During the holiday break, I’m trying to tie up some loose ends and one of those was completing my daughter’s first year baby album. She was born a couple of years before we released Baby Say Cheese otherwise I would have already had the pictures selected as each milestone occurred!
Her baby album has sat on our fancy, big, mostly unused dining room table for close to three years (removed for dinner guests and promptly replaced the next day). She will be 4 years old next year.
It has sat open, closed, or askew with pictures hanging in and out of it for years. I saw it often out of the corner of my eye and quickly switched my attention to other things. For those who know me, I usually don’t let things sit around undone but for some reason, I could never find the time to finish it. I would occasionally have a spurt of desire to complete it, would write some words, select some pictures, and ask my husband to print them. But quickly I would get distracted by something seemingly more important. And it sat there pulling me and repelling me at the same time.
We finished our son’s album just before our daughter was born which was 2 or so years after he was born, but that was mostly because his album is in Spanish and I don’t know Spanish. My sister decided to give us a Spanish baby album, so I had to nag, harass, make kind requests of their dad, who is fluent in Spanish, to finish the parts I couldn’t before our daughter was born.
Our daughter’s album is in English and on most days I know how to read and write English, but I had a baby album block…sort of like a writer’s block but it had a baby album slant to it. Several months ago, I came to the sudden realization that all my excuses of not having enough time, not being able to log in to my husband’s Mac to search iPhoto, not wanting to learn how to print pictures, and not wanting to deal with figuring out the dates of the pictures were masking my true feelings fears. And that fear had to do with closing a chapter in my life called ‘babyhood,’ despite not planning to (or wanting to) have any more babies. In my heart and eyes she will always be my baby girl but finishing her book puts finality to it and my heart is still adjusting to that feeling.
And it made me wonder about the other areas of my life where I might be doing the same thing. My fear of closing a chapter in my life and moving toward the unknown may be holding me back from discovering many unseen opportunities in business, my career, my life, or even my children’s lives. And I wondered if many other’s experience this sensation or if I’m the odd duck?
Oh, and just in case it wasn’t clear, I finished her album today…just a few short hours ago…and she helped me do it. I’m moving on to the next chapter of my life, and I’m thinking to myself “thank goodness there’s no such thing as a teenager album!” From what I hear, people like to forget those years. 🙂
Author: Aruni |
Filed under: babble soft,
baby say cheese,
parenting |
Tags: baby say cheese,
babyhood,
first year baby album,
parenting,
Spanish baby album,
writer's block |
6 Comments »
We have some exciting news today that I just had to share! We did a press release with UpSpring Baby about our partnership to offer free subscriptions to Babble Soft web and mobile applications for customers who purchase their milkscreen product in Babies “R” Us! UpSpring is a great company with awesome women/mom entrepreneurs at the helm. Please let new parents know how they can try two cool products for the price of one. It’s sort of like you buy one, you get the higher priced item for free. Don’t you love those kind of offers. 😀
If you are a blogger, know a blogger, or a journalist who might be interested in telling their readers about it especially since it’s so close to Mother’s Day, I would be truly grateful if you mentioned it to them. Or even a Stumble of this post, would be so appreciated.
The press release is below and is also on our site and on PRWeb. I think it’s kind of cool that a Consumer Packaged Goods company and a Tech company are offering solutions for new moms, together in Babies “R” Us!
Babble Soft and UpSpring Baby Offer Free Subscriptions to Baby Insights for Milkscreen Customers
Customers who purchase a Milkscreen 3-pack, available at Babies “R” Us, will get a free subscription to Babble Soft web and mobile applications.
AUSTIN, TX – May 7, 2008 – For a limited time only, customers who purchase the MilkscreenTM 3-pack at Babies “R” Us and other retailers for $4.99, will get a free 3 month subscription valued at $19.95 to Baby InsightsTM and Baby Say CheeseTM!
“We are thrilled about the opportunity to provide our customers with access to Babble Soft’s unique web and mobile applications!” said Lisa Williamson, founder and CEO of UpSpring Baby. “Our customers use milkscreen as a simple, two minute test to detect alcohol in breast milk. Every woman metabolizes alcohol differently so milkscreen allows Mom to relax and remove the guesswork and Babble Soft’s Baby Insight’s product helps new moms keep track of their breastfeeding and pumping schedule as well as how much pumped milk they feed their baby. We feel that giving our customers the chance to try out easy-to-use tools to help them manage their breastfeeding and pumping schedules is a huge plus for busy moms.”
“Our goal at Babble Soft is to help make the transition into parenthood easier by taking some of the worry away about whether baby is getting what he/she needs.” said Aruni Gunasegaram, founder and CEO of Babble Soft. “We are excited about partnering with UpSpring Baby to not only offer their customers an easy way to try our Baby Insights application to help them track pumping and breastfeeding, but also our Baby Say Cheese first year online baby album with milestones and family tree.”
Baby Insights helps caregivers gain insight into baby’s breast & bottle feeding, sleep periods, diaper changes, medicine doses, immunization records, as well as mom’s breastfeeding, pumping and medicine intake. Having important information stored in one location makes communication between parents, their nanny, babysitters, grandparents, or doctors seamless and reliable and gives new parents insight into their baby’s patterns to help with crucial baby care decisions.
Baby Say Cheese lets you create a wonderful online baby’s first year photo album with milestones such as ‘first crawl, first smile, first word’ and family tree that you can share with friends and family. You can even send fun, cute picture postcards of any of your baby’s milestones to anyone with an email address!
