Would you believe it if I told you that unpaid carers do the equivalent of 162 billion pounds of work every year? But despite the vital role that unpaid carers provide, support is significantly lacking and the limited support that there is, can be so hard to navigate. My guest today has made it his mission to bridge this gap. Darren Crombie founded Bridgit Care and his resourcefulness and ability to adapt to the changing technology landscape shines through in our discussion. Keep listening for this fascinating insight into how human-centric tech can empower carers and communities.
Timestamps:
00:02:17 Darren’s journey from management consulting to founding Bridgit Care
00:04:49 Why support for unpaid carers matters
00:05:47 Putting lived experience at the heart of Bridgit Care
00:12:34 How Bridgit Care identifies, supports, and connects carers
00:15:54 Partnering with charities and councils to enhance existing carer services
00:17:14 Using WhatsApp and AI personas to provide tailored support and advice
00:25:02 The role of AI in health and social care
00:28:03 Expanding the model to support other communities in need
00:31:08 Pivoting from hardware to software
00:33:43 A day in the life of Darren at Bridgit Care
00:37:35 How does Darren create his kind space?
00:40:49 Where to find out more about Bridgit Care
00:43:07 Supporting other social entrepreneurs
Links:
Website: https://bridgit.care/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/bridgitcare
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/bridgitcare/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/bridgitcare
X: https://twitter.com/BridgitCare
Aster Foundation: https://www.aster.co.uk/foundation
Barclay Eagle Labs Health Tech: https://labs.uk.barclays/our-industries/healthtech/
Codebase Techscaler Start-up Support: https://www.techscaler.co.uk/
Transcript:
Caroline: Welcome, Darren. I am so delighted, so happy to be able to get this time with you to catch up. I know we caught up recently and it was just so lovely. So I’m really looking forward to our conversation. For our listeners, Darren and I have known each other for a while through Barclays Health tech network and Codebase and all this tech entrepreneurship stuff that we do. I am always so inspired by the work that you do, Darren, and I think it would be just so lovely to go on a bit of a journey today in our discussion and you can maybe share a bit about how you came to be a tech founder and, yeah, thank you so much for coming on the show. So, to kick us off, perhaps you could tell us a bit about Bridgit Care, the company that you founded.
Darren: Yeah, thanks, Caroline. And hello, listeners. So, yeah, I just started my life, really, in tech, like, 20 odd years ago. That’s where my story began, and I was at university studying sociology, so I wasn’t really a tech guy, wasn’t into technology at all. And at that point in my life, I wanted to go into a life of criminal law, so that’s where I was kind of heading. But I was skint. I was, like, working weekends in bars and call centres during the week. And then this big firm turned up on site, which was a management consultant. So one of the big, what they call big four or big five. So Accenture or Anderson consultant, as it was back then. It was a while back and they said, do you want to be a management consultant? Do you want to get into tech? So I went away and did a few IQ tests and other bits and bobs to get in and then was lucky enough to then join a consultancy. I say lucky enough because it was painful, right? So I spent a lot of years learning, really quick learning about technology, and I guess that took me through the first kind of 12, 13 years of my career.
So from 20 to my kind of early thirty s, and at that point, I was lucky enough to then get more involved on the NHS side. So, working in healthcare, I end up in a role as a service director for a team of nurses over in Manchester. And we were looking at some of the technology that we’d built in my kind of technology life, and how do we apply that into clinical care? How can we help people to deliver preventative care packages, to keep people well? And it was actually through that story, that kind of technology, into clinical, to then seeing a gap in family carer support, that the kind of idea for Bridgit Care came around and that was basically, if we look at how we use technology in the NHS, we’ve got quite a rigorous process to do that. And there is some funding. It’s difficult, but there’s funding to get technology into the NHS. What we couldn’t really see, what I couldn’t see was any real innovation to help family carers.
And given they’re the community out there, of 6 million people in the UK, they’re the ones that can make the biggest difference.
So that’s where, four or five years ago now, the idea for Bridgit came from, and that’s what we set off on this mission. How do we take this technology innovation that we’ve used elsewhere in healthcare, but apply that to family carers?
