Takeaways From Last Night’s Circle of Moms Incubator
Big thanks to all who came out to yesterday to the Girls In Tech Incubator event featuring Circle of Moms. For those of you not familiar with our Incubator events, they are usually smaller, informal events where we speak with the founder of a company to learn more about their business, how they got started, challenges they faced and lessons learned. The events are largely driven by the audience and what they want to know. In addition, it’s an opportunity for the company to solicit feedback and ideas from Girls In Tech members.
If you happen to miss last night’s event, here are a few takeaways:
1. You don’t need to be your own target demographic; it’s all about the user. It may seem ironic to some that Circle of Moms was founded by two guys, neither of which are fathers, but last night we learned that falling outside your key demographic target has its advantages. According to founder Ephraim Luft, the team is only responsible for building the technology, but it’s the mothers and the relationships they share with each other that make the site a success. Being male forces the company to come up with product features based on the actions of their users, not by assuming they know what the user wants. They are dependent on listening to and understanding their customers’ needs. Focus groups, surveys and user behavior on the site all help to drive new features.
2. Don’t be afraid to evolve your product into something different. Something I didn’t note above is that the two male founders did not set out to build a site geared towards mothers. The site was originally called Circle of Friends and was a place for everyone to connect. As Circle of Friends grew, Ephraim and his partner realized that their most active and passionate users were mothers. Being the analytical, methodical business people that they are, they decided to capitalize on this and focus their attention on mothers. They began building a product that truly caters to the needs of mothers and the site evolved into Circle of Moms.
3. It’s all about Word of Mouth. One thing I found particularly amazing about the company is their viral growth. The company did not do any direct marketing or PR yet still managed to build up over 850,000 registered users. So the question is- how did they do it? Obviously there is no simple answer to this question as every site, product or company is different. According to Ephraim, the company focused on getting users to market the service to one another. They spent a lot of time looking at data and user funnels to come up with an effective system to allow users to market to one another. Of course the Facebook application helped, as well as their community manager, who is a mother herself. All of this has lead Circle of Moms to great success since the official launch in October 2008.
4. Circle of Moms is hiring! Job openings have not been posted anywhere yet, but if you are looking for a job in business development, marketing or product management email jobs@circleofmoms.com. Bonus points if you are a mom 
If you attended last night’s event and you have any takeaways you’d like to share, please do so in the comments. If you are a Circle of Moms member, you can provide feedback on the site at feedback@circleofmoms.com.
