Two of these women went to Croesyceiliog Comprehensive School and the third was a pupil at Fairwater Comprehensive School.
Hayley Parsons (centre) launched the price comparison site GoCompare before selling her share for £44m. Laura Waters (left) and Kelli Aspland (right) started Solar Buddies, a sun cream applicator business backed by an £80,000 investment from Dragons’ Den’s Deborah Meaden and Peter Jones. Their products are now sold worldwide.
Solar Buddies’ tenth anniversary
Laura and Kelli held a party in the Parkway Hotel last night to celebrate the tenth anniversary of Solar Buddies, a business idea that came from their chats outside St David’s RC Primary School while waiting for their children.
Gareth Barham, who leads the product design programme at Cardiff Metropolitan University, stood up and spoke about the “role they [Laura and Kelli] played in inspiring my students.”
He said: “It’s been a privilege to see Solar Buddies grow over the years from those early, initial meetings that we had before the business began.”
The two Cwmbran entrepreneurs met Gareth and his class to discuss early designs and get support from them. This led to the students producing prototypes of the suncream applicator.
Noah’s Ark Charity
Guests raised almost £3,000 through a raffle and auction for The Noah’s Ark Charity and this was topped up to £5,000 by Solar Buddies.
Lucy Jones, head of fundraising for charity, said: “It’s absolutely fantastic to have the support of Solar Buddies. We’ve been working together over the past few months. Laura and Kelli are amazing and it’s fantastic that they’re supporting the Noah’s Ark Charity.
“Tonight has been fantastic, lots of fun. I know they both have personal experience of the charity so it means a lot to them.
“The funds they have raised tonight will help to create brighter today’s and better tomorrows for the 90,000 children who receive specialist and often life-saving treatment at the Noah’s Ark Children’s Hospital for Wales every year. We are so grateful for Solar Buddies’ support.”
Interview with Hayley, Kelli and Laura
It was around 10.40pm when Hayley, Laura and Kelli slipped out of the party to chat to me in the hotel’s reception area.
Hayley, who grew up in Pontnewydd, said: “I’ve known this one (Laura) since she was a little one, five-years-old.
“I think the biggest change for me with them is, if we go back to when we first met talking about investment and the initial concept, it was the way you would talk about yourselves as ‘we’re just mums’ and you did that for a long, long time.
“It was almost like ‘we don’t deserve to be here, we’re just mums’ and it was seeing that transition to from them thinking of themselves as ‘just being mums’ to actually seeing themselves now as the awesome, independent, brilliant, businesswoman that they are.
“I think that they can see now that they are rocking it but it’s taken an awfully long time to get them there.”
Laura said: “I agree with that. It’s like imposter syndrome.”
Kelli said: “I think maybe we just felt like we were trying to be a bit more relatable to other mums so saying that probably felt like it was the right thing to be in that part, not the other side of it, the business side of it.
“I think because it took us so long, it wasn’t like we didn’t know what we were doing. We tried and we got better and better but I think we didn’t fully believe in ourselves. But we believed in what we were doing maybe more than we did in ourselves and that’s taken a long time to recognise.”
Laura said: “You get to the point where you think ‘do you know what? I’m a businesswoman rocking it and I’m from Cwmbran. I’ve got to be honest, this tonight [the tenth anniversary] is a little bit mindblowing.”
‘Imposter syndrome’
Hayley told the pair: “The only one who gives you imposter syndrome is yourself.”
Kelli said: “Starting it, the first person we went to was Hayley because she was already doing it.
“She did it and we were thinking ‘well you can do it’ and she believed in what we were trying to achieve and still trying to achieve and be part of that with us.”
Hayley said: “I wanted you to come to my house and I wanted you to see, you can come from nothing, work really hard and can achieve all of this. You’ve actually reached your initial targets that you set for yourselves and you’ve blown them out of the water and that is amazing to see.
“The way they’ve developed as people, to see them from the mums, the school mums, to where they are now I am so bloody proud of them. It’s really important to be proud of yourself.”
Laura said: “There were so many times where we could have both walked away because it was easy at that time to do it, but you are so invested in not just what we’ve done but there is other people involved, you can’t.”
I asked what they think they’ll be doing in ten years? Laura said they’d have another “huge party” and added: “We’re going to celebrate it all again with everyone who has been there since day dot because to me as much as I was panicking about tonight as people started arriving, I’ve thoroughly enjoyed it, we’ve raised money for charity and it’s just been the best to be around everyone that’s supported us from the beginning.”
‘Living the dream’
And Hayley’s prediction for Solar Buddies in 2035?
She said: “Living the dream, they will be absolutely living the dream wherever they want to be.”