Mum Means Business

This week's solo episode goes behind the scenes of the fourth launch of Print Over Pixels, my signature course helping family photographers lead with print in the digital age.
Launches are full on at the best of times, and this one has arrived just as the kids went back to school and the pace of life picked up dramatically. But before diving into the launch itself, I wanted to take you back to where this all began. To the podcasts that kept me company through a lonely maternity leave, the moment I first heard the word launch used in the context of online business and the years I spent running my photography business exactly like everyone else in the industry, chasing the going rate, comparing myself to the photographer up the road and wondering why I was so busy and yet so broke.
This episode is about the pivot that changed everything. Moving from selling digital files to leading with print, discovering in-person sales and finally feeling like my seventeen years of experience actually mattered.
In this episode, I reflect on:
✨ Discovering the world of online business through podcasts during a lonely, isolating maternity leave, and the moment Jenna Kutcher's story of a $35,000 course launch first introduced me to the word launch
✨ How the online course boom of the pandemic years created a bubble of both genuine transformation and low quality courses, and why the honeymoon period ending did not mean the industry itself was going anywhere
✨ Why so many self-taught photographers, myself included, flooded into wedding and family photography during the digital revolution with huge creativity but very little business experience, and the race to the bottom that followed
✨ The reality of running a shoot and burn business model for most of my seventeen year career, delivering hundreds of digital files for a few hundred pounds and constantly having to find new clients because there was no lasting loyalty built into the model
✨ The moment everything changed when I discovered in-person sales, inviting clients to experience their photographs together rather than sending a gallery link into the void
✨ Why leading a reveal appointment became my favourite part of the process and how it transformed my relationship with my own work, my pricing and my confidence
✨ The neuroscience behind why printed photographs matter, how looking at a meaningful photograph reactivates the same neural pathways as living the moment itself, and why that memory deepens every time we look at it
✨ Why I no longer want to hand my clients more digital files to add to the trillions already sitting unloved in storage, and why print became the more meaningful, more valuable thing to offer instead
✨ What it has taken to build the confidence to launch Print Over Pixels four times, and why I am still very much a beginner at this online business world even as I teach others how to transform their own
Takeaway for Mums in Business:
"I feel more fulfilled by my business than I have in seventeen years. I feel confident in my ability and secure in my pricing. Once you stop comparing yourself to the person up the road and start delivering something that genuinely matters, everything changes."
About The Host:
I’m Victoria Phipps – a Mum of two, analogue family photographer, personal brand photographer, educator, charity co-founder, marketer and now podcaster! 🎙️
I was raised by a nurturing Mother and an entrepreneurial Father and have inherited traits from both, so the tension between ambition and motherhood is one I grapple with on a daily basis!
I’m fascinated to hear the stories of other women on a similar path, who are striving to build thriving businesses whilst being present for their children. It's a tough juggle, but I hope the conversations shared on this podcast help Mums in business feel less alone and inspired to keep going in pursuit of their dreams.
Head to the Mum Means Business Podcast website for full show notes.
I would love to hear your thoughts on the topics discussed in this conversation, so please do let me know on Instagram where I'm @victoriaphippsmbe or @mummeansbusinesspodcast.
If you enjoyed this episode, please leave a 5* rating and review!
 

Jane Bilham is the founder of Vireo Tuition, an international tuition business that began with one tutor working in a local library and has grown into an oversubscribed global business with a team of over 60 tutors supporting families worldwide.
A former Assistant Vice Principal in an outstanding UK secondary school, Jane worked nationally as a Specialist Leader in Education before the birth of her son in 2013 prompted her to step away from senior leadership in search of a more flexible way of working. Over the last decade, her business has grown and evolved alongside her family life in a way that was never planned but always responsive.
In this episode, Jane shares the honest, organic and often accidental story of how a bit of pocket money tutoring in a local library became a global business, the identity crisis that came with stepping away from a career she loved and the pivotal moment her sister-in-law shone a light on what was possible.
