Anne-Karine Stocchetti was born and raised in Paris and has three children. She first studied film, worked in film production companies and wrote scripts. Anne-Karine dreamed of becoming a film director but kept running into fundraising problems. She later became a stock trader but grew increasingly uneasy trying to balance work and family life. In 1991, she left her job and moved out of Paris to a small town where she created a childcare agency, quickly discovering the difficulties faced by parents working non-traditional hours. Their needs neither corresponded to the hours offered by childcare services nor the prices they could afford. Bolstered by this realization, Anne-Karine created Optimomes in 1996.