Caroline: That’s amazing. Wow. So, yeah, you were like a management consultant, and then you saw this gap, this huge gap, and support for caters is so vital. I was doing some reading before we caught up and read a statistic that unpaid carers in England and Wales, like, the value of the work that they do is £162 billion pounds a year, which is like, nearly as much as they spend on the actual NHS. And I was like, that’s actually astounding. And it makes me quite sad that that isn’t recognised and that carers aren’t given the support that they need. And what would we do without that? How would people be supported if there weren’t friends and family willing to kind of step up and fill that gap? Really stark data around the issue. So it’s so fantastic that you’re doing something about it and using technology in a way that’s supportive. I really wanted to delve into some of your approach and kind of find out how much of that is led by people’s lived experiences and the people that you work with.
Darren: Yeah. And I think that those numbers, they are mad. So it’s like you say, 160 odd billion pounds per year, but that’s actually, if you look at individual carers contribution, that’s 19,000 pounds for every carer in the system. So that’s for every kind of brother that’s looking after the sister, for every daughter that’s looking after mum, that’s the contribution that they’re making. And if that contribution isn’t made, if that mum isn’t there to look after a daughter and take to those appointments, if that son can’t check in on dad to make sure that he’s okay, hasn’t had a fall, that’s 19 grand cost to the system to provide that resource. So the whole system would just fall over if we didn’t actually have the family carers out there. And those family carers are just normal people, right? So you’ll know them. Caroline, you might be a carer yourself. I don’t know.
Caroline: I was. I amn’t anymore, but, yeah, I was when my mum was still alive.
Darren: We all kind of go through these transitions in life where we enter, maybe a caring role, and then maybe we’re the one that’s being cared for and that’s part of life. And for me, I mentioned four or five years ago when I was in that space where I was managing a team of nurses, but actually at home, I was supporting granddad. And actually I had a role there for Doug, Dougie, as we called him. And, yeah, often that meant going around and checking in on him to see how he’s getting on, finding out. He used to basically work in shipyards, so he used to paint ships and used to be amazing at what they used to call, like a winchman. So he basically climbed up ships and stuff like that and painted the top of them. One day, I went round to his house and he actually climbed up on the roof and got stuck at 82. So he thought he could climb onto a roof and he got stuck up there. So, yeah, people need looking after and caring for. And when we set up Bridgit, we really brought together into the team people with that hands on experience, whether that’s me with my experiences with granddad, whether that’s other team members that have cared for people and use that within the team to think about actually those problems that carers face and maybe some of the solutions we could bring to them. And then one of the things early on, we were lucky enough, you mentioned, Caroline, in terms of how we engage our users was we joined just a cuppa session. So, in Hull, there’s a brilliant centre called the Integrated Care centre, which is called Jean Bishop. So it’s actually named after an amazing lady who dressed up as a bumblebee and ran around hall raising lots and lots and lots of money to help people in hall. So we named the centre after her. And we were based there, actually, before COVID for a number of months. We actually had a little space there. And every week we just met with people and chatted and had a cuppa, learned about their stories and then used that to really think about what we wanted to do to help with some of those stories and those challenges that people were facing.
Caroline: Oh, I love that. Yeah. I think it makes it so much more impactful, doesn’t it? When you really understand the problem, and if you’re experiencing that firsthand as well yourself, bringing in all of that rich experience is really valuable. You touched upon this sort of issue, or growing issue around unpaid carers not being well supported and potentially their own well being being impacted by that. I think that’s a space that we are really interested as well, in terms of thinking about what are the best ways to support unpaid carers to mitigate the risk that they themselves end up with deteriorating health that then means that they need care, and maybe their ageing process is kind of unduly accelerated, and they get to a point earlier than they should have done where they’re needing that care support. So what are your thoughts around that, about the impact of caring?
Darren: So when we look at care, and there’s a model that we came across at the start, which is called the care star, so you imagine there’s a star. And on that star, one of the points of that kind of five element star is the care and role. So it’s about supporting that person you’re caring for and doing that job. But the other four areas of the star are all about yourself. So are you taking enough time out for your well being? Are you being able to get into education? Are you able to actually access and balance employment? So it’s obviously a struggle a lot of times with looking after a family member and balancing work. And the challenge is that if you kind of get drawn into that caring role and you can’t do those other things, then it’s all encompassing, and then your health will struggle. The challenge is that actually there’s just not a lot there for you. So most carers, if you speak to them, what do they want? They just want some time away. They want a break. They want somebody to go around and sit with dad, somebody to actually take the reins with a kid that’s maybe just driving them nuts with maybe autism, ADHD, which is, they’re great kids, but you sometimes just need that break, and there’s not a lot of capacity in the system to provide that in terms of funding into social care. So we have this big challenge, which is that we understand that carers need additional support. There’s some amazing charities out there that actually do provide a level of support, but there’s just a lack of funding, really, to scale the support in the ways that we all know that we want to do. And the impact of that is just burnout. So that 19 grand is the kind of number of how much contribution people are making. But actually, the real world impact is that if I burn out as a carer, that’s an impact to my life, that’s an impact to my friends, my family and the person I’m caring for. And that’s not just a number, that’s real.