💡 "For a long time I didn't feel like business was something that somebody like me did. Nobody in my family runs a business. But I just want to help people. And I suppose that's what any business owner wants to do." - Jane Bilham
In this conversation, we explore:
✨ How Jane's tutoring began with no plan and no vision board, simply as a way to reclaim a small piece of her identity after becoming a mother and stepping away from a senior leadership role she loved
✨ The stark identity shift from silencing a challenging classroom with the raise of an eyebrow to struggling to get a toddler to put their shoes on, and what that revealed about the real cost of the transition into motherhood
✨ Why the business grew entirely through word of mouth, from one student to £100 a week, without Jane ever consciously framing what she was building as a business
✨ The pivotal family conversation when her sister-in-law pointed out that she was, in fact, running a business, and the sleepless night that followed as Jane began to see what it could become
✨ How a single phone call from a contact in China transformed the business by opening up daytime tutoring hours, solving the problem of evenings and weekends that had never quite fit around her children
✨ The confidence work behind pricing a service-based business, from charging £25 an hour in a local library to understanding that clients are paying for expertise, experience and transformation, not just time
✨ What it took to hire her first tutor and delegate for the first time, and the anxiety of checking her phone through those early sessions to make sure everything was going well
✨ The rapid growth from one or two tutors to a team of over 60 in just twelve months, and what that pace of expansion demanded of Jane both practically and emotionally
✨ The honest reality of bringing her children along for the ride, including the moment she overheard her daughter proudly describe her as a businesswoman to a friend, and the harder moments when the balance has tipped too far towards work
✨ Why Jane founded Vireo Academy to help other tutors and parents access the same daytime flexibility that transformed her own family life, and what it means to her to accelerate that journey for someone else
About the Guest:
Jane Bilham is the founder of Vireo Tuition, an international tuition business supporting families worldwide with a team of over 60 tutors and Vireo Academy, through which she has supported over 1000 British tutors to access daytime international tuition opportunities.
A former Assistant Vice Principal and Specialist Leader in Education, she has represented UK education on international trade missions on behalf of the Department for Business and Trade. Jane is a mum of two who believes ambition and motherhood can be firm friends, given the right environment in which to flourish.
Visit the Vireo Tuition website for more information or can connect with Jane directly on Linkedin.
About The Host:
I’m Victoria Phipps – a Mum of two, analogue family photographer, personal brand photographer, educator, charity co-founder, marketer and now podcaster! 🎙️
I was raised by a nurturing Mother and an entrepreneurial Father and have inherited traits from both, so the tension between ambition and motherhood is one I grapple with on a daily basis!
I’m fascinated to hear the stories of other women on a similar path, who are striving to build thriving businesses whilst being present for their children. It's a tough juggle, but I hope the conversations shared on this podcast help Mums in business feel less alone and inspired to keep going in pursuit of their dreams.
Head to the Mum Means Business Podcast website for full show notes.
I would love to hear your thoughts on the topics discussed in this conversation, so please do let me know on Instagram where I'm @victoriaphippsmbe or @mummeansbusinesspodcast.
If you enjoyed this episode, please leave a 5* rating and review!

Back in episode 59, I shared my plan for surviving the summer holidays as a self-employed parent... what I would keep going, what I would let go of and where I hoped to find some balance.
Now, in the final week of the holidays, it felt like the right time to check in and be honest about how that plan actually held up against six weeks of real life.
This episode is an audibly fatigued debrief. What I stuck to, which boundaries I broke almost immediately, the surprising wins and the ongoing tension between wanting to be fully present with my kids during the day and finding myself back on my laptop once they are asleep. It is also a question I am still sitting with myself: when you run your own business around your children, when is enough actually enough?
I reflect on:
✨ An honest recap of the summer holiday plan from episode 59 and how it played out, including the interview-free zone that lasted all of about five minutes before four interviews happened anyway
✨ What it was like recording solo episodes from a dark beach after bedtime or in a sweltering van, and why stripping everything back to just a microphone and a phone was more liberating than expected
✨ The re-recording of the Print Over Pixels course modules that did not happen this summer, and why some jobs genuinely need two uninterrupted days that simply do not exist in the school holidays
✨ The unexpected win of Meta ads performing brilliantly all summer, bringing a consistent stream of photographers into the world of the course without much active attention
✨ The last minute maternity shoot that broke the no bookings rule and why it was completely worth bending it for
✨ The psychological rollercoaster of trying to post from energy rather than obligation on social media, including the guilt that creeps in after a few quiet days and the temptation to post just to prove you are still there
✨ Three consecutive nights of eight to nine hours sleep in the van in Pembrokeshire and what that unexpected win revealed about how much rest her body actually needs
✨ Why burning the midnight oil is sometimes necessary and even welcome, especially when work feels like the first moment of the day that nobody needs anything from you, but why the hope is not to still be doing this in five or ten years
✨ The honest, open question for listeners: is working late at night a regular part of your routine, or is sleep something you protect fiercely, and where is your own line between enough and too much.
