The Greatest Journey: Anike Mlemchukwu’s Mission to Empower Families Through Lapapoe

Intro: Broadcasting live from the Business RadioX studios in Sandy Springs, Georgia, it’s time for Sandy Springs Business Radio. Now, here’s your host. This episode of Sandy Springs Business Radio is brought to you by Mirability providing unique IT solutions, leveraging cloud, AI and more to solve business problems. Here’s your host Erik Boemanns.

Erik Boemanns: Thanks. And hi, this is Eric. And today we’ve got a very special guest with us today. Her name is Anike Mlemchukwu and she is a founder of the startup Lapapoe. And we’re excited to have you here today and a little bit more information about yourself and tell you about your story and your journey. So maybe if we kick things off, just introduce yourself to the audience.

Anike Mlemchukwu : Yeah, I’m going to say first, congratulations, because you said my name perfectly. Thank you. Very impressed with that. Um, so my name is Anike Mlemchukwu , founder of Lapapoe. My passion has always been working with children and families. Um, specifically making it easier for family to take care of their child that has special needs. I worked as a teacher for a few years, and just observing the challenges that those families face led to the development of the paper. Um, so yeah, that’s kind of a bit about me and my background.

Erik Boemanns: Awesome. So maybe tell us a little bit about Lapapoe. What is what is your startup?

Anike Mlemchukwu : Yeah, Lapapoe is focused on connecting families to respite care and nutrition commerce. So really focusing on the whole child. So if a family is overwhelmed they’re just tired. They need someone to come and support them with their child at home. Their child’s not eating their everyday normal meals. We support that sort of family, whether they’ve received a diagnosis or they’re just about to receive a diagnosis. We connect them to those resources through technology.

Erik Boemanns: I see no, that’s a that’s amazing. And so I’m curious I know it’s totally special needs, but are there particular conditions or does it not matter?

Anike Mlemchukwu : Yeah, I see it less as a label and more as a characteristic. So for example, a child that might have autism and a child that has cerebral palsy. Both those children might have that might be nonverbal. Both those children might have toileting needs. So focusing it more on the needs of a child. I see a child more as a individual that just certain things are just more exaggerated for certain children with different needs. So we don’t specify by specific category. We specify according to the characteristics that the child has.

Erik Boemanns: Yeah, that makes sense. I can understand that. I am curious, though. One of the things that I find out more about the name of the Papa. Where did that come from?

Anike Mlemchukwu : I love that question. That is Semi-virtual Nigerian and that word in Yoruba, which is a tribe that’s in Nigeria, means all together. So it’s this view of people coming together to support the child. So whether that’s the family, the provider, the whatever is coming together under one roof to support that child and that family.

Erik Boemanns: I like that now. That’s great. It’s actually kind of brings me to the next question who is the primary audience of your application of your company? Is it the parents and the families fighters? How does that work?

Anike Mlemchukwu : Yeah. So essentially it is a two sided marketplace. Um, so the families are one side, the providers are the other side. So providers come from a range of skills, whether it is a student that’s studying health and nursing at university or, uh, someone that’s graduated or someone that’s retired and they just kind of want to get back into working. Um, so there’s that side. And then the other side are the families. Um, future aspirations to go directly to Medicaid and health insurance and employers. Um, so that would be another kind of audience.

Erik Boemanns: Makes sense. Okay, that’s that’s helpful. Um, I want to take a step back, though, from kind of the day to day, what’s happening now with the the application and the company. What led you yourself to become a founder?

Anike Mlemchukwu : That is another great question. I love, um, I would say it was a it was like this internal pull, like some people might call it a calling, some people might call it intuition or whatever the kind of word people want to use for it. Um, but I was working as a special needs teacher, and I absolutely loved my job. Um, and I was working in it for about four years, and I just kept meeting parents that were like, I don’t know about this, and my child’s doing this, and this is a child. And so many parents were saying the same thing. Um, and that was when I was in London, moved to Atlanta, and it still experienced the same thing. Um, so many challenges around these parents trying to find the support that they need for their child. Um, in Nigeria, it was the same thing. And like, internally, I just felt like there has it shouldn’t be this hard. It caring for a child. They shouldn’t be this difficult. Um, and it was kind of a thing where. I was just kind of pulled into it, and I at first I was like, I’ll just do this and do this thing on the side. Um, but I eventually just stepped all in and. Yeah.

Erik Boemanns: Here we are.

Anike Mlemchukwu : Here we are. Yeah.

Erik Boemanns: But that is awesome. And and you mentioned you went from doing it on the side to stepping all in, which is some be a very difficult path. Right. So what keeps you going? What keeps you on?