Caroline: Yeah. And it can have a continued impact over a much longer period of time as well, because recovering from burnout is not a quick process. The last guest I had on the podcast, that was the topic that we covered, I think you touched on loads of important points there. The whole thing about juggling working and caring. So that was my experience, trying to work full time catering for my mum who had terminal bowel cancer. I didn’t do it on my own. I obviously did have some support from my family and nurses and things that would come in and do the palliative care here, but, yeah, it takes its toll. It’s a physical and mental, demanding role. One thing that I was wondering was, on Bridgit Care, you showed me last time that we had a catch up. Some of the resources that are on the website that people can access, how is that structured? So can you go on and say, I am a carer who’s also working and so I’m needing some advice in that particular area, or I’m a carer for someone with dementia, so I need support in that area. How does it work on the site?
Darren: Yeah, in terms of what we do, there’s three bits to that, so the three bits are Identification, so finding carers, Self-help, so supporting carers, and then Connect, which is about connecting them into the services that are out there. So they’re the three things we kind of talk through. So when we look at the number of carers that are out there, 85% to 90% of them in a region aren’t known, so they’re just out there doing the job. The GP doesn’t know they’re a carer, the council doesn’t know they’re a carer. The carer charities don’t know who they are, and often carers don’t actually know what a carer is or that they are classified as a carer. So the first job is finding them. So in that space, we work with primary care teams, so GPs mainly to send text messages out. So in the regions we work, every patient will receive a text message, and if they are a carer, they can just respond back with the word carer and that codes them as a carer. The second thing we do is referrals. So working with voluntary communities to find those carers and then the third thing is ads. And in relation to ads, we can run an ad campaign across a region that will nudge people that are looking for support. So say you mentioned there maybe dementia. So if I go into Google and I type in, I’m looking for support with finances and also help with dad’s dementia. That will bring up at the top an ad, it’ll look like a counsel ad, you’ll click on that and that’ll take you straight into our self-help tool. And from there we’ll know that you’re looking for support for dad, we know that you’re looking for help with dementia, we know which location you’ve come from. And then what we do is we personalise the self-help portal with content to support you. And that looks basically like a portal with 70, 80 different modules. Things like looking after dad’s dementia, thinking about my child’s mental health, getting myself back into employment, balancing working care, lots of different modules that can support you and guide you through a process to kind of access content, find out about local services, find out about local events, find out about that mind service that’s taking place around the corner that can actually help dad, or maybe that couple of group that’s taking place around the corner. So you’re feeling lonely, you can get access to some real support local to you. That’s the self help piece and then the last bit of that journey. So if we found somebody, helped them with self-help, is recognising that a lot of people need more than self-help, they actually need extra services. So that’s where we connect. So we work in a region, work on a pathway and say, actually, if we find somebody that’s struggling with their own mental health, we’ll get them into this service. If we find somebody that’s struggling with dad’s dementia, we get them into this service. So it’s about then joining the dots and connecting what’s quite complicated in social care sometimes for people to navigate to get them into those support and services.
Caroline: I love that. So it’s really quite tailored then, isn’t it, in terms of the content and the sign posting. So when you’ve been developing this, have you been working with other partners? Have you been getting advice from professionals, the charities and things that you mentioned, do they become integrated essentially with what you’re doing?
Darren: Yeah. So from the start, what we didn’t want to be is like a new brand in a region. So what we wanted to do was really work behind the scenes. So we actually partner with charities. If you see that ad. If you see the self help portal, if you see the forms or the emails that people receive for support, it’s all actually the charities brand at the front of that. So in Birmingham it’ll be Forward Carers. In Dorset it’ll actually be the council brand or carers support Dorset. So that’s important to help them understand we’re not just replacing a carer service, we’re enhancing that and supporting what they do. And those carer services are the ones that we work closely with to understand, actually how do they deliver their carer services today in the real world? Say, how do we enhance that with digital? How can we scale up the support that they provide? But really working behind the scenes for them, we also, and that’s the care side. The other side is local authorities as well. So we work with their teams, their OTs, their assessors to understand what they’re doing and then make sure that the platform can help them as well.
