Founder of Ayi. Single parent. Londoner by way of Shanghai. And the person who got tired of looking for something that didn't exist — so built it instead.
"It wasn't a luxury — it was sanity."Jessie Allen, Founder of Ayi
I'm raising two daughters in London. On my own, with no family nearby. No grandparents round the corner, no sisters to call, no mum popping in on a Wednesday.
Just me, the kids, the job, the house, the mental load — and the constant, low-level hum of trying to hold everything together.
When I lived in Shanghai, I had an Ayi. Her name was Xiao Lin, and she came three times a week. She kept the kitchen running, the laundry moving, the fridge stocked. She fed the children when I was running late. She knew where everything lived.
In China, having an Ayi is completely normal — not a sign of wealth, just a practical acknowledgement that running a family home is a full-time job on top of the full-time job you already have.
When I came back to London, I looked for the same thing. A trusted, capable person who could genuinely run the household — not just clean it. Someone who could think ahead, handle the admin, carry some of the mental weight.
It didn't exist. Not like that. Not for families like mine.
Ayi is named after those women — the Ayis of Shanghai who make modern family life possible with warmth, skill, and quiet competence. The word means auntie. But it means so much more than that.
It means someone who has your back at home. Someone who holds the thread when everything feels like it's unravelling. Someone who makes it possible to do the work, show up for the children, and occasionally remember yourself.
That's what we offer. And it starts with understanding that this isn't a luxury. For so many families, it's exactly what sanity looks like.
Modern family life has changed faster than the support structures around it. Ayi exists to fill that gap — not as a status symbol, but as a practical, human response to an impossible situation.
Needing help is not a failure. It is a completely reasonable response to an unreasonable amount of pressure.
Every Ayi is a real person who cares about the families they work with. This is a relationship, not a transaction.
Your same Ayi, every visit. Because trust takes time — and it's what makes everything else possible.
"I already outsource a lot but I still felt like the household operations manager. Ayi changed that completely. Now I come home and it's just... done."
"The overwhelm I used to feel walking through the door at 7pm is just gone. I can actually be present with my kids. That's what Ayi gave me."
"Having no family in the UK, I'd forgotten what it feels like to have someone in your corner at home. That's what Ayi gave back to us."
"The body-doubling element, the consistency, someone who just quietly gets things done without me having to manage them — it's transformed our week."
Founder, Ayi
"We can have it all. We just can't do it all."
That's not a failure of ambition. It's physics. There are only so many hours. The mental load is real. The second shift is real. The exhaustion that comes from trying to run a home and a career and a family and yourself is absolutely real.
Ayi doesn't fix the structural problem. But it makes the week survivable. And sometimes, it makes it genuinely good.
If you're considering it — I'd gently say: you don't have to be drowning to deserve support. You just have to be human.
Jessie xJoin the waitlist. We're welcoming a small founding group of London families now.