Spotlight On: BuddyHub

Better Space has it’s first members! We’re delighted to welcome Catherine McClen and Naailah of BuddyHub, to the community. Read on to hear about founder Catherine’s journey so far, as well as some interesting stats about the challenge of loneliness, and how you can get involved.

BuddyHub Founder Catherine McClen (left) and Naailah Jummun, a BuddyHub Connector.

Please introduce yourself to the community!

Hi my name is Catherine McClen and I’m the CEO and Founder of startup social enterprise BuddyHub.

I’ve lived in central Islington for 17 years and previously lived in Archway and Angel when I first moved to London. I love that it’s a multicultural borough with many in the community having lived here for decades which is grounding. I feel spoiled for choice in terms of having so much right on my doorstep but worry that the pace of gentrification is excluding those on lower incomes. I find Islington a vibrant place to work and love my new walking commute to Better Space. Perhaps because it has so many students and Silicon Roundabout in the South, Islington is buzzing with entrepreneurial spirit and has a fantastic startup ecosystem.

What does BuddyHub do and what has it achieved so far?

BuddyHub offers a ground-breaking approach to tackling loneliness, particularly amongst older people.

Social science informs us that friendship is the number one factor influencing our health, wellbeing and happiness and we all need a ‘sympathy group’ of around 10-15 people with 2-5 of those acting as a supportive inner circle. This need cannot be fulfilled by the traditional befriending model which connects an older person, experiencing loneliness and isolation, with a single volunteer.

BuddyHub creates intergenerational, supportive social groups of 4, centered around a lonely older person, to build up their inner circle. To create meaningful, enduring friendships we focus on matching well and operate a flexible, sustainable model to reduce barriers but without compromising on safety.

So far we have created 178 new friendships for older members and enabled 364 friendships between community members of all ages. 

What is BuddyHub’s mission and vision?

BuddyHub is a Community Interest Community, which means we are here to benefit the public.

We exist to alleviate loneliness by helping people to build their social circle, empowering them to live actively and well. Our Mission is to match people with potential friends who share a similar interest or purpose and live nearby using a personal approach to understanding their needs, and technology to optimise the process. Our vision is to create a world where anyone can make new friends and no one needs to fear being lonely.

How did BuddyHub begin? What’s your personal journey to becoming the founder of a social enterprise?

In 2014, I saw a BBC news story about a discharge nurse in Yorkshire distressed about sending home older patients who lived alone with no one to support them. Her response was to sell them a bag with milk and bread for £2 so they could at least have a cup of tea and some toast. I had such a strong reaction to this story thinking what the hell happened to us as a society? Much later, I realised it had stirred up my own feelings of loneliness and isolation due to family experiences. I had been a young carer to my Mother with early onset dementia and witnessed severe mental health conditions and multiple bereavements in my family.  I felt compelled to do something.

I also had several much older friends and loved their company. The simple lightbulb moment was that if I could form a social circle around a lonely older person with a couple of other people in a flexible way this could fit into my life. I saw the older person as being at the centre or hub of a social circle with their Buddies around - I coined the term Friendship Wheel to describe this group. I was on a career break after leaving a 17 year City career volunteering with marginalised groups looking for a more meaningful career direction. I really wish I could find that nurse so I could thank her because with that news story I found my calling and BuddyHub was born.

What are the most rewarding parts of running BuddyHub?

Far and away, the best moments of running BuddyHub are when our front line Connector reports back on how well two people we just matched and introduced have hit it off. We do a little dance every time we hear titbits such as ‘Perfect fit’, ‘You picked the right one’ or ‘Amazing match’! We also love hearing about all the adventures our members get up to together. It’s so exciting when our members say things like ‘I truly look forward to my weekend visits’ or ‘I’m getting to try something new”. Friendships are everything to our happiness, and when we hear from members that it's a “Life-changing experience” and “Life is getting a little brighter’, it’s our own day that brightens up. And the most rewarding of all is knowing we’re creating long-lasting friendships: ‘We became friends for life’, someone said to us the other day.

What are the challenges of being a social entrepreneur?

Ok, sit back, get comfortable and clear your diary. This could take a long time! Being a social entrepreneur is a continuous process of problem solving. To be honest, I love doing that as I have a low boredom threshold. But it’s a roller coaster ride of ups and downs and you need to have a huge amount of resilience over a long period. The biggest challenge is probably resource constraints due to a lack of funding - you have to do an incredible amount with a tiny team on a shoe-string. There is also a real difference between being an impact entrepreneur and a profit-maximising entrepreneur. We’re running a service in the wellbeing and mental health space and many of our older members can be vulnerable. It’s a very difficult space and system to be innovating in. More so because of underfunding in the health and social care sector for statutory services. You have to be careful to keep people safe and protect their wellbeing so you cannot go at the breakneck speed that the agile ‘fail fast’ approach of running a profit-maximising startup favours. It’s a long slow road, requiring patient capital, to reach breakout scale. Very few social enterprises achieve that, as patient capital is scarce, but we’re going all out to be one of them.