Caroline: Yeah. Gosh. So that is a real true partnership then isn’t it? Yeah. What a clever way to do it. I wanted to delve into, you mentioned the process with the text message and I know that you’ve been doing a lot of work recently using WhatsApp and starting to build in artificial intelligence solutions that are really tailored. So I think it would be really interesting if you could share a bit about some of those initiatives and projects that you’ve been working on. So the kind of more experimental stuff with AI.
Darren: Yeah, and that’s cool. I mean, it’s a hot topic right now. Everybody’s kind of worried, concerned, like freaking out about what AI means to our society, but what does it mean to me as an individual? What can I use it to benefit me? But maybe also worried about my job. Where’s that going? I know it’s not, kind of unrelated, but one of my friends runs a video creative video firm, so his job is to build video content. And last week we saw this release of an amazing video tool that you can basically type anything in and just get some crazy good videos produced for you. So there’s loads of new emerging technology that we’ve not even looked at yet. But in terms of what we started with, imagine for that middle bit, the self-help portal that we built for carers. Initially, the process for us to build that was I had a team of content creators that worked with different organisations, built that content out and that was a manual process. So we went in, we created advice guides, we created a challenge, then we created lots of documentation, we created blog content, and that process meant that to create a new module. So one of our 70 modules, maybe create one module would take us an extra week, four to five days, to put a new module live. And then about a year ago, maybe slightly longer than that, we saw Chat GPT. So Chat GPT, is a generative AI, a year ago, could start writing some of that content for us. So we kind of switched it out in the system rather than having one piece of content in there for dementia that everybody read. We said, well, could we actually learn something about that user and then get Chat GPT to rewrite that information and advice? And then we worked on saying, well, we can do that, but we need to constrain that. So we can’t just say to Chat GPT, write advice on dementia, because it’s going to just use generally available information from its knowledge bases. So what we had to do was to say, well, we’ll build our own knowledge bases. So we started to build indexes of information about councils, about the NHS, about different topics that we then use to then inform the advice that we then use Chat GPT to then write for us in our system. So that was kind of like step one, and that allowed us to then have personalised advice, which is cool. But then step two was then about engagement. So if I send an email out to all our carers, two of those people that receive the emails out of 100 will read it, because we just don’t read emails. So what we said, well, what’s the best way to engage people and get them to respond? What’s the most accessible way to do that? And actually, when you look at it, the best route is WhatsApp. So WhatsApp is what a lot of carers use to manage the comms around dad or mum anyway, you’re already in the pocket, right? And if I send 100 messages through WhatsApp, 66 of those will actually take an action. That’s a massive two to 66. It’s a massive difference. So we then looked at, can we build AI personas that can actually help the carer in different roles? So we built a care coach, we built a dementia coach, a technology enabled care coach. And these are all different personas that you go into WhatsApp, you just ask a question, we then link you to that persona that’s going to provide support and then you get to ask questions. So it might be okay. What’s the local dementia service to me? Give me some tips on dementia. I’m really struggling today, I’m really down. What advice can you provide to me? And we built that framework into the system so that personas can give advice to carers based on what specific challenges they’ve got in their life at that moment.
Caroline: Gosh, that’s so detailed. Thank you for sharing that. I feel like it makes so much sense. I wanted to ask you about the different communication channels and things that you’ve tried. We’ve been doing some work recently with a social enterprise and they use WhatsApp as their kind of main communication tool, so that makes so much sense when you think about families, like my own family, we use WhatsApp to do group chats and organise stuff, so, yeah, it just makes so much sense. Yeah. Meet people where they are and use solutions and technologies that they’re already familiar with. So that’s great.
Darren: And I guess that’s kind of why you went down the Alexa route as well. Right, so that’s in there.
Caroline: Keep it simple.
Darren: Yeah. I’ve got, like ten Alexas in this room all listening to me right now.
Caroline: I unplugged mine if you need to.
Darren: I’m surprised it’s actually not talking to me right now.
