How Natalie Created a Thriving Maternity Clothing Brand

In this interview, we dive into the inspiring journey of Natalie Pitts, the CEO and founder of Go Mama Maternity.

Discover how Natalie identified a gap in the market for high-quality maternity wear and turned her vision into a thriving e-commerce business. You will learn about the challenges she faced, the innovative strategies she employed, and the tools that keep her business running smoothly.

Inspiration Behind Go Mama Maternity

SBS – What inspired you to start Go Mama? How did you identify the need for high-quality maternity clothing in the market?

Natalie – After my first child was born, I experienced a period of post natal depression and was using exercise as a management tool to help my mental health. I struggled to find functional and quality products at a reasonable price point, as I was on maternity leave and finance was a considerable decision point when browsing options.

When we became pregnant with our second child, I continued to find exercise helpful, but my clothing options were still very limited. At the time, I had a long-term career in the New Zealand Defence Force, but, suddenly, we found ourselves in the COVID-19 era with multiple lockdowns. It was around this time I started discussing with my husband about building a business from home that would work around raising the kids, and he suggested I do maternity activewear as I had often talked about my frustrations of struggling to find affordable, comfortable, supportive, and functional apparel that was fit for purpose. He came up with the name Go Mama that very day, and that was how we began! 

Design and Manufacturing Process

SBS – Can you describe the design and manufacturing process of your products?

Natalie – As a mum who has been through the maternity journey, I was confident in designing pieces that were fit for purpose. I had no prior experience in fashion or design and wasn’t quite sure where to begin, but a quick Google search led me to Alibaba. I was honestly just hand-sketching the most basic designs (art has never been a strength!) and using arrows to show where I wanted a zip to go or a maternity waistband to sit. Thankfully, many of the suppliers on Alibaba have a lot of experience in the industry and were able to create samples from this.

The first few months were full of steep learning curves and many of the samples I received were either completely different from what I was expecting or actually far exceeded my expectations in quality and style! Finding the balance between price and quality was a juggle, but I knew investing time in the process at the beginning would help in the long run. I was really happy with our first launch and the products we were introducing with the new brand. 

Challenges in Launching

SBS – What were some of the biggest challenges you faced when launching your business?

Natalie – I had never owned my own business before, so everything was new, and I was learning from scratch. It was fun, interesting, frustrating, and rewarding — all at the same time. It was difficult being in lockdown as it reduced networking and marketing opportunities more than I would have liked. Finance was also a challenge to start with. I needed a large lump sum to pay for the initial bulk order, which I was grateful my family was able to help with. In hindsight, I probably started with more products than I needed to launch, and I could have reduced the start-up costs here. 

Ensuring Quality and Comfort

SBS – How do you ensure the quality and comfort of your maternity clothing?

Natalie – We receive samples of every product before we introduce it, and we test in a range of different activities that are realistic of how they will be used by our customers. We have worked with a number of suppliers over the past few years and now work with some really reliable manufacturers that consistently deliver quality fabrics and styles that meet the needs of our customers. 

Marketing Strategies

SBS – What strategies do you use to market your products and reach your target audience (both traditional and digital marketing)?

Natalie – The maternity industry is very niche so it is easy to identify the target market. We try to cover an extensive range of marketing techniques, including Meta Ads, social media, email marketing, flyers, and magazines. We also attend industry trade shows throughout the year placing us directly in front of our target audience, which we find highly effective. 

Tools and Technologies Used

SBS – What tools and technologies do you use to run your e-commerce business efficiently?

Natalie – When we first started, I built our website on Shopify, which I found really user-friendly. We reached a point where we wanted the website to perform at a level that could no longer be supported by Shopify without investing heavily in their apps, so we engaged with developers and built a new website with WooCommerce on WordPress. I don’t love the backend of this new platform, but it has allowed us to extend what we can do, and I also now have developers who can help fix issues and introduce new functions to the website.

For our email marketing, I was using Klaviyo, but found the fees a little high for the level we were using it for, so I have recently switched to Mailpoet, which is a plugin of WooCommerce.

We are also active on Facebook and Instagram, and TikTok to a lesser degree.  

Staying Updated with Trends

SBS – How do you stay updated with the latest trends and needs in maternity wear?

