A balancing act on the Net

A new website founded by Jayne Buxton and Rosemary Leith aims to give women down-to-earth advice on how best to juggle their children and careers

Launching a website has to come pretty high on the top 10 list of stressful jobs. It's all about late hours, overdosing on Diet Coke and take-away pizzas eaten at 4am as you continue to tap away on your keyboard.

Launching a website has to come pretty high on the top 10 list of stressful jobs. It's all about late hours, overdosing on Diet Coke and take-away pizzas eaten at 4am as you continue to tap away on your keyboard.

When you've got three young children and your site is devoted to the subject of balancing work and family, the task seems even more daunting - you've got to practice what you preach.

Jayne Buxton and Rosemary Leith launched the Flametree website in June with the aim of helping women who need to balance the needs of family and work. In case you're wondering, the Flametree is an African tree known for its strong roots and bright foliage. In an Oprah-esque moment, the founders chose the name because "the tree is both rooted and inspirational".

Buxton had been involved in this area for four years, writing the book Ending the Mother War, Starting the Workplace Revolution in 1998. "After the book came out, I started working in the field and began to speak at conferences about the subject. One thing that struck me after these sessions was how eager people were to get more information. They'd always go away saying 'let's stay in touch' and they never did. Then it dawned on me that the internet was made for this kind of thing," Buxton explains.

Meanwhile, Leith provides the business background thanks to her former career in investment company Talisman Management. Both have three young children and both struggle with the need to balance work and family life.

Pre-launch, the pace was hectic. The only way the founders could balance their work and home lives was to sacrifice sleep. Buxton outlines a typical day: "I'd see the kids in the morning and then work from 10am till 4pm, then I'd spend more time with the kids and then work from 8pm till midnight. Sometimes I'd get up at 4am and work, too."

Although she recognises this kind of schedule is nigh on impossible to sustain, she reckons it was necessary and "It's better than not seeing your kids for six months". In a strange way Buxton admits she envies those bright, young, single upstarters who work all hours planning world domination via the internet: "I used to read interviews with young founders of dot.coms talking about how hard they work and I thought, what a luxury to be able to only focus on your work."

Buxton also fears that the prevailing dot.com work-ethic might mean that some businesses miss the mark completely: "I firmly believe that if you have to stop and think how long am I going to work and why, it does force you to work in a really structured way instead of just running and running. You can miss the ball while you're running."

On first visit, the site seems full of those phrases so beloved of women's magazines - "inspiring solutions to balance your life", "our goal is to help you balance your life by providing practical, well-grounded information and solutions with a spark of inspiration". But the information on the site is weightier than your typical magazine article on how modern women can have it all.

Flametree uses experts to produce copy, rather than journalists, and their articles contain plenty of advice on how to manage your life. Some of the text occasionally slips into the kind of academic writing that could put off some visitors, but generally it's a good read.

Buxton becomes almost preacher-like when she talks about the content on the site: "My dream is that people will visit Flametree and walk away with the information they need to present a case for balanced working to their bosses."

But it's the forum areas that are currently the most interesting section of the site; issues discussed here include your rights at work, single-parent solutions, childcare and managing your stress levels. Buxton hopes activity here will grow and the site will become a supportive community for women.

"What's critical to the success of the site is the interplay between community areas, the features and the library of content we have. We need to drive people through. We've been surprised with our early usage figures that show that the average time spent on the site is 15 minutes. If we can sustain that level, we'll be very lucky," Buxton says.

The Parenting forum is already busy and there are long, detailed responses from the experts to visitors' questions. How long the experts will be able to answer questions in such detail depends on the volume of traffic. However, Flametree is committed to answering all e-mails within 24 hours: "We're nothing without that commitment," Buxton says.

Despite the rather girly purple-and-orange colour scheme, men aren't excluded: "Flametree is targeted mainly at women and secondarily at men. Women are struggling with this issue the most vocally, whereas men have to be drawn into these things. But it wouldn't surprise me in three years' time if 30 per cent of our visitors are men and 70 per cent are women."

However, Buxton is realistic enough to recognise that the Flametree concept won't appeal to everybody. "Flametree is for women that want balance in their life. Some women don't want that balance. We interviewed a potential marketing manager, for example, and she described the site as 'a crutch for weak people'. I was surprised at that, it's such an Eighties view.

"We appeal to people who think balance is legitimate and that can mean balancing work and kids, work and community or work and time for yourself."

The big challenge for the site now it's up and running is to get the cash rolling in. Buxton pinpoints three revenue earners: banner ads, sponsorship and partnerships. "The sponsorship deals will be very different to the typical sponsor set-up. A lot of firms are taking this issue seriously. They need to offer their employees support and resources and they need to demonstrate a commitment to resolving these issues.

"As a result, a lot of businesses want to work with us," Buxton says. "The key is not to pursue just one revenue stream. If you do, then you're sunk.

"It's a challenge. Anybody who says they've got the internet revenue model sussed is a liar."