Caroline: Yeah, normally it goes off at the most inconvenient of times, so, yeah, I unplugged mine. Yeah. And then the level of detail. I didn’t realise you thought about having different personas for different topics and use cases. Because I guess if someone’s coming on and they just want quite factual, like a transactional kind of conversation, where they know that it’s going to be like they’ve asked the question, they get the answer that they need, that would have a different persona to something that’s maybe going to be a bit more of an in-depth conversation. So if it’s someone coming on and saying, I’m exhausted, I don’t know what to do, mum’s not sleeping and I need a break, that’s a different persona, isn’t it? So I wouldn’t have thought about that until you described that. Yes, very fascinating.
Darren: It wasn’t until we started getting into it and then started to map out effectively a person, because when you’re defining a persona, it’s like, well, this is a person that I want to speak to, and that person really needs three things that we then build into it. So one is knowledge. So what regional information can it access? What national information? What types of information? That was the first bit. The second bit was then advice. So what type of advice and conversation and tone does that person use? What language do they use? We had an organisation in Dudley said, can we put some Dudley slang into there as well? So when it’s speaking to you, it sounds more like a local. So we can do that in terms.
Caroline: That’s what we’ve been doing with this one in Glasgow. Our new Alexa thing that we’re building has lots of Glaswegian banter. It is so funny. It’s very cute.
Darren: Yeah. That’s cool as well, though, isn’t it? I mean, we haven’t got the Scottish version done yet, but that’s coming.
Caroline: Yeah.
Darren: I think in Dudley, it just says Boston a lot, apparently. That’s like, oh, yeah, it’s good, it’s Boston. So that’s like.
Caroline: Okay, I have not heard that. No.
Darren: And then the last bit was just then. So if we’ve got its knowledge and we basically allowed it to say Boston, so we’ve got how it’s to talk. The last bit for us is just thinking about what it can do. So can it, on the behalf of a carer, go to a website and fill in a form? Can it send an email? Can it drop an event reminder to that person? Can it message somebody else? So they’re the rules we set up to say, actually, once you’re speaking to it, these are the things it can do for you.
Caroline: Yeah. So it’s very actionable as well, then. Yes. Very interesting
Darren: And that’s growing over time. It’s like right now where chat is. If you go into ChatGPT, you can have a conversation, but it can’t do anything for you. So we’re trying to build that framework of actions that allow it to actually do stuff for you. So it’s not just a chat, it’s actually an agent. So it’s helping you in your life.
Caroline: Yeah, I love that. I love that. One of the things that I also was really interested in was when we’re building technology solutions, and actually, you mentioned this, people can sometimes be a bit concerned about what’s going to happen to my role if I’m going to get replaced by technology. How receptive have people been in the professional settings to what you’re doing?
Darren: Yeah. So I think in social care, which is the space we’re focused on with Bridgit, there’s a lot of really stretched teams, so a lot of people are really struggling just because the amount of capacity that we’ve got, sorry, demand we’ve got in the system and the lack of capacity, we’ve got to actually respond to it. So when you kind of carve out that half an hour to have a chat with an OT for them, it’s a break. For them, it’s half an hour away from their work. And then when you then present some of the solutions that we’ve got, some of that can be concerning. But most of the time it’s kind of for them something that they do embrace because they can see like they just can’t keep going the way that they’re going. It’s just too much stuff going on in the system and they need help. One of those examples would be over Christmas we launched a new feature that it basically provides a falls risk assessment. So you can basically just go into WhatsApp, take a few pictures around the property. So maybe the staircase, the front room, the doorway, and it will then just use something called Vision AI API, something OpenAI provide with Microsoft. And then it figures out like, okay, there’s some risks here, you’ve got sharp corners on your kitchen tops, you’ve got an issue with your stairway. And then it basically provides a set of low-cost options. You can do maybe a few products on Amazon, maybe some just like moving the rug grippers and stuff like that around in the property. And that basically is what an OT does when they go around to property. But that might take eight weeks to get an OT there, whereas you can do it yourself in three or four minutes now on WhatsApp. So when you actually then speak to an OT about that, initially their reaction was, okay, so that means you don’t need me anymore. And then five minutes later it’s actually, wait a minute this is brilliant because this can actually enable that person to get some initial support. I can then see a view of their property and some key risks, when I can go round they’re already making some changes, but then I can have a really structured conversation with them. So it streamlines the process for me as an OT going to the property. It helps that carer and the person they’re caring for and it means that I’ll probably be able to see more people now as well. So I think that was quite an interesting initial reaction to, oh, this is going to replace my job to actually at the end of it, oh, this could really augment and help what I’m doing.
