Rhian Allen: 'I sold my house to fund The Healthy Mummy'

Rewind to 2010, Rhian Allen is six months pregnant with her first child and discovers there are no health and wellness groups who directly support new mums.

She births an idea to create a niche program made for mums trying to reach their health and wellness goals. The program’s focus isn’t weight loss, but to empower mums to learn about healthy food, healthy living and doing it in a supportive environment.

Fast forward eight years, and Premium member Rhian Allen is the founder and CEO of The Healthy Mummy, a multimillion dollar company and the biggest mums-only health and fitness community in the world.

What began as a couple of hundred mums doing workout programs and simply connecting on Facebook has grown into a business with a turnover of $22 million this year. Although Rhian was confident she had a unique idea that would resonate with other mums, she never expected to resonate with so many.

“I had always set out to create a business that genuinely helped other mums, and that made a difference to mums all over the world,” she says.

“If someone had told me eight years ago where the business would be today, I don’t think I would have believed them!”

Rhian had a successful media career for 12 years before she wrote a business plan for her new venture, discussed it with her husband and promptly quit her corporate job. Not only did she give up a steady salary, but she also sold her house and used $300,000 from the sale to fund her new business.

“I believed there was a gap in the market for The Healthy Mummy and felt passionate about launching the business,” Rhian says. “ I didn’t want to take out a business loan or for the business to be in any debt so my husband and I decided we would sell the house. My husband knew I was serious and focused on making it work so he supported me all the way and I was of the opinion that if it didn’t work, I could go back to a media job.”

Two years later, her husband quit his job and joined the business. These days, the mum of two employs more than 150 people, 99 percent of her staff are female, and many are working mums.

“They all have different hours and work times, but for me, it’s all about offering the flexibility they need so they are happy, their kids are happy, and they can still have a fulfilling job and career.”

“Working mums are the hardest working staff. We are all on a tight time schedule, so it’s head down and bums up to get the job done.”

Rhian had the intention to create a company that offered “safe and healthy plans that support all mums after having children and which offer programs and products that were safe in breastfeeding.”

The Healthy Mummy is a one-stop shop for everything health, wellness, and fitness related, whether you’re after recipes, workout plans, new activewear, supplements or healthy snack bars.

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Rhian with some of her “Healthy Mummies”

The Healthy Mummy also has an active and engaged social community that includes more than 1.5 million mums. The business encompasses several unique support groups that are tailored for mums and their individual needs. From Pregnancy to New Mums or even Food Lovers – there’s a support group to choose.

“A mother who has just had a baby and is breastfeeding or bottle feeding is after specific support. Whether it be breastfeeding advice or how to safely exercise after childbirth, compared to a mother of a 4-year-old toddler who needs advice on how to feed a fussy eater, so we created specific support groups to cater for their individual needs.”

When we asked Rhian how she grew her social media following to 1.5 million mums, she says it was word-of-mouth that helped fast-track and accelerate the brand’s growth.

“The growth has happened organically – we concentrated on a real mum and relatable program that didn’t make false promises and instead truly looked at what the customer needed and then delivered it in spades.”

Rhian says the business strategy has never changed from the very beginning. “The focus from day one has always been to place the customer as number one.”

“I have always had the strategy of looking after the customer, supporting the customer, building a community for the customer and placing the customer on a pedestal, then everything else will flow on from this.”

In 2017, private equity firm Whiteoak purchased a 50% stake in the business, and after seven years of renting – after putting $300,000 from the sale of her house into a business that didn’t turn a profit for the first three years – Rhian recently bought a new home.

“Thankfully the risk has paid off, but I’m not sure I could do it all over again!”