The first time she walked into a Babies R Us, she burst into tears. Allyson Downey recalls what happened, “I looked up at a ten-foot wall of baby bottles and saw it as a metaphor for how completely unprepared I was to be a parent. So when I got home, I started sending emails to my friends: what kind of car seat do you have? What diapers do you use? Do I need to be able to collapse an umbrella stroller with one hand? As my inbox flooded with advice from my in-the-trenches friends, I started to feel a little less overwhelmed… and a little bit more ready.”

Allyson remembers thinking that there had to be a better way for people who have had babies to share their favorite “go-to” items with their friends? With more than 4 million first child babies born in the US each year, she started thinking, “If something like this doesn’t exist, maybe I should create it.” She shared her thoughts with her husband and they agreed the idea had enormous potential.

When the couple visited with a college friend, Melissa Post, who was on bed rest, pregnant with twins at the time, they told her what they wanted to do. Melissa’s first response was: “Are you sure something like this doesn’t already exist?” She then proceeded to share her experience trying to prepare for her daughters’ arrival, which was remarkably similar to Ally’s. After walking into Buy Buy Baby and starting up at a wall of baby bottles made up of at least 10 brands she’d never heard of (what was Dr. Brown’s?), she texted 5 friends who’d recently had babies and asked, “What bottles do I register for?”

With her extra time on bed rest, Melissa had spent countless hours researching products online and reaching out to friends who were already moms trying to figure out what she needed. One by one, Melissa’s mom friends would each send a list of their tried and true choices for bottles, wipes, strollers, car seats, carriers, breast pumps, pacifiers and everything else a new mom would need. She was inundated with documents to review, but had no idea how to organize all of the information into anything that made sense or helped her to navigate this incredibly overwhelming process.

The three began to see some real synergy in what they could do together. Before bed rest, Melissa had spent several years working for American Express in web site development, and knew she was facing a 2 hour commute (each way) again after the twins were born. Almost immediately after talking to Jack and Ally, Melissa knew she wanted to get involved in some way, and there was no turning back.

So, they started to build what is now called weeSpring, a platform for new and expecting parents to share recommendations with their friends on baby products. weeSpring provides a very simple way for users to rate baby products- “love, regret, have, or want” – and encourages users to invite their friends.

Ally, Melissa and Jack validating their idea by sending out a survey to 50 parents to gauge their interest in sharing their favorite products with their friends. They now have over 20,000 product ratings and over 4,000 users since going live in January, 2013. Melissa said, “We used Facebook to tap into the mommy network. Everyone wanted to help new moms with advice and our user ratings grew to several thousand in just a month. We knew we were onto something.”

Allyson says, “It’s your friends who will tell you what you shouldn’t buy and what doesn’t work. Being a new parent is expensive enough, without buying things you don’t need. ”

Though weeSpring was primarily self-funded at the outset, they have some initial outside investment which has enabled them to take their product to the next level. Allyson is now the company’s CEO, Jack the COO, and Melissa leads the community. They also have a female technical co-founder, Madeline, who helped bring the weeSpring vision to life.

weeSpring has acquired users through a variety of strategies, including contests, relationships with mommy bloggers and manufacturers, and Facebook (90% of new moms use social media!). One early user deemed weeSpring “The Cliff Notes for Babies” and many others have said “I wish I had this when I was pregnant.” When asked about a revenue stream, Allyson and Melissa feel that if they get the web experience right, the revenue will come. Whether from ad sales, product placement, data sales to manufacturers, gift registry or something else, with their numbers, the possibilities are endless.

Having just been chosen as one of 11 start-up companies, out of 1700 entries, by TechStars NYC, a start-up acceleration program this spring, weeSpring is on its way. Melissa shares: “It is exciting and scary at the same time, but we have a strong sense of what we want this to become. We plan to stay true to what we believe in, and we’ll see where it goes.” Seems they are on the right spring board for success.

Contact: www.weespring.com,
VentureMom Tip
Validate your idea with actual users.