Caroline: That’s such a powerful use case and so wonderful that it’s empowering people to get that information for themselves. I think with waiting lists and things, it potentially then means that if there are really high risks that need to be addressed more quickly, then that’s actually flagged up so that they can be prioritised as well. So yeah, what a cool use case. Thinking about technology and the kind of journey that you’ve been on and kind of developing different tools to add into the Bridgit Care system. What can you envisage in the future? What is Darren thinking? Is the next thing, or what does five years look?
Darren: So, I think what Darren’s thinking is, we need to really embrace change. And right now, change means genAI, it means some of these new tools coming out. So what we’ve started to do is look at a framework. So we’ve got a platform now that basically those three things finds people, provides self help, and then connects. And actually, you can apply that to lots of different use cases and scenarios. So what we’ve started to do already is launch some new business units. So other social enterprises that use the same framework. So one of those is called eco heroes, or zero heroes. We’ve not quite figured out the full brand for it, but it finds SMEs that are looking to become sustainable and move to net zero. It provides a set of personas to help you. So a waste wizard, a power pixie. We’re building out kind of superhero personas that kind of guide you. It’s got a community involved in it that you can join to actually share and do peer support at SMEs, and then it then connects you into solutions. So we’ve got a renewable energy provider, for example, on the platform, so we’re taking that into SMEs. We’ve also, with the government, launched a platform for international recruits. So there’s a lot of people that have come to the country and they’re just struggling. They’re in, maybe, working in home care, they’re providing the backbone to our country, but they’re not getting the support they deserve, so we’re doing the same for them. So finding international recruits, finding them self-help, helping them get access to services, access to their kids to get into schools, stuff like that, and then connecting them for extra support. And over the next year, you’ll see probably a maximum of five business units we’re going to launch that are going to basically use that same framework of AI to find people, provide self-help, but then connect them when they need more support.
Caroline: Wow. Do you know what? You are, like, such an inspiration. I don’t know. I work in the entrepreneurial space as well, and I do see myself sometimes drawn into things that are outside of the original plan, if you like. But you seem to have such a strong ability to be able to kind of see these gaps and then almost, like, see as well, where things are transferable. So what you’re creating for Bridgit, creating the knowledge base, and then the personas that are able to then retrieve that information in a way that’s useful for people and then now using that same strategy, but for other use cases. I think it’s just amazing.
Darren: Well, bless you. But we are all just making it up, aren’t we? So none of us really has a plan or a clue. And I think our journey, when I set off four and a half years ago, is so different to where we are today. We set off actually working in hardware, so we were building what we called our home hub unit, which was to sit on the side of grandad’s fridge and take a load of temperature information, movement stuff, and then send that to carers so that you could then see that granddad’s moving, he’s feeling okay. So that’s what we started doing and we just didn’t make that a success. So then we pivoted and we pivoted and we changed and then GenAI came through and we thought, well, let’s embrace that and augment what we do. So sometimes you can plan things out. So you could actually say, if you’re going to be smart, what are those niches out there that have unmet needs for that type of solution that I said, but we’ve not done that. We’re just kind of just saying, well, actually, I’ve got a problem, so I want to make a sustainable business out of Bridgit. I don’t know how to do that because there’s no great information out there and these consultancies are really expensive, so we can fix that problem. Or for My UK Life, which is our international recruit one, that’s just a local authority, that said, wow, we love what you’re doing on Bridgit, can you do the same thing for international recruits? So life can just be a bit random, know, it’s not really that planned out for us.
Caroline: So you kind of see these opportunities and I guess if you’ve got a reputation for being good at doing these kinds of experiments and exploring new ideas and working very closely with the end users as well. Yeah. Then I guess people will recognise that and want to work with you. I guess we’ve kind of been on a similar journey. I’m glad you actually brought up the hardware side of things. Our business, as you know, is smart home technology, and then we’ve pivoted into the software side of things, looking at voice technology on the Alexa devices and I think the hardware game, in terms of the level of investment that’s required to do any kind of product development, you need deep pockets for that. And, yeah, that’s part of the reason why we’ve never really pursued it and really what we do is more helping people use off the shelf consumer electronics. So rather than developing new things, we help people to integrate what already exists. Yeah. So thank you for sharing as well a bit about your original idea and how that’s evolved over time. I think there are definitely challenges to having a brain that works like entrepreneurs do and the different roles that you need to perform. So how has that been for you? Maybe you could talk us through a bit. What’s a typical day like?
