It’s all in the shoes.

Just beyond the bright red door of our cozy little home, a giant pile of shoes tells the story of our days. On Sundays, after an early morning cleanup, the pile is a tidy row of velcro Nikes and ballet flats. By Thursday night, it is a undulating heap of rain boots, broken flip flops, an errant sock, random baseballs, someone’s crusty wet tennis shoe, and swim goggles.

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The big, huge, shoe pile.

Each week, we start with the best of intentions and, each week, the shoe pile reflects what our lives are really like: colorful, scattered, adventurous, and nonstop.

Our house is now exactly one month into summer break. We’ve adjusted our schedules, rooted for our Cavs, given up on the one-popsicle-a-day rule, and shivered our way through early morning swim team practice. We have picked berries, hunted for sea glass, played a lot of baseball, and happily accepted Rice Krispies as dinner at least twice. Okay, maybe three times.

Part of me is frustrated – this summer was to be about continuing the momentum of my year, when the kids were in school eight hours a day when I could work and launch MotherBoard, and still be home for the bus every day.

But the truth is that this summer has already become something different.

Continue reading “It’s all in the shoes.”

Survey time! Get on {Mother}Board.

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It’s survey time! We have been researching, meeting, talking, presenting… doing everything we can to ensure MotherBoard works for our target user: smart, professional moms who want to have balance in their work and family life. Now we are going to the masses with a quick survey to help us make some important decisions on how best to build MotherBoard.

Help a Mother out and take five minutes to share more about you and how you might use MotherBoard. As always, leave comments below if you have more to share with our team.

Here it is! http://svy.mk/1svls2i

Welcome to MotherBoard

Follow along as one small group of mom entrepreneurs with one great idea launch a game-changing startup.

The day I became a mom, it was as if the universe picked me up, moved me over an inch, and dropped me back to Earth. Everything around me was the same but I felt just a little bit different about the world around me.

Some parts of motherhood came easily to me, from my ninja diapering skills to the deep, unwavering love I developed for my son. Other parts were not so easy: the lack of sleep, the extra worrying, the fact that it took me 40 minutes to get out the door to make a Target run.

But the hardest part of all was where to put the career I loved and nurtured for more
AUTOMOTIVEthan a decade. If my son was my true north, where did my trusty old true north – the one that wore pinstriped pant suits – where did she go?

I went back to work after a fleeting maternity leave. I needed to work financially and I needed to work because I was not sure who I was without the career that had become an integral part of my being.
Continue reading “Welcome to MotherBoard”

Building MotherBoard: The $1.6M Offer

MotherBoard. We’re a little obsessed with the name over here. But it’s more than a name to us, it’s the platform from which to launch our community.  It also happens to be an “important piece of electronics” according to the person in the Cayman Islands who has been holding an iron grip on the domain name since 2003.

One of our top priorities was to bring MotherBoard to life with a proper domain name. And not just any name- one that gave due respect to the strong brand we were building. Searching for our ideal domain name felt a bit like match day for medical residents.  You put in your desired name and hope for your first choice as the Safari rainbow swirl pulls your fate out of the internet abyss.

No sooner could we say “MotherBoard” did we have our answer:

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We found comfort in the fact that while the domain name was owned, it was not in use. Surely we could purchase it. We could see that the owner had purchased it in 2003 (if only we had thought of this sooner!) and that the person was registered to an address in the Cayman Islands (pretty far from Cleveland).

MotherBoard Team, meet your squatter. Continue reading “Building MotherBoard: The $1.6M Offer”

The Pitch

 

Accelerate-Winners-PicsMotherBoard was an idea rattling in our brains for a long time. But it came to the bright lights of a big stage for the first time on February 24, 2016 at the Cleveland Leadership Center’s Accelerate 2016 civic pitch competition. It was a phenomenal night, celebrating the exciting future of our beloved city and bringing together friends and colleagues who shared big dreams for igniting change in our region and beyond.

Check out Jess’ pitch below. A few details have changed as our discovery process and business plan progressed but the nuts and bolts are here and you can definitely see the spark of something we know will be great!