Female Founder In Focus — Gaile Sakhrani — Co-founder of Picabook
Welcome to the Female Founder In Focus series!
This series on my blog celebrates women blazing trails in different areas of business, tech, art, entrepreneurship, fashion, beauty, dining and more etc.
I hope by sharing the stories and journeys of other women, you are inspired to chase your dreams, work hard and never give up.
Today’s Female Founder In Focus is Gaile Sakhrani, the co-founder of Picabook, a UK-based company focusing on customized storybooks for children ages 0-8 years old.
Reading is such an important part of my day, especially since becoming a parent, because it is one of the main ways in which I bond with my kids and, more importantly, teach them about the world around them.
What makes Picabook extra special is that its storybooks don’t just customize names and faces, but it will customize the story with hand drawn illustrations based on photos, so the characters in the story have a true resemblance to the reader’s whole family. That way kids actually see themselves, their siblings and parents in the stories.
Gaile and her husband, Tarun, co-founded the business during the pandemic in 2020. I found their story heartwarming and Gaile’s advice for aspiring entrepreneurs pragmatic and actionable. Read on to learn more:
Tell us a little about yourself and your background.
I grew up and studied in the Philippines. I started my career in banking then shifted to real estate until I joined my dad’s business, which is in the IT industry, but my main strengths are in marketing and finance. I decided to complete my masters degree in the UK to develop my leadership skills and knowledge to grow our family business. I met my husband while studying and decided to settle in the UK. And as a result, I decided to leave my family business in the Philippines.
When I got married, my husband encouraged me to pursue whatever I wanted. I thought really hard about what makes me truly happy and what kind of job would bring me that happiness. I landed on photography. I enrolled in a photography course in London and soon after started my career as a freelance lifestyle photographer in 2015.
After having kids, my focus has shifted to parenting and consider myself a full-time mum for the time being, but I still make time for my photography business.
I love lifestyle photography — taking pictures of individuals and families at various stages of their lives — because I enjoy capturing organic, pure moments in time. I particularly enjoy picturing families with moms and dads with their kids or parents who are expecting because when they are together you can see the true emotions of joy and happiness and they translate in the photos I take.
Tell us about your business. How did you get the idea and how did you start?
My son loves books and he once commented about not seeing himself in his ‘personalised’ books. What he meant was the character in the book may have the same name and similar skin and hair colour but it looked nothing like him. He wanted to see himself i.e. a character that looked exactly like him in his book.
With his 4th birthday coming up I had this idea to make a special customized book especially for him. My idea was to ask my son what kind of story he wanted to be seen in, note down all the details he mentioned, and have my husband, who is a writer, write the story my son shared with him. After my husband finished writing, I started looking for an artist to illustrate the story so that my son could see himself in a story and that’s when the seed of Picabook — a customised storybook business — was planted in our minds.
My son loved his customised storybook and enjoyed seeing himself in it. Seeing his happiness and excitement is what fueled our drive to make Picabook a reality — we thought the idea had lots of potential. We also loved collaborating as a family.
What role, if any, has photography played in Picabook?
I’m the one who takes photos of all our products and marketing materials. Having spent so much time photographing people and exploring other photographers’ work, I have a strong sense of what people like and respond to in terms of visuals. So I apply my photography experience in how we present Picabook across various marketing channels and platforms such as social media posts.
Since Picabook uses photos of clients to create custom storybooks, my photography experience plays a role here in the development of the books too.
What drove you to launch Picabook during the global pandemic lockdown?
My husband was in between jobs during the early part of the lockdown so we had a lot of time to brainstorm and hash out the business plan. We also needed to find avenues and opportunities to earn an income. Pair that with an itch or a desire to start a business resulted in the launch of Picabook.
What challenges did you face when starting Picabook and how did you overcome them?
Starting a business in the UK is very easy. It’s all online and the government is quick at processing the registration.
The tough part for me was juggling my full-time role as a mother of two young children while working with my husband on Picabook.
We launched Picabook in 2020 during the global pandemic lockdown and we had little outside help in terms of meal preps, cleaning our home, and all the rest of the chores associated with running a house. There was little time for me to focus on thinking about the business because I was preoccupied with so many things.
How did you fund your business?
Picabook is funded mostly from our savings and we also have a close friend as a silent investor.
List 3 useful skills you have learned or are learning for your business
I’m lucky to already have lots of experience and knowledge with photography and editing before we launched Picabook, so I am able to use those skills to create content for our social media pages.
The skill I am learning now is how to use social media to connect with our target audience and make them aware of our brand.
What does a typical day look like for you? How do you balance parenting with running your own business?
A typical day for me is being a mum from the time the kids wake up until they sleep. We don’t have help, so I basically do everything from school runs to meal preps to bathing and bedtimes. Once the kids are asleep, only then do I switch to business owner mode and work on things like promoting Picabook and editing photos for my clients.
Do you have any advice to share with other women and/or new moms who want to start a business?
If you have an idea that you cannot stop thinking about and have the resources to pursue it, then just go for it. But here’s my caveat: when you decide to go for it, make sure you’re all in. Otherwise, you are setting yourself up for failure. Starting anything new is easy but making sure that it sustains and succeeds in the long-run takes time, patience and dedication, so make sure you have it in you to push yourself even when the going gets tough.
Any advice for aspiring entrepreneurs / illustrators / writers?
Try every avenue you can think of to make your dream come true. But be able to discern when to keep pushing for something you want and when to pivot or reassess your goals because apart from your efforts, timing plays a big role too and it’s important to be able to recognize if the time is right for you or not.
Connect with Gaile:
Instagram: @happygailephotography
Facebook: Happy Gaile Photography
Connect with Picabook
Website: www.picabook.co.uk
Instagram: @picabook_creations
Facebook: Picabook Creations
