A local business owner has taken out this year’s Kochie’s Business Builders Innovators competition.
Peggy Roddick launched Co-Parenting Plus earlier this year after closing her Penrith real estate agency in 2021.
The app, created with the intention of removing emotions post separation and facilitating constructive communication and simplified custody management between co-parents, was inspired by her own divorce, as well as her childhood experiences.
“I almost feel like my entire life led me to creating this app,” she said.
“I grew up with very high conflict parents and from the ages of two to 10 lived full-time in my grandparents’ care. My beautiful Nanny always kept diaries of what was going on so that she had accurate records when it came time to go back to family court, so she was definitely a huge inspiration for this app.”
Roddick recalled coming across Kochie’s Business Builders Innovators competition in a sponsored Facebook post, and knowing she needed to apply straight away.
“As a self-funded start-up any assistance to market the business to a wider audience at little to no cost is very much welcomed,” she said.
“As soon as I saw the competition I just knew I needed to win!”
As part of the competition, Roddick needed to nominate her business and answer a series of questions. On April 22, the 16 finalists were announced, and a public vote commenced.
Despite saying she had no hopes of actually taking out the top spot, being pitted against large not for profits and projects which had received significant crowd funding, Co-Parenting Plus was announced as the winner earlier this month, resulting in a huge shock.
“We initially didn’t win and I cried and cried and cried. I was having a bad week and really just needed a little boost. I was exhausted between my day job, the app, four kids and really working my butt off to get votes every spare second I had,” she said.
“Luckily for me a few days later the promoters emailed me to say that the original winners were disqualified and as second place we were the new winners. I’m pretty sure I cried again!”
As the winners, Roddick receives a TV segment featuring her business, to be aired on Channel 7 as part of the Kochie’s Business Builders TV show, as well as promotion on their website and various social media platforms.
She hopes that the win will help the platform gain traction, helping families in Australia and across the world, and ultimately creating better experiences for children.
“I want to give parents the ability to detach themselves from highly emotional situations and treat co-parenting as more of a business transaction until they are at the stage where they can self-regulate their emotions,” she said.
“I want women to never feel like they are begging for money for their children, I want every father to feel like their parental rights and primarily access to their children is protected, and I want children to be able to love both parents and not fear sharing their love.”
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Cassidy Pearce
Cassidy Pearce is a news and entertainment journalist with The Western Weekender. A graduate of the University of Technology Sydney, she has previously worked with Good Morning Macarthur and joined the Weekender in 2022.