Takeaway for Mums in Business:
"As women, as mothers and as business owners, we cannot do everything, nor should we expect ourselves to. Some seasons call for burning the midnight oil, but it is always worth asking yourself - again and again - where your own line between enough and too much actually sits."
About The Host:
I’m Victoria Phipps – a Mum of two, analogue family photographer, personal brand photographer, educator, charity co-founder, marketer and now podcaster! 🎙️
I was raised by a nurturing Mother and an entrepreneurial Father and have inherited traits from both, so the tension between ambition and motherhood is one I grapple with on a daily basis!
I’m fascinated to hear the stories of other women on a similar path, who are striving to build thriving businesses whilst being present for their children. It's a tough juggle, but I hope the conversations shared on this podcast help Mums in business feel less alone and inspired to keep going in pursuit of their dreams.
Head to the Mum Means Business Podcast website for full show notes.
I would love to hear your thoughts on the topics discussed in this conversation, so please do let me know on Instagram where I'm @victoriaphippsmbe or @mummeansbusinesspodcast.
If you enjoyed this episode, please leave a 5* rating and review!
 

Helen Bullen is a business mentor, speaker and award-winning author who works with solo business owners who want to make a living doing what they love.
In 2020 she retired from clinical practice as an osteopath, having single-handedly built Fine Fettle Multi-Healthcare, a large, multi-award-winning clinic with over 20 practitioners and a full reception and admin team. In June 2021, following a routine mammogram, Helen was diagnosed with stage three triple negative breast cancer. After nine months of intense chemotherapy and surgery, she was given the all clear, completing treatment and reconstruction in 2023. She kept a diary throughout, which informed two deeply personal books about her experience.
In this episode, Helen shares the full story of building two clinics whilst raising her children through divorce, the moment she decided to close her practice just before her cancer diagnosis and how humour, resilience and a refusal to dwell for too long in the hard moments have carried her through every chapter. It is a wise, funny and genuinely moving conversation about doing business and life, entirely your own way.
💡 "You have to think of your business like a shop on a high street. If the blinds are down and there's no open sign, why are you expecting somebody to buy from you? You have to put yourself out there." — Helen Bullen
In this conversation, we explore:
✨ How Helen built her first osteopathy clinic from nothing, learned to embrace marketing despite hating it, and went on to found Fine Fettle Multi-Healthcare, a business she remains deeply proud of to this day
✨ The reality of building a business through divorce as a single mother with no financial support, including the honest and moving story of air beds, a bucket for a fridge and the moment her daughter's too-small shoes became the motivation to find two or three more clients
✨ Why necessity became one of the most powerful drivers of her success and how she looks back on that period with pride rather than regret
✨ The old-school marketing that built her business before social media existed, from community involvement to genuine relationship building, and why those principles still matter today
✨ Why authenticity beats perfection every time and Helen's refusal to pretend to be anything other than exactly who she is, on stage or on camera
✨ The decision to close her clinic just before lockdown, the negotiation that got her out of her lease with no penalty, and why the timing turned out to be extraordinarily fortunate given what came next
✨ The full story of her cancer diagnosis, the humour she found even in the hardest moments, and why she named her chemotherapy line Percy and her reconstructed body parts Agnes and Bea
✨ Her philosophy on emotional resilience, giving herself permission to have a proper meltdown before deliberately choosing to move forward, and why this is not about suppressing emotion but about not staying there too long
✨ How motherhood evolves through every chapter, from nappies to sports days to becoming a granny, and why ring-fencing what matters first and building your business around it is the only sustainable way to do this
✨ Her current mission to get on more stages as a midlife woman in business, the frustration that sparked it, and why she believes we should all lean into the things we are naturally good at rather than hiding them
About the Guest:
Helen Bullen is a business mentor, speaker and award-winning author who helps solo business owners build sustainable, profitable businesses around the lives they actually want to live. Having built and closed two successful osteopathy clinics and navigated a stage three cancer diagnosis with characteristic humour and resilience, she now focuses entirely on mentoring through her membership community, mastermind and retreat programme.