Natalie – We engage a lot with our target audience and use feedback to help shape our range. We also get current trends modified as maternity samples to see if they’ll suit a maternity wardrobe. Some do, some don’t, and that’s all part of the researching fun. We have found that classic designs continue to be staple pieces even in a maternity wardrobe so we focus more on those than on trends.  

Best-Selling Products

SBS – What are your best-selling products, and why do you think they are so popular?

Natalie – Our bestsellers are our ultra maternity leggings and bike shorts, our maternity swimsuit, and our oversized breastfeeding t-shirts. 

The black leggings and bike shorts are very much a wardrobe staple and offer amazing comfort and support through all stages of pregnancy and postpartum. They’re medically endorsed and help provide relief from some pregnancy discomforts such as pelvic girdle pain. The fabric is durable, squat-proof, and feels amazingly supportive. Those were a part of our first ever launch, but they have stood the test of time and continue to be a best seller. 

Our maternity one-piece swimsuit is quite a unique design and we offer it at a price point that makes it a lot more accessible for women than many other maternity swimwear brands. We have also made it multi-functional so it is suitable to be worn throughout pregnancy but also comes with sturdy breastfeeding clips for easy nursing access postpartum, too. The features have intentionally been made very discreet for the swimsuit to be worn long beyond the maternity stages.

Our oversized tees are your classic 100% cotton with the added benefit of a discreet horizontal zip for easy nursing access. These T-shirts are a daily staple, whether they’re worn for coffee group or playground dates, exercising, relaxing at home, or running errands out and about. We are constantly bringing out fresh new colours, and the design is made extra unique with the option of choosing a tee with “māmā” embroidered on the chest, a nod to our New Zealand Aotearoa culture. 

Managing Inventory and Supply Chain

SBS – How do you manage inventory and supply chain challenges in your e-commerce business?

Natalie – A lot of these challenges are beyond our control, so we have learnt to be very flexible and very patient!  

Inventory challenges can occur when we have to comply with minimum order quantities from our suppliers. Often, we sell out of a particular product size but still have a lot of other sizes in stock. This is a challenge as it is not fiscally possible for us to product another bulk order just to always ensure all sizes are available all of the time. It is a difficult compromise for us because we know it means that some customers are missing out on the products they need, and we find that hard.  

In terms of how we order quantities, we try to use previous trends to predict amounts required for each size. We might do a run of sweatshirts and sell out the smaller sizes really quickly but have a lot of larger sizes available. Or we order more smaller sizes in the next run, and the larger sizes sell faster. We really do our best, but, honestly, we’re still figuring it out! 

Supply chain challenges occur often because we manufacture our products offshore and receive them via sea freight. Delivery time frames can be a little unpredictable, but it is the most economical method, and it is definitely improving as we recover from the COVID-19 era. If there are any particular products or sizes we need quicker, then we will arrange a smaller shipment via air freight as the delivery times are much faster. 

Advice for Aspiring Entrepreneurs

SBS – What advice would you give to other entrepreneurs looking to start a maternity clothing business (or just an ecommerce business)?

Natalie – Just start. There are highs, there are challenges, mistakes happen, and you learn a lot about business, about yourself, about others. There are plenty of small business networks on social media that can help offer guidance. There are also a lot of free business resources available on the internet. But if you have a vision, an idea, a dream — just start and see where it takes you. You may just surprise yourself 😊

Future Plans

SBS – What are your future plans for Go Mama?

Natalie, we want to continue supporting women throughout their maternity journeys. It is such a beautiful but chaotic and emotional stage of life that we just want to be there to help women break down the barriers to exercise and build the connections between physical activity and mental well-being so that they can feel their best.  

Maintaining Work-Life Balance

SBS – How do you maintain a work-life balance while running your business?

Natalie – One of the reasons I started Go Mama was to help find a more suitable work-life balance than I had in the Armed Forces, so this has definitely been achieved, but as any business owner will tell you, it’s not your regular 9–5 job.  

My top two daily priorities for Go Mama are responding to customer service inquiries and dispatching orders, which I can fit around our daily activities. If I have time during the day, I will work on the business, but I prefer to be present with the kids during our time together. A lot of work gets completed in the evenings after the kids have gone to bed, which is often the most productive time of the day for me, as I am much less distracted. Having a very supportive and understanding husband helps, too!