From maternity leave to entrepreneurship: how women from Tajikistan and Almaty launched a successful startup

Zulfia Urunova, city — Almaty, CEO of Take Care Mom, Instagram

How It All Started

Zhania Aitbaeva and I were on maternity leave when the idea was born. I am a graduate of the FLEX program, and at that time, I saw an announcement about the opportunity to apply for a grant. I wrote in the group that I wanted to give it a try. Zhania responded, and together we prepared our first application. Thus, our first social project with a budget of $670 was created.

After that, we developed as a community of parents, organizing events, courses, and more.

The Team

In 2023, we won a grant from QazInnovation. At that time, we only had a Telegram bot that answered questions like a pediatrician. It was from this moment that the startup began to develop as a technological product: we started creating our own application.

Today, we have an all-female team, and three of us are mothers. This gives us not only expertise but also a deep understanding of our audience's needs. Each of us is responsible for our own area:

Zulfia Urunova, CEO — ex-Microsoft, graduate of FLEX, U.S.-CAEF, Erasmus+ programs. Handles external communications.

Zhania Aitbaeva, CFO/COO — ex-KPMG, MBA from KIMEP University. Handles internal processes and finances.

Dara Tumenbaeva, CTO — ex-Amazon, responsible for application development.

Arai Algozhina, Medical Advisor — psychiatrist and psychotherapist, since 2020 has been deeply engaged in issues of mental health in women during the postpartum period.

Target Audience

Our users are primarily mothers with children from birth to three years old, but the application's functionality is also useful for parents of children up to five years old. We actively work with doctors, clinics, and NGOs.

Incubation Programs

We participated in local and international accelerators. Among international ones, the most valuable experience came from Antler Indonesia and the Central Asia+ Accelerator.

Challenges

When we started, many doubted us. We were two mothers on maternity leave with no experience in entrepreneurship. They directly told us: "You'll give up in a couple of months." Before winning the QazInnovation grant, we participated in various programs for entrepreneurs, and there we were repeatedly discouraged from launching a startup and an application. But we saw a real problem and couldn't turn a blind eye.

There were cases where investors didn't even want to listen to us simply because we were women and mothers with small children. In the end, this became our advantage. We chose the path of bootstrapping and grants — and it turned out to be the right decision in the early stages. This approach gave us independence, flexibility, and the ability to build a product based on the real needs of mothers, rather than investors' expectations.

My advice is to look for different opportunities for development. Don't rush to an investor with just an idea. We have many support programs for startups that provide mentors, knowledge, and funding. Try them first.

Achievements

We have won several awards, including taking third place as the best project in the healthcare sector in Kazakhstan, becoming finalists of UN Women EXPO Central Asia and Europe 2025, receiving a grant from the UNFPA Equalizer Challenge, and support from MIT Solve. We also took third place in the Youth Leadership and Innovation Award in Colombia from UN MGCY. Funding initially came from QazInnovation, and then through small grants and partnerships, which helped us grow.

Plans

By the end of the year, our plans include scaling in Central Asia, localization into new languages, and integration with clinics. In 2026, we want to focus on the USA. Our goal is to show mothers that they are not alone and that help is available to them, anywhere and whenever it is convenient.