Known for her trademarked Kindly Blunt approach, she is also the author of four books and host of the podcast Exactly That. Helen is a mum of two grown-up children and a stepdaughter, and a proud new granny.
You can connect with Helen on Instagram and LinkedIn or via helenbullen.com.
About The Host:
I’m Victoria Phipps – a Mum of two, analogue family photographer, personal brand photographer, educator, charity co-founder, marketer and now podcaster! 🎙️
I was raised by a nurturing Mother and an entrepreneurial Father and have inherited traits from both, so the tension between ambition and motherhood is one I grapple with on a daily basis!
I’m fascinated to hear the stories of other women on a similar path, who are striving to build thriving businesses whilst being present for their children. It's a tough juggle, but I hope the conversations shared on this podcast help Mums in business feel less alone and inspired to keep going in pursuit of their dreams.
Head to the Mum Means Business Podcast website for full show notes.
I would love to hear your thoughts on the topics discussed in this conversation, so please do let me know on Instagram where I'm @victoriaphippsmbe or @mummeansbusinesspodcast.
If you enjoyed this episode, please leave a 5* rating and review!

After I finished recording episode 68 with Human Design practitioner Emily Armitage, I was so fascinated by what came up during our conversation that I booked my own 'Alignment Hour' with her.
It actually turned out to be an 'Alignment 90 Minutes', during which time Emily gave me an unnervingly accurate breakdown of my personality, my patterns and shone a light on the very thing that could be hindering my marketing efforts for my business.
This week's solo episode takes you inside that session. I walk through what I learned about my Human Design, from my overall energy type to the specific chart elements that explain why I have spent years feeling multi-passionate, scattered and afraid to say what I really think.
It is an honest and personal account about what happens when you finally get permission to be exactly who you are.
In this episode, I reflect on:
✨ The specific block I identified before the session — leads and money — and why after 17 years in photography the issue was never the offer but always the marketing
✨ What it means to be a manifesting generator and why being told I am here to follow my passions and desires felt so validating after years of guilt about jumping between projects
✨ How sacral authority reframed a lifetime of being called impulsive or stubborn into something Emily called healthy self-trust
✨ The five one profile, the heretic and the researcher, and how it explained everything from a habit of chasing qualifications to being labelled a fixer in couples therapy
✨ Why ready is a decision, not a feeling, and how that realisation could have saved years of delay before launching the Print Over Pixels course
✨ The North node insight that my ideal audience wants to disrupt the status quo, and the realisation that I have been playing it too palatable and too safe in my own marketing as a result
✨ What it means to have an open head, an undefined solar plexus and an undefined root, and why these frictions explained a tendency towards people pleasing, overthinking and absorbing pressure that was never mine to carry
✨ The superpowers side of the chart, including a defined throat and G Center, and what it revealed about being designed for communication, direction and helping others find their way back to joy
✨ Why the whole experience has shifted how I want to show up in my marketing going forward, and my decision to stop being meek and apologetic about my own opinions
*Go back and listen to my conversation with Emily Armitage in episode 68 for the full picture on human design.
Takeaway for Mums in Business:
"If you knew what you were designed to do, what you were here to do, wouldn't you feel validated to just go and do it? Knowing your human design might help you unlock a path forward. On this occasion, it did for me."
About The Host:
I’m Victoria Phipps – a Mum of two, analogue family photographer, personal brand photographer, educator, charity co-founder, marketer and now podcaster! 🎙️
I was raised by a nurturing Mother and an entrepreneurial Father and have inherited traits from both, so the tension between ambition and motherhood is one I grapple with on a daily basis!
I’m fascinated to hear the stories of other women on a similar path, who are striving to build thriving businesses whilst being present for their children. It's a tough juggle, but I hope the conversations shared on this podcast help Mums in business feel less alone and inspired to keep going in pursuit of their dreams.
Head to the Mum Means Business Podcast website for full show notes.
I would love to hear your thoughts on the topics discussed in this conversation, so please do let me know on Instagram where I'm @victoriaphippsmbe or @mummeansbusinesspodcast.
If you enjoyed this episode, please leave a 5* rating and review!

