As a mum balancing a newborn and a 5-year-old, Binalie Cooray found herself constantly torn between life’s demands and the commitment to breastfeeding. The struggle to keep up was real, and her breastfeeding journey faced unexpected challenges. This is how the vision for Tyhan came about – to introduce Australia to a completely hands-free, portable breast pump alternative. After extensive research, trials and testing, they launched their breast pump: a game-changer for breastfeeding mums with its lightweight, compact and portable design. It was designed for mothers on-the-go, allowing them to seamlessly continue providing for their little ones while pursuing their everyday activities. Here Binalie talks to The Natural Parent Magazine about the passion behind Tyhan, the pros and cons of running her own business, the challenges she has overcome, and her hopes and dreams for the future.
The passion: What inspired you to set up your business?
I had just given birth to my second child and my oldest was 5 at the time and was just starting his first year at school. I was struggling with establishing my milk supply and between a new school routine and all the things that needed to be done at home, my traditional bulky breast pump just didn’t cut it – I didn’t have the time to sit stationary for 30-40 minutes and try to pump 5 times a day to try increase my milk supply.
I ended up calling it quits basically before it even had a chance to start. By the time my daughter was 2 weeks old, she was fully formula fed. I was devastated but also knew it was what I had to do as my milk just wasn’t coming in and she needed to be fed.
Having breastfed for 8 months with my first, I was determined to do the same, but the hurdles seemed too hard to jump over at this point.
At 1 year postpartum I went back to work (in a baby shop at the time). I was stocking the shelves of breast pumps and thought, wouldn’t it be awesome if a wearable breast pump existed that you could just pop in your bra and go about your day while pumping. I thought a tool like this would have definitely given me a better chance to pump and persevere to breastfeed my baby if it was around. That’s when I started researching.
The launch: How did you start out in the beginning?
Once I had the idea, I started looking into if anything like this was even possible. It was 2020 and I came across one company in the UK. I thought, okay, it does exist. The company seemed pretty new at the time too. I wasn’t sure if there was much of a demand – but I just knew there would be a market for this product.
I started looking for a manufacturer in China and spoke to a few different ones till I found one that met the quality requirements of the products supplied and could also provide low MOQs for a custom design. After just over a year of R&D, and hundreds of samples, I finally had a product that actually worked and I was happy to launch with.
I had no idea what the next step really was – having had no experience in ecommerce, I thankfully had the help of a family member who had launched his own brand and steered me in the direction of all things online. Sales were slow and creating brand awareness was definitely harder than I thought, but I think being one of the first wearable breast pump brands made people curious and word of mouth definitely kicked in between new mums!
The innovation: What was the biggest breakthrough for you with your business?
Our breakthrough came from an Instagram influencer that had actually purchased one of our breast pumps. I didn’t know who she was and one night I was sitting at the computer working on some things. and patiently waiting for a new sale to come through, and BAM, the little cha chings on my phone came flooding through with over 500 people on the website.
I was so confused and overjoyed at the same time. Where were the sales coming from? I went on Instagram and saw I had a story mention from an amazing new mum who had an amazing, loyal following. I looked up her name in our orders and saw she had purchased from us!
I reached out to say how thankful I was and we have been in touch since. She is always the first person to get any of our new products as I really don’t think our business would have grown as quickly as it did if it wasn’t for her.
Yin and Yang: How do you balance work and family?
It’s definitely hard. I also became a single mum two years into launching my business. It definitely made it harder but it also pushed me even more to keep going and to build something for myself and my kids. I am very fortunate to have my parents who live about 5 minutes away from me that help out when needed. I am also so blessed to have two amazing kids that understand and respect my work times and will generally keep themselves entertained during that time, but they also love to help pack up new products and orders too!
I used to work all week and any hour of the day when an email or message would come through, but after a few years in business, I realised that I needed to have set days to not only avoid being overworked but to be more present with my kids. Weekends are now my downtime and by Friday 5pm, all things business are switched off (mostly!). I’m still working on it.
