Lauren Perrett on Building BubbaDesk and Wombee

Founder Spotlight: Lauren Perrett on Building BubbaDesk and Wombee

When Lauren Perrett became a mum, she felt something a lot of Inner West mums will recognise – the joy, the chaos, and underneath it all, a quiet isolation that nobody really prepares you for.

She wanted to keep working. She wanted to stay close to her baby. She wanted to find her people. But nothing around her was built for that combination. Daycare felt too soon. Working from home was lonely in a way that ground her down. And the mothers’ group she found didn’t quite fit the life she was actually living.

So she stopped waiting for someone else to fix it.

Lauren is now the founder of two ventures that are changing how Australian mothers experience early parenthood – Wombee, a mothers’ group matching app, and BubbaDesk, a coworking space with onsite childcare where you’re never more than a room away from your child. She’s recently opened BubbaDesk locations in Summer Hill, North Strathfield and Pyrmont – and for a lot of local mums, it couldn’t have come sooner.

“We’re Not Meant to Do This Alone”

The idea for Wombee started with something Lauren kept noticing:

“We wait until the baby is born to try and find our village, when we’re already exhausted.”

Wombee uses AI to match mums and mums-to-be into small, local groups based on life stage and location. Not endless Facebook scrolling. Not the anxiety of cold-messaging a stranger. Just a small group of women who are in a similar season of life, nearby, with built-in ways to chat and actually meet up.

It’s structured and intentional, because Lauren knew that real friendship needs more than an algorithm to survive.

Wombee only launched four months ago. It already has thousands of users and over 600 groups formed across the country. If that tells you anything, it’s that the need was there long before the solution was.

The Other Half of the Problem

Wombee was about connection. But Lauren had another problem she couldn’t shake.

When she went back to work after having her children, full-time daycare didn’t sit right with her – not at that age, not yet. She wanted to be close. To breastfeed if she needed to. To duck in and check on her child without it being a whole event. She wanted to work properly, but she didn’t want to feel like she’d handed her baby over and disappeared.

That feeling – that impossible middle ground between presence and productivity – is what BubbaDesk was built for.

BubbaDesk: You Work Next Door

BubbaDesk is a coworking space with onsite, play-based childcare for children aged 0–3. Your child is cared for by qualified, nurturing carers in small groups in the same building, while you get proper work done in a professional workspace next door. Not across the city. Not a 40-minute drive away. Next door.

Carers follow each child’s individual routine – so your baby’s sleep, feeds and rhythms aren’t disrupted, and you’re not spending your workday worrying. You can breastfeed between meetings, settle your child and head back to your desk, and stay connected without sacrificing focus.

And for working parents, BubbaDesk sessions are tax deductible – making it a genuinely practical option, not just an appealing one.

It’s now open in Summer Hill, North Strathfield and Pyrmont, which means more Inner West parents can access it close to where they already live and work.

Lauren describes the whole premise plainly:

“You shouldn’t have to choose between your ambition and your attachment.”

Why the Inner West Makes Sense

This part of Sydney is full of people who work for themselves, work flexibly, or are figuring out how to fit a career around a young family. It’s a community that gets it. But the childcare options here haven’t always kept pace with how people actually work now.

These three new locations are a direct response to that.

A Village You Can Actually Find

Lauren doesn’t talk about this stuff the way a lot of founders do. She’s not pitching disruption. She’s talking about mental health, secure attachment, and giving women options that don’t force a trade-off.

With Wombee, she’s making it easier to find your people before the sleep deprivation sets in. With BubbaDesk, she’s building the kind of environment where staying close to your child and getting on with your work aren’t in competition with each other.

For Inner West mums, the village is no longer something you hope to stumble across.

It’s something you can find, on purpose, close to home.

Curious? Explore Wombee or find your nearest BubbaDesk in Summer Hill, North Strathfield or Pyrmont.

About Author

Francesca Millena

Writer, foodie and ideas-sponge, Francesca grew up in the Inner West and loves writing about all things IW related from playgrounds and podcasts, restaurants and retail, bubble tea and basketball courts. Mum to an active child, she also knows a thing or two about keeping a little one entertained on a rainy day.

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Lauren Perrett on Building BubbaDesk and Wombee

Founder Spotlight: Lauren Perrett on Building BubbaDesk and Wombee