Three decades at the bedside. Fifteen years designing things that ship. MidwithMe began on a back verandah in Melbourne with one stubborn question, and a refusal to accept the answer most people gave us.
Juanita has spent thirty-five years as a nurse, twenty-eight of them in cancer and palliative care. She has held the hands of women at the very end. She has watched families navigate a healthcare system that almost always turns up at the right moment, but rarely turns up as the same person. The face changes shift to shift. The story has to be retold every time.
Nick had spent fifteen years on the other side of that equation, designing physical products for global manufacturers, including Boeing, Milwaukee Tools, Ryobi, and Coles, leading teams of fifty engineers, learning the discipline of making things that work the same way the thousandth time as the first.
Late one afternoon in 2024, on a back verandah, Juanita described the same problem playing out in maternity care. A pregnant woman might see twenty different clinicians across nine months. Student midwives, meanwhile, were being asked to follow ten women each through their full pregnancy as a degree requirement. And most were begging for women on Facebook groups, in cafes, through friends of friends. The supply existed. The demand existed. The mechanism didn't.
I'd watched mothers fall through the cracks for thirty years. Nick's response was, "okay, so let's build the bridge." It was that direct.
Within months, MidwithMe had launched in beta. Within a year, it had grown 5,300%, with over 2,300 mums and student midwives across every state and territory in Australia. The first 1,026 users joined entirely through word-of-mouth before any paid marketing began. Continuity of care isn't a buzzword for us. It's the entire point.
Every Australian mother deserves a familiar face across her whole pregnancy, not a different stranger every appointment. And every student midwife deserves a respectful, structured way to do the work their degree demands.
A pregnant woman shouldn't have to crowdsource her care from a Facebook group. A two-minute profile, a personalised match list, a respectful first message, and the right person turns up.
Every student verified by their university and a registered midwife. Every conversation kept inside the platform. Every connection grounded in choice, consent, and the dignity that maternal care deserves.
It will always be free for mums to join, browse, message and pair. Always free for students to find their CoCE women. We don't charge to make the connection. We never will.
From a back-verandah conversation to over 2,300 Australians across every state and territory. The first 1,026 reached entirely through word-of-mouth.
An idea about continuity of care, born on a back verandah in Melbourne.
First version of the platform goes live with a handful of mums and student midwives.
Word-of-mouth carries the platform across every state and territory in Australia.
1,420+ mums and 885+ student midwives. Growing every week.
Doulas, allied health, lactation, post-natal. The full maternal journey, one platform.
She picks who she connects with. Always. Students cannot message a mum cold. Every conversation starts with her choice.
It will always be free for mums to join, browse, message and pair. Always free for students to find their CoCE women.
Nothing identifiable is shared until a mum chooses to share it. Data lives in Australia. Conversations stay inside the platform.
Every feature shaped with student midwives, registered midwives and the universities who train them. Not just for them.
Two careers built on opposite ends of the same problem, meeting in the middle to build something neither of them could have built alone.
Juanita is a multi-award-winning Registered Nurse with thirty-five years of clinical practice, twenty-eight of them specialised in cancer and palliative care, where continuity of care is not an aspiration but a clinical necessity.
For more than a decade she has led workforce education across Australian hospitals, mentoring over 30,000 clinicians and designing training pathways for inpatient oncology, haematology and clinical trials. As a National Clinical Specialist, she works with senior healthcare leaders nationally on clinical governance, safety and workforce strategy.
At MidwithMe, Juanita is the clinical anchor, setting the standards, designing the safeguards, and making sure every part of the platform reflects what genuine, person-centred maternal care actually looks like.
Nick is an industrial designer and entrepreneur whose career spans Boeing, Milwaukee Tools, Ryobi, AEG, Techtronic Industries and Coles, leading cross-functional teams of up to fifty engineers and designers on large-scale international product programs.
His training is in the discipline of making things real: human-centred design, design-for-manufacture, the unforgiving feedback loop of products that have to work the millionth time as well as the first. He brings the same discipline to MidwithMe: product strategy, technology architecture, partnership building and capital strategy.
Beyond MidwithMe, Nick is an active investor and co-founder across maternity care, femtech, NDIS, aged care, AI and SaaS. He is also a strategic advisor to founders navigating their own zero-to-one moments.
Today we connect mums with student midwives. Tomorrow we'll connect them with doulas, lactation consultants, post-natal support, mental-health professionals and allied health. Every part of the village a mother needs, gathered in one trusted place.
One platform. The whole journey. A familiar face from first appointment to last.