Darren: So this morning was kind of frantically getting my daughter to school, so the drop off and her kind of stressing, to be honest, about whether she’s going to be stood waiting on her own to get into a classroom and stuff, which is all the challenges we have, right, bringing up the kids, but that was kind of number one. And then running to the office for a client meeting that I thought was going to happen. That didn’t happen, that was number two. And then we caught up before and said, yeah, now we’ve got the podcast and I’ve got my list of, to do list, for the rest of today, but some of that’s going to be about sales and marketing, thinking about some of these new business units, how do we actually build them in terms of the sales capabilities, the marketing capabilities? I’ve then got some development to get done, so actually we’ll be getting back onto Bridgit. We’ve got a few new integrations we want to get done this afternoon and then we’ve got some content development as well. So for My UK Life, actually looking at building playlist contents and YouTube lists and stuff like that to layer into the product. So it’s quite a varied day and I think that’s probably the life of the entrepreneur. You spend most of your time during the day and sometimes during the night kind of thinking about these problems and how to kind of resolve them. But also, I guess learning as well as you go along, and I’ve done a lot of learning in terms of what I’m good at and actually what I’m really bad at as well, which I think you have to do at some point just to reflect and just say, actually now, this stuff I’m no good at, I need to bring in people that can help me with that.
Caroline: Yeah, that’s such a powerful reflection and I definitely would say that doing this has taught me so much more than any degree or course or anything that I’ve done before in my life. And I don’t think I would change it. I think it’s made me a better person and made me really appreciate everything that I have so much more. Even though I gave up a very well paid job to do this. And now I live on like this teeny tiny salary. But I’m so happy. Yeah. So when I think about my life and all the crazy entrepreneurship stuff, actually what’s really lovely is having a bit of balance as well and trying to make some space and some time for myself. I don’t always achieve that, but I do try. The podcast is all about creating kind spaces and so I love to ask people when they come on how they create their kind space. So how do they create that balance in their life and what do they like to do outside of work?
Darren: Yeah, I guess in the early days, one thing I would say is that when I look back at a picture of myself from five years ago, I had more hair, less wrinkles. It’s not like, you know in hindsight, I’m not sure I would have chosen this again. And that’s just to be honest, it is really tough. Like when you first set out on your journey, you think, I was lucky enough I had six months redundancy pay from a previous job that I was able to get to kind of fund it. But you kind of think, all right, this is going to be fine. In a couple of years I’ll be fine. I’ll be getting the same wage that I had before. But even now, five years on, I don’t earn as much as I did five years ago. Even though we’ve had some success and we’ve grown, it’s very different working in a social enterprise world in terms of what you can take out and kind of reward yourself with, versus the kind of corporate world that a lot of us came from. But yeah, my kind space. I quite like spending time by me own as well as with people. So initially I just made sure every Thursday night that I went out, met my mates, we played squash, we went to the pub. So that was kind of Thursdays and that was always good to kind of just talk a bit about real stuff away from being an entrepreneur. And then over the last few years, I’ve done more just getting out into wild camping. So that’s been my thing. So driving away, climbing to the top of a mountain. So the other weekend, I’m basically right now training for London marathon and rather than kind of do the laborious let’s just run on the road for 20 miles, I took my tent and then I hiked to the top of one of the peaks in the snow, pitched up and then did a kind of 14 miles run back to the car in the morning. And that just gave me a load of free time just to look at squirrels and look at birds and trees and cloud formations and stuff like that without any connection as well, because my 4G connection had gone on my phone, so it’s brilliant. And also to meet people. So while I’m running around in the middle of woods and climbing, I met this really cool older lady who was training for Bristol, so I’m having a good chat with her for about half an hour on the run round. And that’s quite nice when you can make what you call a kind space to get out, do something for yourself, but then also maybe connect with other people as well, that you might not have done if you just stayed in the office or went to the pub that you always go to every Friday night.
Caroline: Yeah, gosh, that’s quite. What’s the word? Extreme choice of things to do. I guess that’s because I would struggle to keep up with you, I think. But, yeah, fantastic news about the marathon, so that’ll be exciting for you. Something to work towards as and yeah, who knows who you might meet as well or what you might see on those adventures.
