Ellaslist – The Essential Family Website for Eastern Suburbs and Beyond

Wonderful area-specific websites have popped up in Sydney, a real boon to mums and dads.

I wish these websites had been around when I washed up in Sydney with a wild toddler many years ago!

I’ve been in touch with the mums behind the websites and am starting today a little series of interviews with them.

We’re starting with the first off the ranks, ellaslist, which started as a blog in 2009, and is soon to roll out across other areas of Sydney.

www.ellaslist.com.au

Facebook page here. Twitter feed here

ellaslist founder Yvette DuBourdieu is an Eastern Suburbs local, who (like me!) was born and brought up in Scotland.  Yvette moved to Australia in 2003, and worked as a business analyst.

Daughter Ella was born in August 2008 and that’s when Yvette realised that we mums hear all the best information from other mums.

So what got you started with ellaslist?

You learn about the best things and places through word of mouth.  There are those little gems of information, that only mums know about.

When you have your first baby you’re suddenly launched into a whole world you didn’t know anything about.

There’s so much information out there – it’s confusing and I found it really hard to find things that were a) local to me b) knowing what was really good.

So I wanted to share those things.  At the time Sydney had no mums’ location specific website like this, Melbourne had some children’s listings websites, but nothing as location-specific.

How Did You Get Started?

I spent 6 months researching the local area from a parent’s perspective and launched a little blog named after my daughter ellaslist.com.au with everything I had found, from the best places to visit, best playgrounds, amazing kids classes and listing which cafes were most welcoming to mums.

Our little logo character is also called ella and she’s blowing her trumpet about everything great she’s found for young kids.

The response was overwhelming, it was soon being followed by thousands of local mums, and even some from overseas – so I decided to turn ellaslist from a hobby into my new job.

I expanded the website in January this year to include our fantastic Daily Ideas Calendar and Sydney Kids Events Listing, and launched our fab FREE Weekly Sunday e-Newsletter which gives Sydney Mums the Top Picks for the next 7 days.

What Are The Strengths of ellaslist?

Mums love ellaslist because we’re truly local – in Sydney’s East at the moment but hope to expand soon.

We are all about giving mums an idea every day – from a park, playground, cafe, event or a class to attend.

We do the hard work so mums don’t have to, our team do heaps of research every month on the very best things to do and pop it in a convenient date order calendar.

Our Sunday Newsletter is well loved and gives Sydney-wide top picks for the week ahead so mums don’t miss out.

We’re a voice for local mums, with so many mums on ‘the list’ we’re now campaigning for better services and facilities for parents with young families.

We employ local mums offering them the opportunity to work from home while raising their young family. We’ve gone from 1 to 6 staff in 6 months!

And where does ellaslist go from here?

Mums from other areas have been asking for us to expand for some time, and we hope to bring ellaslist to other areas soon.

Thanks Yvette!  Next week, I have interviews with three other mums who are running more location-specific websites here in Sydney.  Rather like me when I first wrote ‘Sydney For Under Fives’ these mums are passionate about finding things out and then sharing them, labours of love for us all.

Do you get all your best ideas and information from other mums and dads?