Emily Armitage is a business and identity strategist for financially ambitious women building service-based businesses. Having become a fully fledged business owner and a mum at exactly the same time, she understands firsthand the particular chaos of building a business and a family simultaneously. She uses human design to co-create legacy businesses that work with her clients' energy and in their season of life, believing that misalignment in business has a measurable cost to our impact, our energy and our income.
In this episode, we explore what human design actually is and why Emily describes it as astrology with knobs on, how it differs from Myers-Briggs or Disc, why visibility is the block she encounters in almost every client and how her own journey through motherhood, neurodiversity, OCD and financial abuse shaped the work she now does in the world. It is a rich, honest and genuinely fascinating conversation about self-discovery, self-trust and building a business that actually fits who you are.
💡 "You're allowed to be how you are. That's not a bad thing. That's not a wrong thing. You're allowed." — Emily Armitage
In this conversation, we explore:
✨ Emily's entrepreneurial origin story - from contracting out household chores at age five with full terms and conditions to accidentally stopping a production line at a pump factory and realising quite quickly that admin was not her zone of genius
✨ How she discovered human design through a client in 2020 and why it was the first framework she had ever encountered that captured the depth, nuance and duality of who she truly is
✨ What human design actually is, why Emily describes it as astrology with knobs on and how combining astrology, the I Ching, Kabbalah, the chakra system and quantum physics creates a genuinely useful business tool rather than a vague personality label
✨ Why misalignment in business has a real and measurable cost and how understanding your energetic blueprint can help you cut through the shoulds, the industry norms and the advice that was never meant for someone in your season of life
✨ How Emily uses human design to help clients reframe their relationship with visibility — because visibility does not have to mean a spotlight on a stage and there are so many other ways to show up that might suit your design far better
✨ The connection between self-discovery, motherhood and business building and why navigating both at the same time is one of the fastest routes to rediscovering who you actually are beneath all the conditioning
✨ Emily's own experience of being diagnosed as autistic with OCD after becoming a mother and how losing her coping mechanisms overnight forced a level of self-awareness she had never had to develop before
✨ The deeply personal reason financial independence sits at the heart of everything she does and why she believes shifting money towards women who have done the work will shift the balance of power in society
✨ Why money is largely emotional and has almost nothing to do with maths and how our stories, relationships and experiences shape our relationship with it far more than any spreadsheet ever could
✨ What she would say to her eight year old self and why the permission to simply be who you are is something so many of us are only discovering in our thirties, forties and beyond
About the Guest:
Emily Armitage is a business and identity strategist who uses human design to help financially ambitious women build legacy businesses that work with their energy and in their season of life. A mum of one, she brings her own experience of neurodiversity, OCD, financial abuse and early motherhood to her work with enormous honesty and depth. Her mission is rooted in economic feminism and the belief that when women have more money and are doing the work, the world gets better for everyone.
You can find Emily at emilyarmitage.co.uk and connect with her on Instagram and LinkedIn.
About The Host:
I’m Victoria Phipps – a Mum of two, analogue family photographer, personal brand photographer, educator, charity co-founder, marketer and now podcaster! 🎙️
I was raised by a nurturing Mother and an entrepreneurial Father and have inherited traits from both, so the tension between ambition and motherhood is one I grapple with on a daily basis!
I’m fascinated to hear the stories of other women on a similar path, who are striving to build thriving businesses whilst being present for their children. It's a tough juggle, but I hope the conversations shared on this podcast help Mums in business feel less alone and inspired to keep going in pursuit of their dreams.
Head to the Mum Means Business Podcast website for full show notes.
I would love to hear your thoughts on the topics discussed in this conversation, so please do let me know on Instagram where I'm @victoriaphippsmbe or @mummeansbusinesspodcast.
If you enjoyed this episode, please leave a 5* rating and review!

This week's solo episode started with a last minute photography enquiry that came through a Google search the day before we hit the road in the van. It led to a beautiful golden hour maternity shoot that evening and a very welcome reminder that people still use Google to find local service-based businesses.
It also sent me down a rabbit hole I have been meaning to explore for a while. My website, it turns out, was essentially invisible on Google.
