times the expected turnout.

“I was getting a big lump in my throat and just seeing people just coming in and coming in.”

According to Claire, since the two have become Mothers themselves, they can now connect and relate to their online customers. They are adamant that the right tone and the right information is extremely important and its one of the main factors why they have been such a success.

“I was 36 having my first baby and I think I made every single possible mistake going. I was that naïve and scared Mammy sitting on the bed knowing the right things to do and wanting to do my best and I think our tone of voice and how we communicate with parents is really relates to them.”

To listen back to the full interview from The Business, click here.