Darren: Yeah, I’m looking forward to London, but I am also a bit nervous. So I’ve not ran a marathon in about three years. So, yeah, just getting the legs back into it, it’s taking some time and I think I’ve got nine weeks to go, so it’s going to be there. But for me, that day in the past, I might have been trying to get a PB or run a certain time. For me, London just looks like such a great event. I’ve never done it before, so it will just be about enjoying it early, getting around, meeting people and trying not to collapse. So that’s my main objective.
Caroline: Oh, that’d be so amazing. Well done, you. I hope the rest of the training and stuff goes well for you. Are you doing it to raise money for charity or is it just like a personal thing like you wanted to achieve?
Darren: Yeah, it’s not a charity one, it’s actually through the ballot. So every year me and my running group, we apply for the London ballot and it gets more and more harder to get in. But this year I was lucky enough to get in and get a ballot place. So for me, running is really just a kind of personal thing, getting out there and doing it. I would maybe like, do a charity event in the future, but that have to be something a bit bigger than just doing a Marathon.
Caroline: Just doing a marathon.That’s amazing. Thank you so much. Thank you so much, Darren, for spending this time with us. And before I let you away, I need to just make sure that we’ve got the details of where people can find out more about Bridgit care. And if people want to get in touch with you as well, where can they find you?
Darren: Yeah. So if you want to get in touch with me directly, just email Darren. Darren at Bridgit care. And that’s Bridgit. You’ll see it on the link. But it’s just Bridgit Care. And that name came from actually a conversation, my granddad, about Bridgitte Bardot and then us driving across a bridge every day. So we were, like, trying to bridge the care gap between the system and family care. Bridgit Care.
Caroline: That’s so cool. I just thought it was like a play on words, but yes, well, it is a play on words.
Darren: Yeah. So that was it. But, yeah. So, Darren at Bridgit Care, and we’re next to the Humber Bridge. So if anybody’s local and ever fancies just popping in for a cuppa, I’ll treat you to lunch. Just drop me an email and let’s hook up and have a chat. We’ve got a nice little restaurant downstairs, and we’re just next to Humber Bridge, so not far from Hull. And I am on the road quite a bit because I’ve got clients all over the place now. So, yeah, if you fancy meeting up, out and about as well, just let me know.
Caroline: Amazing. Thank you very much. We’ve covered so much. I will make sure that I include links in the show notes to the resources and things that we talked about. Also, because we’ve covered a fair bit about some of the entrepreneurial stuff as well, I’ll pop in some links to things like Barclays Eagle Labs and Codebase network and that kind of thing as well. You can keep me, right, Darren? In case there’s any other resources that you think people might find useful, that we can pop into the show notes later. So amazing. Thank you so much. As I said before, you constantly inspire me. It is so amazing to see your journey and how much Bridgit’s grown and the way that it’s able to support people and the use of AI, because obviously I am a big conversational AI fan as well. So, yeah, it’s just brilliant. And thank you so much for all that you do to support unpaid carers. Honestly, you are doing such a great job.
Darren: That’s brilliant. Well, thanks, Caroline, for having me here. Thanks for anybody that made it to the 40th minute of the podcast as well. And I would say one thing that I do do mentorship support to social enterprises that work in the tech space. So I’m part of the link to the Aster Foundation. So they’re a big charity that a few programmes that run in, but separate to that, if anybody does need any help, just feel free to reach out, ask and I’ll help any way I can.
Caroline: Oh, that is such a kind offer. Thank you so much. And yes, listeners, you have Darren’s details, I highly recommend that you reach out. Yeah, thank you so much.
Darren: Awesome. Thanks Caroline. Bye, guys.
Caroline: Bye
Caroline: Entrepreneurship is a space that I’ve come to love. I think it’s because the people working in this space have such passion to do good. It inspires me to speak to people like Darren, to find out more about their journey and how they are using technology to leverage the greatest impact for the people they support. I think the use cases that Darren and I discussed today are just the beginning and I’m left feeling hopeful about the potential for human-centric generative AI solutions when developed with care and a deep understanding of the end user. Bridgit Care sets a great example of how partnering with communities can lead to products that truly empower people.
As the podcast series continues, I encourage you to get in touch and share your stories and tips, I’d love to hear from you! Pop me an email at caroline@tltechsmart.com or message on social media @createyourkindspace