In this episode I share what I found when I finally went in and looked properly, what I learned about the difference between SEO and the newer concept of GEO and why I ended up exporting all my data and having a very long conversation with Claude about what to do next. This is not a technical deep dive. It is the honest account of a time-poor, business-building mum trying to understand a fast-moving topic and take the next right steps without spending a fortune or losing her mind.
In this episode, I reflect on:
✨ The last minute photography inquiry that came through Google Maps and reminded me that organic search still matters, especially for local service-based businesses
✨ A trip down memory lane to the early days of my photography business, when blogging and SEO felt effortless and a single post about a whiskey pilgrimage to Islay led to two Scottish weddings
✨ How switching from WordPress to Squarespace during maternity leave and starting from scratch cost me years of backlinks and blog history, and why baby brain and big business decisions are not always a great combination
✨ What happened when I finally checked my Google Analytics in spring 2025 and discovered my website was not ranking in the first ten pages for anything
✨ The six hour SEO audit I invested in and what it taught me, including the revelation that H tags are not just decorative and that pages on your website can quietly compete against each other
✨ What GEO, or Generative Engine Optimization, actually is and how it differs from traditional SEO in a world where AI tools are increasingly answering search queries directly without sending anyone to your website
✨ Why I took all my analytics data and shared it with Claude, what that process looked like and the surprisingly useful list of prioritised next steps it gave me
✨ Why AI explaining AI felt like the most time-efficient solution for a solopreneur in the summer holidays who does not have hours to spend on YouTube upskilling herself in things that are not her zone of genius
✨ What is actually on my to-do list now and why I will be reporting back in six months to let you know whether any of it moved the needle
Takeaway for Mums in Business:
"If your website isn't working as hard for you as you'd like and SEO/GEO are not your zones of genius, you do have another tool at your disposal... and yes, that's AI."
About The Host:
I’m Victoria Phipps – a Mum of two, analogue family photographer, personal brand photographer, educator, charity co-founder, marketer and now podcaster! 🎙️
I was raised by a nurturing Mother and an entrepreneurial Father and have inherited traits from both, so the tension between ambition and motherhood is one I grapple with on a daily basis!
I’m fascinated to hear the stories of other women on a similar path, who are striving to build thriving businesses whilst being present for their children. It's a tough juggle, but I hope the conversations shared on this podcast help Mums in business feel less alone and inspired to keep going in pursuit of their dreams.
Head to the Mum Means Business Podcast website for full show notes.
I would love to hear your thoughts on the topics discussed in this conversation, so please do let me know on Instagram where I'm @victoriaphippsmbe or @mummeansbusinesspodcast.
If you enjoyed this episode, please leave a 5* rating and review!

Leila Green was raised in a family of entrepreneurs, started her first business at 26 and grew it to six figures without any outside investment. Then came the curveball that changed everything.  After two heartbreaking unexplained miscarriages, she became pregnant with triplets. Fast forward and Leila is now a mum to three threenagers, the founder of the F*** Mum Guilt movement, one of the UK's Top 100 Female Entrepreneurs and a co-author of Stacey Dooley's book on motherhood, Dear Minnie.
In her TedX talk, she identifies the epidemic of mum guilt simmering beneath the surface of modern motherhood, reporting that 95% of mothers feel it and one in four admit they avoid leaving the house with their children for fear of being judged.
In this episode, we explore why mum guilt is far more than something to joke about over coffee and what it truly takes to break up with it for good.