About UpSpring Baby
UpSpring, founded in 2005 and based in Austin, Texas, is a premiere parenting and child consumer brand that consists of popular labels such as Walking Wings® and MilkscreenTM. Founded by momprenuers, the company is dedicated to offering parents and children the most innovative and trustworthy health, wellness and safety products available in the baby care industry. The founders are inspired by how many unmet needs still exist in the childcare industry and how many great ideas other parents have to offer. UpSpring, has worked with designers, medical experts and testing laboratories, to ensure fresh and more natural product alternatives that are safer and supportive for every facet of babies’ early childhood. To learn more, please visit us at http://www.upspringbaby.com.
About Babble Soft
Babble Soft is based in Austin, Texas and creates products that help make the transition into parenthood easier. Whether you need breastfeeding support, are experiencing baby sleep issues, are expecting twins, or taking care of a premature (preemie) baby and would like to create your baby’s first year album, Babble Soft offers unique, easy-to-use Web and Mobile software solutions that improve communication between caregivers. Babble Soft makes a great baby shower gift that you can easily send via Email to any new parent anywhere in the world! To learn more and purchase Babble Soft applications, please visit http://www.babblesoft.com.
For more information, please contact:
Gillian Robb
Upspring, LLC
(512) 828-7988
Gillian(at)UpSpringBaby(dot)com
Aruni Gunasegaram
Babble Soft, LLC
(512) 961-6002 �
aruni(a)babblesoft(dot)com �
Author: Aruni |
Filed under: entrepreneurship |
Tags: alcohol and breastfeeding,
alcohol while nursing,
babble soft,
babble soft and upspring baby partnership,
babies r us,
baby insights,
baby say cheese,
baby sleep,
breastfeeding support,
entrepreneurship,
milkscreen,
mompreneur,
upspring baby,
women entrepreneur |
2 Comments »
I’ve seen companies doing soft launches of software products which makes me wonder what a hard launch is. So far the main difference I’ve noticed is that the official press release about the new application or new feature doesn’t go out until after the ‘hard’ launch. My guess is that a lot of bug fixing is going on between soft and hard launch.
So, I’m happy/thrilled/ecstatic to report that we just soft launched our new sleep and immunization recording features of Baby Insights Web! We are still working on some development issues on Baby Insights Mobile and plan to hard launch that app in January 2008. The mobile app is not web-based (yet) so we don’t have the luxury of a soft launch.
Babble Soft is offering FREE 3 month gift subscriptions valued at $19.95 until March 15, 2007 to anyone who discovers a software bug in our NEW Baby Sleep and Immunization features of Baby Insights Web. Gifts are transferrable! Sign up for your FREE account today. Happy hunting!
So far the soft launch has been uneventful (i.e., no major bugs), which is nice. Thanks go out to our development team Cressanda and especially our project manager. I recommend them highly. The smoothness of the soft launch is also because we don’t have thousands upon thousands hundreds upon hundreds of users yet. I’m banking on our foray into SEO to help get us there. I mean if the “right people” (a.k.a. target market) don’t know we exist; it’s not surprising that we don’t have thousands of users yet. Even viral marketing takes a bunch of upfront work because you have to get to the right early adopters who have major Internet influence. I need to figure out how to do a video and get it in YouTube.
Given the fact that over 4 million babies are born in the US each year then include Australia, Canada, Europe, Japan and other Internet savvy countries, I’m anticipating that once those new parents and nannies find out about us, the floodgates will open. Babies and floodgates…not sure if the analogy works but I think you get the point. 🙂
I’ve been spending my time the last couple of days doing website updates to reflect the new features. And I’m working on pulling the pieces together of a business plan for some potential angel investor meetings that I have scheduled for early next year. If you know an angel investor (or you happen to be one) who likes the baby/new parent/web application/social networking space, please send them my way! The applications we have now are only the tip of the colossal iceberg.
Now for a short SEO break:
Whether you need breastfeeding support, are excitedly following your pregnancy week by week, are experiencing baby sleep issues, or are already under way creating your baby’s first year album, Babble Soft offers unique, easy-to-use Web and Mobile software solutions that improve communication between caregivers about baby’s and mom’s schedules.
Baby Insights helps caregivers keep track of baby’s breast & bottle feeding, sleep periods, diaper changes, medicine doses, and immunization records, as well as mom’s breastfeeding, pumping and medicine intake. Having important information stored in one location makes communication between parents, their nanny, babysitters, grandparents, or doctors seamless and reliable and gives new parents insight into their baby’s patterns to help with crucial baby care decisions. Baby Say Cheese lets you create a wonderful online baby’s first year photo album with milestones and family tree that you can share with friends and family.
If you are interested in reading about how I cope with manage software launches, fundraising, and SEO consider subscribing to this blog’s feed. If you are an entrepreneur, it will be worth your while…even if I crash and burn….which I won’t…because I said so, that’s why. Now go play with your Power Rangers. Sigh.
Author: Aruni |
Filed under: baby insights,
baby say cheese,
baby sleep,
entrepreneur,
entrepreneurship,
fundraising,
sleep,
technology |
Tags: ,
angel investors,
babble soft,
baby insights,
baby say cheese,
baby sleep,
breastfeeding,
fundraising,
seo,
soft launch,
software |
3 Comments »
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