If I could sit down with a younger version of myself, I’d want her to know that, as complicated and exhausting as life felt in that moment, it wasn’t standing in her way. It was building her.

I’m the founder of Harmonia, a mental health platform for unpaid carers.

We offer an AI companion for support, a peer community and personalised wellbeing resources, all built around the reality of caring for someone else, day in, day out.

My mum was diagnosed with a brain tumour when I was young.

Doctors told us it would be a miracle if she made it a year. That was years ago, and she’s still here, still dealing with the ongoing effects of a tumour that can’t be removed.

I’m still part of her care. That hasn’t changed. What has changed is everything else.

I graduated with a first-class law degree, mainly because Covid moved my final years online, allowing me to care for my family and study without having to choose between the two.

Later, I took maternity leave from my job at an EdTech company, and in that space, the idea for Harmonia emerged.

In 2024, I joined the Innovative Entrepreneurs Programme at Nexus, based at the University of Leeds, with my husband, Brandon, with just an idea.

By the time we left, we had a registered business, £5,000 in grant funding, and a further £10,000 through the Huddersfield Health Innovation Partnership.

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Within nine months, we had an app on the App Store, certified content developed with a positive psychologist, and real market validation work underway with charities and organisations.

We went on to reach the final of the Mayor’s Challenge, receiving £20,000 in funding.

I completed the final interview at 39 weeks pregnant, and our baby was two weeks old when we were awarded £100,000 as one of the winning finalists.

A further £20,000 worth of support came through Bruntwood’s s female founders’ network.

We’ve since secured a place on a highly competitive growth programme for scaling SMEs.

I share all of this not to reel off numbers, but because I want younger carers to see what’s possible when you refuse to let your circumstances write your story for you.

So, what would I tell my younger self?

Know your purpose before anything else. Not your pitch, not your product, your purpose. For me, it was always about the people that nobody was looking after while they were looking after everyone else.

Once I understood that clearly, opportunities started finding me. Funding followed. Conversations opened up. When you can articulate what you’re genuinely trying to solve, people listen.

Learn to speak other’s languages. If you’re talking to someone worried about NHS pressures, show how unpaid carers save the system more than its total budget.

With technologists, stress the personalisation potential of AI-driven support.

For investors, know your numbers and your market. Knowing your audience isn’t a trick, it’s how you help people care about what matters to you.

Don’t wait until everything is ready before you start selling the vision.

We were building and pitching simultaneously, and that tension is uncomfortable but necessary.

Investors and partners back founders as much as they back products. Show up with conviction even when the product isn’t finished.

And when it gets hard, come back to your reason. I was tired and pregnant, sometimes wondering where I’d find the energy. The energy always came from the same place.

There are millions of unpaid carers in the UK alone, and most of them feel invisible. It’s that drive that gets you back to your laptop.

The next phase is focused on scaling into our key markets, working with universities, the NHS, GPs and local councils to deploy Harmonai directly to unpaid carers.

My long-term vision is a Harmonai scholarship, giving young carers the financial support and mentorship I never had.

That goal hasn’t shifted since day one.

Whatever you’re carrying, don’t let it set the ceiling on what you’re capable of.