Amelia Christie-Miller is the founder of Bold Bean Co, which she launched in 2021.

The Barcelona-based new mum is also a best-selling cookbook author and has been included in BusinessCloud’s inaugural Founder 250 list.

She’s written a blog about the 10 realities of being a female founder and a new mum.

Let me de-influence you as a 33-year-old female founder and new mum.

  • 1. I wake up when my baby wakes up. That’s my morning routine. No lemon water, no vinegar shots, no workouts.
  • 2. I am addicted to Instagram Reels. I pay £80 a year for an app to block me from them. I’m ashamed about that.
  • 3. Most weeks I fail my exercise goals. I want to work out three times a week. Lifting your baby up and down while they’re lying on the bed, I don’t think, counts as weight training!
  • 4. If you see me on a work video call, 9/10 I will have forgotten to put on make-up, and only if you’re extremely privileged will you get freshly washed hair. What I will always have is some kind of unidentified splotch on my top from trying to ‘baby-led wean’ and simply causing a massive mess.
  • 5. As an ex-private chef and best-selling cookbook author… postpartum I have almost entirely lost the will to cook. I eat my gourmet baked beans ALL THE TIME. I genuinely cannot tell you if that is very on-brand or deeply tragic.
  • 6. I feel real guilt that I actually enjoy going into the office and leaving my baby. I feel ENERGY and I enjoy it. And then I feel bad about that.
  • 7. My baby sometimes laughs more with her nanny than she does with me. I have to actively talk myself through it: it means she is loved, safe and happy with someone who cares for her. I know that. I still have to remind myself of it, more than I’d like to admit.
  • 8. My ‘overnight success’? Reality: years of shamelessly harassing buyers and thousands of comments on Instagram posts featuring beans. ‘This looks DELICIOUS’ on every single one. Just trying to get a follow back.
  • 9. I still get nervous pitching to buyers, even after getting into Tesco and Waitrose with our jarred beans.
  • 10. I absolutely do not have it all together, despite how it might seem on here. It may sometimes look like awards and flawlessness, but I feel like I fail daily as a founder and as a mum – often at the same time.

I’m still figuring out what doing both imperfectly even looks like, to be honest. However, I did hear somewhere that failure resilience is one of the best qualities a founder can have!

Amelia Christie-Miller, founder, Bold Bean Co

  • Founder 250 is a UK-wide list celebrating 250 of the country’s best founder-led and founder-influenced businesses.