💡 "I call it the should show. You should baby-wean, you should breastfeed, you should co-sleep, you shouldn't co-sleep. It's a people pleaser's nightmare!" - Leila Green
In this conversation, we explore:
✨ Leila's journey from starting her first business at 26 to growing it to six figures, navigating the pandemic and then facing the life-changing experience of two miscarriages followed by a triplet pregnancy
✨ What it felt like to go from being a footloose and fancy-free entrepreneur to building a business with three babies at her feet and how her whole relationship with ambition and time was forced to evolve
✨ How the F*** Mum Guilt movement was born and why Leila felt so strongly that the casual way we talk about mum guilt was masking a genuinely serious problem for maternal mental health
✨ The statistic that should stop all of us: 95% of mothers feel mum guilt and one in four avoid leaving the house with their children for fear of being judged
✨ Why societal pressures, throwaway comments from strangers and the rise of the parenting guru have created an environment in which mothers are set up to feel like they are never enough
✨ The myth of the perfect baby and why so much of the advice mothers receive ignores the reality that every baby and every family is completely different
✨ How social media amplifies the pressure on mothers and what Leila believes we can do to protect our mental health and reclaim our own instincts
✨ Why compassion over comparison is the antidote and what it actually looks like to put that into practice in the messiness of real motherhood
✨ How Leila balances her own significant ambitions with the reality of raising three children at the same pace and what self-belief has to do with making it work
✨ Her future aspirations for the F*** Mum Guilt movement and why she believes the conversation is only just getting started
About the Guest:
Leila Green is the founder of the F*** Mum Guilt movement, one of the UK's Top 100 Female Entrepreneurs and a co-author of Stacey Dooley's book on motherhood Dear Minnie. A serial entrepreneur who built her first business to six figures without investment, she is now a mother of triplet threenagers and one of the most important voices in the conversation about maternal mental health and mum guilt. Her TedX talk How to Break Up with Mum Guilt for Good has reached thousands of mothers and her work has been featured across Sky News, BBC Radio, Stylist, Metro and OK! magazine.
You can find Leila on Substack and on Instagram at @tripped_up_mama.
About The Host:
I’m Victoria Phipps – a Mum of two, analogue family photographer, personal brand photographer, educator, charity co-founder, marketer and now podcaster! 🎙️
I was raised by a nurturing Mother and an entrepreneurial Father and have inherited traits from both, so the tension between ambition and motherhood is one I grapple with on a daily basis!
I’m fascinated to hear the stories of other women on a similar path, who are striving to build thriving businesses whilst being present for their children. It's a tough juggle, but I hope the conversations shared on this podcast help Mums in business feel less alone and inspired to keep going in pursuit of their dreams.
Head to the Mum Means Business Podcast website for full show notes.
I would love to hear your thoughts on the topics discussed in this conversation, so please do let me know on Instagram where I'm @victoriaphippsmbe or @mummeansbusinesspodcast.
If you enjoyed this episode, please leave a 5* rating and review!

This week's solo episode is a little different. It is the story of a project that pretty much took over my life in 2018 and 2019.  A project I have been thinking about sharing ever since a recent visit stirred up a lot of mixed feelings.
It is the story of the D-Day 75 Garden, a commemorative show garden at RHS Chelsea in 2019, conceived to celebrate the Normandy veterans of the Second World War on home soil during what would be the final milestone anniversary with any significant number of veterans still here to tell their story. It is the story of how "we" (I go into who we is in the episode) with no fundraising experience, no budget and a very big idea found the right people, asked for what they needed and somehow made it happen. And I hope it is a story that gives you permission to pursue the mad idea that will not leave you alone.
In this episode, I reflect on:
✨ The backstory of D-Day Revisited, the charity my dad and I co-founded, and why the 75th anniversary felt like the moment to do something extraordinary on home soil to celebrate the veterans who had given so much
✨ How the idea for a commemorative show garden at RHS Chelsea came to me during the 74th anniversary trip to France in 2018 and why I almost talked myself out of pursuing it
✨ The moment I discovered the entry deadline was just weeks away and sent that email to the RHS anyway, which set everything in motion
✨ How garden designer John Everiss and fundraiser Peter Deaman came into the project and why neither of them should have said yes to two people with no money and no experience, but did
✨ The 75 Reasons campaign - one of the ideas I am most proud of - and the moment in conversation when it all clicked into place in a way that still gives me the chills
✨ What it actually felt like to be in front of a camera for the first time with no training or experience, because the promotional video had to be made and someone had to do it
✨ The relentless reality of fundraising - seeking 75 sponsors at five thousand pounds each with no guarantee and no one big cheque to save the day and what that process taught me about courage and asking
✨ The story of Bill Pendell and Joe Cattini, the two veterans at the heart of the garden, and why losing Bill in December 2018 only made us more determined to see it through
✨ The moment during the Chelsea Flower Show when I looked around and realised we had actually done it and what that felt like after nine months of not knowing if we ever would
✨ How the garden was moved to Arromanches in Normandy overlooking Gold Beach and what it was like to visit it seven years on, still there, still sparking conversations
✨ Why the greatest lesson from this whole experience is simply this: the trick is to ask
Takeaway for Mums in Business:
You can have mad ideas that nobody expects to come to fruition and you can make them happen. You can look at what seems to be an impossible sum of money and you can find it. You can be brave and ask for what you need to make your dream a reality.
