Having had her business dreams turned upside down by Covid, Bhawana Singh went in search of a coach to provide her with advice and learning. Despite spending hours searching online and seeking recommendations, she struggled to find someone to connect with. With friends looking for support and guidance through changes in their lives too, she set out to create a platform for people to go to find life and business coaches in New Zealand – all in one place so you can look, compare and connect. Here Bhawana talks to The Natural Parent Magazine about the passion behind GetCoached, the pros and cons of running your own business, and her hopes and dreams for the future.
The passion: What inspired you to set up your business?
After leaving my 10-year engineering career in 2020, I decided to pursue my dream business: creating handmade women’s workwear that provided fair work opportunities to women in the remote Himalayan village.
It was exciting, terrifying and everything I had ever wanted to do.
Then Covid hit the world. Like many of us, my world was turned upside down overnight. I lost my workers, had metres of pre-ordered fabric and all I could think about was getting myself and my children back to New Zealand before the borders shut.
I had failed before I could even launch my business. After all the time, money and effort I had put into my new venture, I had no job or business. Just like that, my dream had disappeared.
I knew I had to pivot. Personal development has always been my obsession so I dived into my resources and began looking for a coach.
I had failed before I could even launch my business. After all the time, money and effort I had put into my new venture, I had no job or business. Just like that, my dream had disappeared.
I Googled, sought recommendations from FB groups, followed coaches on their social media, got on countless discovery calls and…. nothing. Sadly, I couldn’t connect with most of them.
Finding help shouldn’t be this difficult and discouraging, I thought.
At the same time, many of my friends were going through big changes in their lives – losing jobs and closing businesses – and needed some support and guidance. So, I took it upon myself to create a platform that houses coaches for small business owners and individuals to find the support they need – so they can thrive in all that they do in life – business, career or relationships.
That’s how GetCoached was born.
The launch: How did you start out in the beginning?
I contacted a lot of coaches and shared with them these statistics I had researched:
There were about 720 searches per month being made on Google for the term ‘Life Coach’ in New Zealand. Similarly, there were about 300 searches being made on the term ‘Business Coaches’. I told them, “We need to get you in one place so people find you easily. I’ll build the platform – Will you join?”.
A lot of them said “Yes”, and so my husband and I got real busy building a basic website and listing the coaches.
So, I took it upon myself to create a platform that houses coaches for small business owners and individuals to find the support they need – so they can thrive in all that they do in life – business, career or relationships.
The innovation: What was the biggest breakthrough for you with your business?
We realised that simply having coaches on a platform was not helping people enough. You still had to sift through the listings and guess which coach might be right for you. So we did a lot of academic research on behavioural psychology on what makes a great coaching relationship and built an algorithm to match a coach-seeking individual with the most purpose-fit coach for them.
Love this! Will look to connect with you 🙂