Anike Mlemchukwu : Yeah. Um, I have a very clear vision of the world I want to see. Um, when I was a child myself, I had a lot of healthcare conditions. Um, I actually died when I was a baby and came back. And just being in that kind of environment where my mom was a single parent taking care of four children, it just seeing all these challenges and all this stigma. As I started working in this, um, industry with these families and these children, my view is a world where the stigma doesn’t exist, where this isolation doesn’t exist, where people don’t look at children with special needs and say, oh, I’m sorry, we’re parents. Don’t feel lost. So the vision is to really have a kind of go to place where family knows once they receive a diagnosis or before when they just have those questions, they know exactly where to go to find the support and the help that they need. Um, yeah. So that’s kind of where I’m going with it.

Erik Boemanns: Gotcha. So where are you today? What what’s the status of the the company and the product that you’re building?

Speaker5: Um.

Anike Mlemchukwu : In terms of, I think, I guess people say Pre-seed seed series, that kind of language. Um, still pre-seed I originally started in 2019, um, pivoted within the last year and a half. So it is still kind of like a new baby company. Um, although I, I’ve been on this journey for quite a few years now. Um, but it’s just right now we’re building up the directory of providers or building up the trust and the name brand within the families. I sit on a couple of organizations that are connected to families within Georgia. Um, I’m connected with a few universities that have students within Georgia as well. Um, so really just kind of building up that pipeline, um, and making those making those connections. Okay.

Erik Boemanns: I know that, um, healthcare companies, child related companies, they each have their own unique challenges. You’re doing both together in some regards. And then on top of that, you’re focused on a very specific group which has its own set of unique challenges. Are there specific ones in your journey that you’ve seen that you’ve encountered, and how did you solve them, or are you still working on them?

Anike Mlemchukwu : I think everything is a. Everything is something to be uncovered. I would put it that way. It’s like, I don’t know what I don’t know until I don’t know it. Would that make sense? Because there’s so many. For example, when I first started, I’m like, how am I going to find providers? Like how what does that even look like? Discovered universities discovered, CCNa skills discovered. There’s all these different avenues to get to provider. Okay, well, I know that part now. Then it was. How do I even connect to families? Okay. Discover these organizations that have families that need these. Okay. Got that piece now. Now I’m really looking at, um, the kind of reimbursement financial modeling type of piece, so it’s. Okay. So I figured that out, and I figured that out. What does this look like? And it’s it’s almost like a they call it like Pandora’s box type of thing where it’s like, okay, you uncovered that and there’s something else within it. Okay. You uncovered that there’s something else within it. And I feel like there’s going to be that constant, evolving journey of discovering unknowns.

Erik Boemanns: Yeah. No, I think that makes sense. It makes me curious. Maybe you have a different definition of challenge, right? What’s your definition of challenge?

Anike Mlemchukwu : Yeah, I definitely do have a different definition of challenge. Um, for me, I see challenge as learning opportunities. I if you don’t have challenge, you don’t have growth. Like there’s that whole view isn’t there? Where it’s like, this is your comfort zone just outside of your comfort zone. It’s your growth zone. Like there’s those zones and you only get to those zones with challenge. So the challenge is really a stretching opportunity. It’s an opportunity to pull, grow, expand where you currently are. Um, you don’t have growth without challenge.

Erik Boemanns: Yep. I think that makes complete sense. And, um, I’m curious if you have any particular ways that you overcome those. How do you approach that growth for yourself and for your business?

Anike Mlemchukwu : Yeah, I that’s a good question. Um. I, I do a lot. I’m very spiritual. First of all, I have a very strong faith and connection with God because I would not be able to do anything if I didn’t. Um, but on top of that, I do a lot of kind of like meditation. I do a lot of journaling, I do a lot of yoga. I do a lot of mindfulness work to clear my mind when there is a challenge, and to be able to figure out what my next steps are, because otherwise I would just sit and I would ruminate and I would just think and I would. So a lot of what for me is speaking to God, seeking divine guidance, meditating, clearing my mind, yoga, whatever I need to do, and then relooking at it instead of sitting there and pounding on figuring out.

Erik Boemanns: Okay, I can yeah, I can see the I can see that that makes sense. Um, I think one of the things, actually, you mentioned earlier that you started in London and then you came to Atlanta, and of course, you and I met at a startup event here in Atlanta. As you’re thinking about, as you’re growing your business, as you’re overcoming some of these challenges, how supportive is the Atlanta community for startups? Where are you finding success there? Or or even things that could be better, perhaps.

