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Start with a question. That’s my advice to anyone who asks how I did it. Find me a group of successful mom entrepreneurs, and I bet the majority of them started a business because they were stumped. I believe the best companies start with the question, “Why doesn’t this exist?”
Momtrends started with that premise. The question was, “Why isn’t anyone publishing blog posts that I want to read?” And that solved my problems.
The short answer to why my business was started is because I was annoyed. When I got impatient with the options available, I decided to solve my own problem. Fortunately, plenty of women have decided to join me for the ride!
In about seven years, I’ve been able to create a million-dollar brand out of my living room. Along the way, I took on zero debt and have been able to grow my business on my own schedule, at my own pace; a pace that worked for my family. I’ve been able to continually capitalize on growth opportunities as my daughters have grown. And never, ever have I had to ask for permission along the way.
Asking for permission to do things stinks.
Before having children, I spent nearly a decade working at Ralph Lauren in the stores and corporate offices. Looking around at the moms at Ralph Lauren, I couldn’t locate a lot of role models.
I saw a lot of women making tremendous strides in career and contributing to an excellent corporation, but there were significant sacrifices of family and relationship time made along the way. The feminist in me is glad that my “sisters” are climbing the ladder and securing positions in boardrooms, but I didn’t want to have to ask anyone for permission to spend time with my family, or to travel and learn.
If it was time to start thinking about a family, I wanted to do it on my terms, not the corporate way. I don’t mind “leaning in” if it’s on projects that matter, and when I can do that leaning from a scenic spot.
Fortunately for me, I’ve been a good saver. My father told me early on to start socking away money in my 401K, and I made two great investments in apartments in my 20s. When I stepped off the corporate track in 2003, I had over $400,000 in savings.
I had zero debt, a great resume, a degree from Vanderbilt University, and more than anything else, the confidence in myself to take some risks.
Risk #1 was to quit my job with absolutely nothing lined up next. I spent all of 2004 traveling with my then boyfriend, now husband. We eloped on a trip in Bhutan (long story for another book, perhaps). In all, we traveled to 22 countries, living out of backpacks. When we returned to NYC, I’d been away from the city and out of work for a year. It was the perfect opportunity to reinvent myself.
I came back completely changed, and a horrible candidate for a corporate job - having a year of freedom to do what I wanted, when I wanted, changed me forever. I’d gotten a taste of freedom, and I wasn’t looking back. Quickly making a traditional office even LESS appealing was the joyous news that I was pregnant.
Now I was expecting and looking for a career change. Many things interested me, travel, fashion, non-profit work, and writing - especially writing. My husband and I were living in an affordable area of Brooklyn, our expenses were minimal, and I still had plenty of savings. I had the luxury to continue taking risks.
I went to NYC’s New School, and took a journalism course. Most of the kids in the class were taking the course for credit. I took it for fun. I didn’t care that I was 10+ years older than all the other students. I was ready to learn. With a little encouragement from my professor, I submitted some pitches to local Brooklyn papers to cover events. I scored a job on my first try, and earned a whopping $50 freelance fee.
Even if the paycheck stunk, I was hooked.Getting paid to write rocked.
Soon, I was looking for more outlets that wanted to pay me to write. I wanted to work in my fashion background, but all my pitches to glossy magazines were repeatedly turned down. Were my ideas bad? I didn’t think so. I just kept looking for outlets that wanted to hear my voice.
Slowly I built a respectable freelance business working for about a dozen different editors and magazine. As I gained experience, my confidence grew. Writing for other people turned out to be incredibly low-paying and frustrating. There were so many things I wanted to research and write about that I couldn’t find a proper home for, and couldn’t “sell” to an editor.
I wanted to write about stylish nurseries that suited my Ralph Lauren tastes, but fit my Brooklyn Food Co-Op budget. I wanted to wear my old $1,000 Manolo Blahniks from my Madison Avenue days with $25 cargo pants purchased from the Target across the street.
In 2007, I was seeing all these blogspot URLs pop up. Women were using blogs to write deeply personal parenting essays. Why couldn’t I use a blog to write about what I wanted to read - about living a stylish and fabulous life with less time, energy, and money! It’s possible to have it all - you just need to know where to look.
I’ve always been generous with my resources. If I found a great new restaurant, salon, or boutique, my instinct wouldn’t be to hoard the resource; I wanted to share. My blog would be the ultimate sharing hub for my girlfriends.
As I was slowly finding my voice and audience on my Momtrends blog on Blogspot, I was also contributing a ton of articles to a large site called Babble.com. I pushed hundreds of strollers to road test the best rides. Often, the strollers I loved and the gear I blessed as the “best” was quite expensive. My Babble articles got some wrath in the comment feed. “Who can afford a $250 diaper bag!”, or “Who in her right mind needs a $1,000 stroller?” Increasingly, Momtrends became a spot where I found kindred spirits. Women who thought a $1,000 Bugaboo stroller didn’t seem so crazy if it was your main means of transportation, and you lived in the city.
When I had my first daughter, I didn’t own a car. My “wheels” were the NYC subway, Brooklyn buses, and my stroller. For me, it was pretty easy to justify spending $500 on a stroller (no, I never got the Bugaboo, but it was a great ride!). On Momtrends, no one pushed back on pricing. Our community was equally concerned about aesthetics and price.
Great entrepreneurs give themselves permission to fail. In 2009, I quit 75 percent of my freelance jobs and decided to dedicate myself to Momtrends. I wanted to see if I could grow it into a viable business. I didn’t want my husband to fund any of it. I wanted the company to succeed or fail on my terms. That meant keeping things lean and benefiting from the budding boom of blogging.
The good news about my business was there was zero overhead. I worked from home around the girls’ naps and sleep schedules.
In the first two years, traffic was growing slowly, but steadily. When we added Twitter to the equation in 2009, we saw a huge boost in traffic.
Many bloggers wear all the hats of their brand. They are Editor, Sales Manager, Event Director, and Office Manager. Even back in 2009, I was thinking bigger than that. I wanted a team; I couldn’t pay much, but I could romance my vision.
Team Member One was found at a church toddler playgroup. Brooke and I met while our kids were gnawing on blocks.
