The Founder Behind LittleMum

Raimy Gao is the founder and product designer behind LittleMum.

LittleMum started with a problem I could not solve for myself.

For about six months I travelled regularly as a passenger on the back of a motorcycle, on roads outside the city. Somewhere in that period I developed persistent neck symptoms. They affected my sleep, my energy and my concentration, and for nearly two years ordinary rest did not resolve them. The brain fog became almost harder to live with than the neck discomfort itself.

The cervical traction products I could buy did not give me the controlled, responsive pull I was looking for. Most were rigid: the force was either on or off. So I began developing a spring-loaded traction structure for my own use, one where the force builds gradually and responds to the body instead of fighting it.

It became an important part of resolving symptoms I had lived with for nearly two years.

That was my own experience, not proof that one product will do the same for anyone else. But it taught me the principle that still guides LittleMum: a useful self-care tool has to begin with a clearly understood physical problem. The structure, the materials and the way it is used are then built around that problem — not around a fashionable feature or an exaggerated promise.

I had already seen what living with pain costs.

Before any of this, someone I was close to at the time lived with chronic lower-back and shoulder pain and relied on pain medication almost daily. Watching that, and worrying about what years of medication might do, made me start asking whether better non-drug options could at least take part of the everyday load off people. That question was the beginning. My own injury turned it into work.

Designing around real problems

I began designing LittleMum products in 2020.

The goal was never another generic massage device. I wanted to understand something specific: why so many areas of the body are easy to touch and yet genuinely difficult to massage well on your own.

Your hands get tired. A massage ball slides off the spot you were aiming for. A soft material collapses under body weight. A hard tool delivers pressure too abruptly. A contact point that looks convincing in a drawing lands on bone, or approaches the muscle from the wrong direction, once a real person lies down on it.

Those problems pushed me toward pressure-point placement, body positioning, contact geometry, material behaviour and structural support. I care less about how a product looks than about what happens after body weight is applied and the pressure is held.

The range grew from broader trigger-point tools into more focused deep-tissue tools and cervical traction. Each one is meant to solve a particular access, support or pressure-control problem — not to produce the strongest possible sensation.

Why development takes years

An idea can arrive in an afternoon. Getting it into production has taken me as long as three years.

Many designs cannot be made with an existing material or a standard process. A material that feels right as a small sample behaves differently at full size. A structure that looks strong in a drawing loses its geometry under load. A surface that grips well can be difficult to mold consistently.

Sometimes a mold has to be modified, or made again. Different factories are needed for the silicone, the metal structure and the connection between them. One factory understands silicone molding but not load-bearing requirements. Another handles aluminum or stainless steel well but cannot produce the complete structure as intended.

A prototype that works once is not enough. The finished product has to be manufactured consistently, survive repeated use, and hold the dimensions, angles and material behaviour the design depends on.

And none of that guarantees a market

Some products I spent years developing have received only modest attention. They solve a real but specialised problem. Customers find them hard to understand without trying them, or they simply never get enough visibility.

A product can be genuinely useful and still sell poorly. Good design does not guarantee a market.

Sometimes, a detailed customer review is enough to remind me that the years spent developing a product were not wasted. At a massage-therapy convention, one therapist who had bought a LittleMum tool months earlier came specifically to tell me how much they valued it. Moments like these are a small part of running the business, but an important reason I keep designing.

What the details in a photograph cannot show

Two products can look almost identical and behave completely differently in use. The materials, the wall thickness, the internal support, the angle of a contact point, the way a structure holds its shape under body weight — none of that is visible in a product photo.

This is why education matters to me as much as design. I want customers to understand why a product was built the way it was, which problem it is meant to solve, who it suits, and when a different approach would make more sense. An informed customer chooses better — including choosing not to buy from us.

Self-care should support an active life

I do not believe massage, traction or any passive treatment should become the centre of anyone's life.

These methods can reduce discomfort, make movement easier, or carry someone through a difficult period. But for many persistent musculoskeletal problems, movement and gradually rebuilding physical capacity matter more in the long term.

I play tennis and I hike. Staying active, keeping strength, spending time outdoors and holding on to a positive outlook have all shaped how I think about pain and recovery.

The purpose of LittleMum is not to make anyone dependent on another product forever. A self-care tool should support an active life, not replace one. At its best it helps someone feel more comfortable, regain confidence in their body, and get back to what they actually want to be doing.

My work will continue past trigger-point, deep-tissue and cervical traction tools. I am also exploring carefully formulated natural topical products for everyday self-care, approached the same way: define the purpose, examine the evidence, take safety seriously, and never promise more than the product can reasonably deliver.

LittleMum began because I wanted better options — first for someone else, and then for myself.

It continues because customers and professionals have shown me that thoughtful design matters.

People deserve self-care products that are thoughtfully designed, honestly explained, and made to help them stay active.

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