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cognikids

So, Joe Wicks 'The Body Coach' is obsessed with this female-founded Irish baby brand, and for good reason

“We would like to be the Apple of the baby world.”

JOE WICKS, AKA The Body Coach became a social media marvel with his one minute meal videos, and might be solely responsible for the renaissance for tender stem broccoli.

Lately, there’s been a new star taking over his Insta feed: his six -month old daughter, Indie. It helps that she’s already become a meme at a tender age.

More recently, Joe has been sharing his experience of weaning baby Indie, using the delightful hashtag #WeanIn15. As it turns out, he’s using an Irish brand to help him and Indie on the journey.

bodycoach The Body Coach / Instagram The Body Coach / Instagram / Instagram

In the above photo, Indie can be seen using a Cognikids ‘Dip’ weaning spoon, from the Irish female-founded company of the same name. 

The ergonomic design of the spoon allows kids to grip it more easily, encourage independent feeding and develop excellent hand eye co-ordination and fine motor skills.

Ollwyn Moran, founder of Cognikids, a trained secondary school teacher and Neurological Developmental Therapist, explained to DailyEdge.ie got the spoon to him by, eh, “legally stalking him”.

“I follow Ryan Tubridy on Instagram, and I saw that [Joe Wicks] was going to be on the [Late Late] show,” she said. “We follow Joe Wicks on Instagram here in the house.

“I knew he had a little one that he was weaning so I had to get some of my products to him.”

After failing to get them out to him on time before the show, she tried to grab him at his book signing the following day in Arnotts. However, when the signing wrapped up before Moran got there, she found herself at a loss.

“The thought did flash across my mind as to whether or not I would go out to airport and catch him there!” she laughed. “It’s one of those things you have to do when you don’t have a massive marketing budget.

Luckily, a third time ended up being the charm for her, when she met Wicks at The Happy Pear’s weekly ‘swimrise’ session and gifted him with every Cognikids products to trial.

Monday morning, I wake up and my phone stops hopping. He was using our spoons and our cup and the bib was on … I was like, ‘holy shit! This is amazing!’”

Moran said getting the Cognikids brand out to his 2.5 million followers was so important to her as a small, female-led business.

“We’ve reached out to people with way smaller audiences and have been asked for a lot [of money to feature the product," she said. "I am essentially Cognikids. Sometimes, you don't even have enough to be paying yourself at the end of the month. You can't be forking out €5k for a shout-out.

I totally understand why they do that, and it's not giving out. That's their chance. I would never begrudge or belittle anyone because I get how hard it is to build an audience. It's just when someone has such a big platform and recognises 'gosh, I could put up one or two little posts and transform this company'."

How she started

Cognikids products recognise that while a baby's  need for neurological development does not change, the environment in which they grow in does. With that in mind, Ollywyn wanted to develop products that support this need. 

"I was always the nerd," Moran explained, as she discussed her obsession with the human brain and body. "I have a degree in science, and went on and dip my Hdip to become a secondary school teacher because I love biology so much."

At the start of her teaching career, Moran realised she needed additional training to help kids with additional needs and trained to become a Neurological Development Therapist. Having studied at the Institute For Neuro-Physiological Psychology in Chester, Moran went into private practice for the bones of 20 years. 

"I looked at pre-pregnancy, pregnancy and post pregnancy and all the impacts of different little things that can happen throughout pregnancy and the first three years of life," she said. 

It hit even closer to home when she gave birth to her first son prematurely. 

"Knowing what I know, I knew he was at a higher risk of neurological delay because he's preemie, so I need to help him through his milestones," she said.

When he got to the crawling stage, Moran's son struggled to move across the wooden and tile floors in her home. Thus, the idea for her first product, the Crawl Easy Grip crawl suit was born (despite her ex-husband initially telling her it was a "shit idea".)

Mint Cognikids Cognikids

Women in business

Moran counted her biggest achievement sales achievement so far as getting the brand into Boots in the UK. However seeing her confidence grown as a female entrepreneur stands out as the overall highlight.

 

“Up until recently, I felt like an imposter in the business world, because I was a teacher before this. I’m constantly apologising for stuff and making mistakes. On the flipside, because I don’t know the protocol, it’s actually a fresh approach, and people really like that too.

We would like to be the Apple of the baby world in a positive developmental kind of way, with a greath aesthetic but with functional products.” 

“There’s been many a day where I felt like giving up because things went wrong or I got screwed over,” she said, referencing an incident where an investor pulled out at the last minute. “I’ve learned not to change me, but to ask better questions. Love many, but trust few. That’s what you need to know in business.”

You can find out more about Cognikids by visiting cognikids.com or by clicking here.

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