In a digital age, where information and advice are plentiful, soon to be parents can find themselves inundated with well-meaning guidance from friends, family, and even strangers online. This overwhelming influx of suggestions can leave people lost in a sea of options, or worse, purchasing expensive items they won’t use or don’t need.
This week we interviewed entrepreneur and mother, Lily Walla, about recognizing this issue and addressing it by creating a baby registry that will be seen as a powerful platform that uses community-based recommendations, tailored to the unique needs and preferences of expectant parents, to best help them decide what baby items to ask for or purchase. Lily’s platform introduces a baby registry that pulls together social network-based recommendations, carefully curated by experienced parents within your tailored community. This community of parents is tailored through a detailed survey upon registration, a customized registry with curated recommendations and need-to-know education, a place for gift-givers to order items directly from your account, and post-birth parents give product feedback to create guides to share with their community. Your community is established from a mix of input from your survey and the use of algorithms, to put you in contact with other parents you can trust!
Though Lily is building an online baby registry powered by social network-based recommendations, she is clear that this is also about helping moms feel seen and heard. The platform recognizes the time spent researching baby items, talking with friends or family about their favorite baby gear and shower gifts, or combing mom blogs for the safest car seats. The platform aims to help moms with the process of putting together a baby registry, with the hopes of creating an entire home for a new baby, in a faster, effective, and more personally curated way.
This community-centric approach better serves families because it gives expecting parents honest opinions and encourages them to pass their knowledge afterwards. Unlike other traditional registries, Lily’s encourages users to provide their own reviews once they vet an item or baby product. This dynamic enables parents to pay forward the guidance they received, forming a cycle of shared knowledge and support. “When I am pitching this to a group of women it clearly resonates. Why do we need validation from friends? Because it makes us feel like we’re doing a good job to be able to share our knowledge and pass on the baton. As parents we’ve walked a mile and now we can help others.”
Lily’s an inspirational mother and entrepreneur. With running her first business for nearly a decade-long, she decided to sell it as she stepped into motherhood. Her reservoir of expertise matched with her desire to make the transition into parenthood easier for others, makes Lily poised to really understand how to tackle the baby registry sphere. As an inspiration to other working moms, as she finds that perfect synergy in entrepreneurship that doesn’t detract from her role as a mom. Striking that balance is empowering, even though the maze of startup life can be demanding at all hours. Lily is based in Brooklyn in a building where 23 other toddlers under three also call home! What a better network of potential users for her new business than a building filled with new parents!
Are you as excited about this platform as we are?? Stay tuned and follow Lily @babyrecs to keep an eye out for her upcoming launch!
Christine Russell Janis writes about life as a mom of four children, living abroad, and travel on her life & style website ashadeofrose.com. You can also follow on social media @a.shade.of.rose.in.paris.
