What is Be Me's go-to-market model, and where does the product stand right now?
Be Me is currently in the prototype and fundraising phase. Founder Sarah O'Reilly plans to launch on Kickstarter as the primary fundraising vehicle, giving early supporters the chance to back the product before it hits the broader market. The team is already running focus groups and has built a waitlist of people eager to receive the reward boxes — and Sarah estimates the product could be in family homes within nine to twelve months of securing that funding.
The go-to-market approach is deliberately community-first. Rather than going straight to retail or a direct-to-consumer ad spend, Be Me is using the Kickstarter model to validate demand, gather real-world feedback through focus groups, and build a committed early-adopter base simultaneously. That waitlist of prospective customers is not just a vanity metric — it represents people who have already raised their hands and are actively waiting to receive the reward boxes.
The market context makes the timing compelling. Sarah points to data showing that 65% of parents already use reward charts or similar systems at home, and that 70% of those parents report a genuine improvement in their children's behaviour as a result. Be Me is entering a space where the habit is already established — the product is designed to formalise and enhance something millions of families are already doing informally. You can hear the full conversation with Sarah O'Reilly on The Purpose People Podcast on Listenly.
"90% of a child's behavioral profile is built by age 5, so those early years are really important — whether that starts with a small task like brushing your teeth, making your bed, that is building the life skills and the foundations for the person you're going to become."
— Sarah O'Reilly, Founder, Be MeSarah O'Reilly grew up watching two entrepreneur parents run their own businesses — absorbing the graft, the grit, and the reality behind the glamour from a very early age. She launched her first venture at 21, organising events in Bristol under the banner of Glam Events, before eventually finding her true purpose, by her own account, somewhere between the ages of 32 and 34.
That purpose crystallised through her experience as a mother of four children in a blended, co-parenting family. It was her eldest son Ralph — who was navigating sensory and emotional difficulties — who became the direct catalyst for Be Me. Searching for a reward system that was both emotionally resonant and practically effective, and finding nothing that matched her vision on the market, she decided to build it herself.
Be Me is the product of that lived experience: a physical reward box system designed to help children build healthy habits, emotional literacy, and life skills from the earliest years. Sarah's background working alongside tools like ELSA (Emotional Literacy Support Assistant) and her observation of how systems like Match Attacks and My Shine capture children's attention inform the product's design philosophy. Her credibility on this topic is not theoretical — it comes directly from the trenches of raising children and building a business simultaneously.