Anike Mlemchukwu : I think Atlanta is amazing. Um, I think coming from London, because I’d already kind of built my connections in London, and I really knew people. I knew what the organizations were. I didn’t know what it would be like coming into Atlanta. I didn’t know who I was going to meet. But I very quickly and very easily built her a supportive network around me. There’s so many different organizations in Atlanta, whether it’s the Tech Village, Atdc Women’s Entrepreneurship Initiative, uh, the black community, there’s so many different areas that are there to support founders. Um, so when you’re just kind of getting up and getting started and getting off the ground, there’s a lot of things around to support with that. Um, I’m not too sure about what the invest Make community is like. I’ve not yet kind of gone out and sought investment within Atlanta. Um, I do hear in terms of like B2C is not the best state for that, but I’ve not seen that for myself. That’s kind of just hearsay, right? Um, but yeah, apart from that, I think Atlanta is amazing.

Erik Boemanns: Yeah. I been here 20 years or been back 20 years. Yeah. And I’ve seen the same thing. Um, are there particular areas of support that you’re still looking for? Are there areas I mean, you mentioned you haven’t looked for investors yet, but other knowledge domains that you’re still looking to gain?

Anike Mlemchukwu : Yeah, I’m really trying to, um, get around the selling to health insurance and selling to employers. Um, selling to that kind of area. So that’s, that’s kind of the focus right now on covering that.

Erik Boemanns: Yeah okay. Which Atlanta’s got a great health tech space. So that that should be something to. To reach out into. Um, one of the other things I’m curious about that I always ask founders on on this is engineers are still really relatively early in your journey, but along that path. What’s some advice that you would give to other founders who may be thinking about starting something, or maybe in a similar spot? Just what are some lessons that you’ve learned along the way?

Anike Mlemchukwu : Oh, that is a great question. Um, I would say the first one is you have to know why you’re doing what you’re doing. Like deep at the core, you really have to have a strong. Why? Because life is going to throw and hit and push and twist and do all the things. Um, so if you’re really clear on why it is that you want to do what it is that you want to do, then when these snakes and stirs and all this comes in, you’ll still be able to remain anchored in what you’re doing. You’ll still be able to keep going and keep focused. Um, so I think at first it’s very easy to get caught up in the glitz and the glamor and the coolness and starting something, um, but to sustain and to remain in it, you have to have a you have to be anchored in your. Why? Um, so no, no. The what’s the North star where you’re going. Know why you’re going there. And that will keep you, keep you going.

Erik Boemanns: I think that’s a great advice, especially considering to your point, you’re thinking about a startup and you’re thinking about all the excitement that’s going to happen later, maybe forgetting about the journey that’s between here and there. Right?

Anike Mlemchukwu : Yeah, I hear a lot of people say it’s a it’s a marathon. It’s not a sprint. And people get confused with the images that they see because it’s not that. And and it takes time and it takes perseverance and it takes dedication and resilience and all the things. Um, so. Yeah.

Erik Boemanns: Absolutely. Uh, so for people who are interested in Limpopo and want to learn more, do you have a website? Where can they go to learn more about it?

Anike Mlemchukwu : Yeah. Leopard. Com lapa p o e com.

Erik Boemanns: Okay. That’s great. And that’s for providers or parents or anyone that’s interested in learning more about the business.

Anike Mlemchukwu : Yeah. Providers. Connectors, relationships, families, anyone that’s interested. Awesome.

Erik Boemanns: Um, before we close out, I am curious, is there anything that you want to make sure people are aware of that they know about the paper and is there?

Speaker5: Um.

Anike Mlemchukwu : I wouldn’t say to know about La Papa. I would just say, for anyone that’s thinking about starting a business, do it because the world needs a lot of change. So especially if you’re thinking of doing something that can benefit the world in one way or another. Get out there, pull your boots up and go and do it.

Erik Boemanns: That’s awesome. Yeah. Recently restarted my business, that I’ve heard that advice from others. And I think it is great advice and it is something that we, um, I appreciate that. And any other kind of closing thoughts that you want to share?

Speaker5: Um.

Anike Mlemchukwu : I just keep going, I love it, I love the entrepreneurship journey. It’s like a roller coaster, right? Ups and downs and then outs, twists and turns. Enjoy all of it. Celebrate all of it.

Erik Boemanns: Awesome. Well, I appreciate you coming on today. I appreciate you sharing your journey. That and that of Limpopo and where it’s headed. And so, uh, thank you. And I hope to see you around in the Atlanta events.

Anike Mlemchukwu : Thank you for having me.