Common advice to entrepreneurs is to invent something that solves a genuine problem. Because it doesn’t matter how good your service or product is if nobody actually needs it. That’s exactly what Aisha Pandor and her software developer husband Alen Ribic did when they created SweepSouth, the online platform for finding and booking domestic cleaners.

The couple first realised that finding reliable domestic staff was a problem when their own nanny was going away and they needed a temporary replacement. Despite the usual asking around, they couldn’t find anyone suitable.