Do you have any advice to offer any ‘budding’ entrepreneurs looking to have impact in Islington and beyond?

The best advice I can give is find your way into a startup ecosystem as soon as possible. Co-working places and accelerator and incubator programmes are great to do this as you will learn from the people running the space or programme as well as from other entrepreneurs. A shout out here for Better Space as a newly launched impact co-working space (great team, great place!) and the Hatch Impact programme we recently participated in. Most of the problems you have faced will have been met and overcome by other Founders, especially those who are further ahead of you. Founders are usually very generous at sharing information and helping each other out and we share tips, advice, experiences and information with each other-  that can be invaluable especially in terms of saving time and finding funding. Plus, no one understands the massive challenge of the startup journey like a fellow Founder so we help each other out with some Founders therapy. Finally, as a sole Founder I’d advise finding a co-Founder if you possibly can to share the journey. It didn’t happen for me and Founder divorce is rife but if you can find someone to join you in the trenches it will really help.

What is the next phase for BuddyHub?

The pandemic had a big impact on our operations as a service based on face to face contact with older people. However, we adapted and have come through that and this experience has informed the next phase for us. Since inception, we have matched older people with local volunteers but experience and feedback has shown us how much everyone benefits from inter-generational friendships.

The pandemic has given us far more understanding of the impact of loneliness and isolation, on people of all ages, and the importance of friendships to our mental health and wellbeing. Reported rates of loneliness and isolation have rocketed through the pandemic with one south London borough survey reporting 88% of residents were feeling lonely often (10x the pre-pandemic level). There is likely to be a similar picture across other London boroughs. Hybrid working will be retained for many jobs, where it is possible, so we will be spending more time in our local community with less time to form friendships at work.

In response to the pandemic, and to help members increase their personal network of like minded people in their local community, we will scale our Friendship Wheel service (groups of 4 people) and pilot a new group service to bring 10-15 members together around diverse interests. We’re super excited to be supported by Professor Robin Dunbar, the world renowned evolutionary psychologist and author of Friends, who is advising us on service design and impact measurement. 

We are also changing our business model. Originally we were a membership club for older people with heavily discounted rates for those on low incomes funded by Buddy donations. We are moving away from having Members (older people) and Buddy volunteers to a model of equality where everyone is a member as everyone benefits from the inter-generational friendships we help create. We will relaunch as a membership community where everyone pays to join as everyone benefits from the friendships formed. This means we can greatly reduce our membership fees and we propose to offer free places to financially deprived older people funded by Community Sponsors (some of whom may not be community members).

This really is the community coming together to solve an incredibly difficult societal problem itself. Using public sector funding during the ramp up phase, our model is designed to be financially self-sustaining once each borough community builds to several hundred people.  Our plan is to create a replicable model, so we can increase our impact and expand across other London boroughs and beyond over time.

What are you looking for help with at BuddyHub at the moment?

We need to collaborate if we are to succeed in expanding our presence in Islington, Hackney and Haringey. We need to find more referral pathways to help us reach older lonely and isolated people who are often offline. We’re interested in working with organisations whose residents, patients or clients  could benefit from our service. We also want to speak to HR professionals focused on employee wellbeing in both the public and private sector as our service offers many benefits for employees. We’re keen to link up with local businesses whose employees and customers may want to be involved.

How can people get involved in BuddyHub!?

If you’re interested in joining our community of purpose and forming socially conscious friendships with all the rewards that will bring or know someone who would benefit from joining us please get in touch. You might like to become a Community Sponsor and fund a free place for a  financially deprived older person.

 hello@buddyhub.co.uk | catherine@buddyhub.co.uk  or go to our website

 Finally, but importantly, what do you like to do when you aren’t running BuddyHub?

Running a startup can be intense and all consuming but it’s a marathon not a sprint so having some ‘me time’ to decompress is super important for Founder wellbeing. I love being in nature so a long country walk outside of London is a favourite. You’ll find me running (or trot / walking when tired) early morning on Hampstead Heath usually twice a week and otherwise doing some exercises on the Headspace app. I love to cook and have collected a rather impressive (I think) collection of herbs and spices as I get more adventurous. Back to nature, I am blessed to have a small garden and love to grow flowers and plants. I’ve got some herbs and tomatoes on the go but now have a small (still empty) trug to take ‘growing my own’ to the next level.

Thanks Catherine!

Be sure to follow BuddyHub’s journey on social media: LinkedIn: @buddyhub Facebook: @buddyhub.co.uk Twitter: @buddy_hub