About The Host:
I’m Victoria Phipps – a Mum of two, analogue family photographer, personal brand photographer, educator, charity co-founder, marketer and now podcaster! 🎙️
I was raised by a nurturing Mother and an entrepreneurial Father and have inherited traits from both, so the tension between ambition and motherhood is one I grapple with on a daily basis!
I’m fascinated to hear the stories of other women on a similar path, who are striving to build thriving businesses whilst being present for their children. It's a tough juggle, but I hope the conversations shared on this podcast help Mums in business feel less alone and inspired to keep going in pursuit of their dreams.
Head to the Mum Means Business Podcast website for full show notes.
I would love to hear your thoughts on the topics discussed in this conversation, so please do let me know on Instagram where I'm @victoriaphippsmbe or @mummeansbusinesspodcast.
If you enjoyed this episode, please leave a 5* rating and review!

Ella McKay is a self-proclaimed food obsessive, a marketing professional turned entrepreneur and the co-founder of FATSO, a premium dark chocolate brand on a mission to prove that dark chocolate can be every bit as fun, flavourful and full of personality as its milkier counterpart.
The idea was born in lockdown from a conversation about how boring and overly serious dark chocolate had become. What started as a side hustle to shake up the category quickly revealed Ella's entrepreneurial instincts and she soon left the world of big corporate brands behind to drive momentum behind FATSO full time.
In this episode, Ella shares the story of how it all came together, what the leap from corporate to founder actually felt like and how positive psychology, maternal instinct and a willingness to trust herself have shaped both her business and her approach to motherhood.
💡 "Instinct is your most powerful tool when becoming a mother. Don't be afraid of marching to the beat of your own drum. Don't be afraid of being different." - Ella McKay
In this conversation, we explore:
✨ How a lockdown conversation about the sorry state of dark chocolate became the seed of a global brand and what those early side hustle days looked like before Ella took the leap full time
✨ The decision to leave a successful corporate marketing career behind to back herself and FATSO and what gave her the confidence to make that call
✨ Why partnering with Luker Chocolate in Colombia was about more than supply chain - it was about finding a partner whose values and purpose aligned with the kind of business Ella wanted to build
✨ The reality of navigating early motherhood and entrepreneurship simultaneously and how she found her footing across both
✨ How Ella approaches the balancing act of work and family life and why rigid rules have never been her style
✨ The role of instinct in both parenting and business and why millennial mothers in particular need to reconnect with their intuition after a lifetime of being told what they should do
✨ How positive psychology shapes the way Ella leads her business and her family and why that philosophy feels like a natural fit for both
✨ Why embracing individuality in motherhood matters and what she would say to any mum who feels like she is doing it wrong
✨ The advice she would give her younger self and what it reveals about confidence, identity and trusting the path that lights you up
About the Guest:
Ella McKay is the co-founder of FATSO, a premium dark chocolate brand built on the belief that dark chocolate should be as fun, flavourful and full of personality as any other kind. With a background in marketing for some of the world's biggest brands, she brought both commercial expertise and genuine passion to building FATSO from a lockdown side hustle into a globally stocked product. Ella is a mum who leads with positive psychology, trusts her instincts and believes that doing so is one of the most powerful things you can model to your children.
You can find FATSO chocolate at sofatso.com and connect with Ella on LinkedIn.
About The Host:
I’m Victoria Phipps – a Mum of two, analogue family photographer, personal brand photographer, educator, charity co-founder, marketer and now podcaster! 🎙️
I was raised by a nurturing Mother and an entrepreneurial Father and have inherited traits from both, so the tension between ambition and motherhood is one I grapple with on a daily basis!
I’m fascinated to hear the stories of other women on a similar path, who are striving to build thriving businesses whilst being present for their children. It's a tough juggle, but I hope the conversations shared on this podcast help Mums in business feel less alone and inspired to keep going in pursuit of their dreams.
Head to the Mum Means Business Podcast website for full show notes.
I would love to hear your thoughts on the topics discussed in this conversation, so please do let me know on Instagram where I'm @victoriaphippsmbe or @mummeansbusinesspodcast.
If you enjoyed this episode, please leave a 5* rating and review!