Archive for the 'babble soft' Category
June 22, 2009
This is a hard post for me to write, but there are times in life when the best way to handle hard things is to just deal with it head on. I had some time and space to reflect during my recent beach vacation.
Babble Soft, an idea that I started tinkering around with after my first baby was born in 2003 (our first beta web app release was in 2007 and iPhone app in 2009), has reached a point where my partner, Nicole Johnson, and I can’t do it justice and build it to the company it could be. We just don’t have the monetary and time resources that a consumer web and mobile (iPhone) based product Baby Insights and Baby Say Cheese require to become a household name. I’ve been working on Babble Soft part time while balancing kids, the house, etc. for most of the company’s life. I spent a few months full time on it just before I took a day job about a year ago and now the time has come to find a new home for it. Nicole has been working on this part time, after hours, as well.
We are both discovering that Building A Web Business After Hours is hard to do with two small kids around. And doubly hard when two ventures are trying to get off the ground in one household: my husband is starting the pre-K to 2nd grade Magellan School that’s scheduled to open this Fall and our resources are also being tied up with that and our kids will be attending the school.
Nicole and I both believe in web applications to help make parents of newborn’s lives easier, and we want to find a good home for Babble Soft with someone who can take our vision to the next level. We will continue to support our existing customers and any future customers so please don’t worry about that. We have a high bar set for customer service! We just can’t take it to the level (with all the exciting new applications we have planned) where we know it could be right now in our lives, but we know there is someone or some company who can.
If you know of someone who might be interested, please email me at blogger(at) babblesoft(dot)com to discuss further. Please pass a link to this post to everyone you know!
Motherhood is not always peaches & cream and being a mom entrepreneur adds a little extra challenge to the process so sometimes it’s the hard calls that can make the difference in a company’s and person’s success.
Thanks to all of you readers for your continued support and sticking with me through my unusual parenting and entrepreneurial journeys!
Aruni Gunasegaram
President/Founder
(512) 961-6002
Nicole Johnson
VP Product Development
(512) 961-6002
April 20, 2009
By day I run operations at The Austin Technology Incubator (ATI) and this year it turns 20 years old. By night I am mom to two amazing kids, work on Babble Soft, and often fail at my attempts to meditate. I did a guest post on the Austin Startup blog called obviously enough:
I shared my story of being a founder/CEO starting my first company at ATI and how I see how it has evolved over the past several years since I first officed there on the other side of the fence back in 1998.
January 15, 2009
We are finally using an email marketing tool versus my hodge podge attempts at emailing our customers and friends many moons ago. It doesn’t look so professional when posting it here but I’m living life on the edge or ledge or whatever. And if you take our marketing survey, you will be entered to win up to $450 in prizes in the form of free Babble Soft subscriptions and Amazon gift certificates that you can buy your spouse, significant other, companion, child, co-worker, boss, employee, mother, brother, father, aunt, uncle, sister, mistress, masteress, lover, something lovely for Valentine’s Day!
Oh and did I tell you we just released an alpha version of our new iPhone application! The iPhone is so freaking cool!
****
Hello Babble Soft Friends and Customers -
Happy New Year! It’s been quite some time since we sent out an official newsletter so we thought now would be a good time to tell you what we’ve been up to. Here’s what’s in this newsletter:
A New Partner On Board – Baby Sleep Expert
Survey Opportunity – Giving away up to $450 in prizes
Babble Soft Going Mobile (iPhone)!
The Babble Soft Blog – NEW!
Special Discounts through February 15, 2009
A New Partner On Board – Baby Sleep Expert
The biggest Babble Soft news that will make all of our lives easier is that we brought on a new partner! Her name is Nicole Johnson and she is our new VP of Product Development. If you want to know how we found her, please see a recent article I wrote on GigaOm called 5 Tips for Vetting a Partner Online. Now when we have bug or feature requests, she will be able to figure out how to fix them much faster. Nicole is amazing and not only is she going to help improve our existing Babble Soft applications, she’s also going to help bring new applications and features to market with the first new mobile application being available already (see below)!
Nicole is also the founder of Pick Nick’s Brain, where she offers an ebook and advice on how to help your baby sleep better. You can keep track of your baby’s sleep patterns using Baby Insights, share your reports with her and she can impart her sage advice to you!
I am so excited to have her as part of the team! Please say hello and/or send her any feedback on the website and applications. You can reach her at nicole@babblesoft.com.
A Quick, Fabulous, and Lucrative Survey – Up to $450 in prizes
In order to provide you with quality service and understand your needs better, we have designed a quick 10 question survey to help us provide the best, most useful products and services for new parents.
Please take a few minutes to take the survey by clicking the link below and enter to win several prizes just in time for Valentine’s Day! Feel free to forward this survey to other new or expecting parents who might be interested in Babble Soft applications.
Click Here to take survey
We will pick the winners based on a random drawing after the survey is closed on January 30, 2008. If you want to be eligible for the prizes, please don’t forget to fill in your name and email address at the end of the survey.
1. First Prize: $100 gift certificate to Amazon and Two 6-Month Babble Soft email gift subscriptions (worth $29.95 each).
2. Second Prize: $50 gift certificate to Amazon and Two 6-Month Babble Soft email gift subscriptions (worth $29.95 each).
3. Third Prize: $25 gift certificate to Amazon and One 6-Month Babble Soft email gift subscriptions (worth $29.95 each).
4. Fourth Prize: Three lucky winners who weren’t selected to win any of the above prizes will get One 12-Month Babble Soft email gift subscriptions (worth $37.95 each) to use yourself or give to any expecting family members or friends.
Babble Soft Going Mobile (iPhone!)
Baby Insights 3.0 Alpha is now iPhone compatible! We have just released the Mom Pump & Feed and the Baby Bottle Feeding portions of the new application. We will be releasing sleep, diaper, and medicine tracking as soon as possible!
The application has been optimized (i.e., looks the prettiest) for the iPhone and we continue to work to make it look nice on the Blackberry browser and Opera Mini browser on the Blackberry. For those of you with an account, you can log in by going to http://m.babblesoft.com/ and enter your user name and password to get started.
Since this is an alpha release, if you find a bug let us know and we’ll add a month to your subscription or give a one month subscription in your honor to the person of your choosing! That’s a $9.95 value!
The Babble Soft Blog – NEW!
In addition to my blog, entrepreMusings, and Nicole’s blog at Pick Nick’s Brain, we just launched a blog on Babble Soft’s website located at www.babblesoft.com/blog where we will offer unique baby tips, advice, parent stories, etc. Sign up for FREE updates via e-mail or preferred RSS reader. Don’t miss even the first post!
We also welcome guest posts on your parenting experiences and will gladly link back to your sites and blogs. We look forward to you stopping by, subscribing, and/or sharing your comments with us on The Babble Soft Blog!
Special Discounts through February 15, 2009
In case your name doesn’t get pulled to win any of the free subscriptions from completing our survey, we are offering a New Year’s discount so you can still buy a Babble Soft subscription for yourself or your friends using coupon code: BABNOW15 for 15% off purchases from now until February 15, 2009.
Please also feel free to give the gift of sleep to yourself and your family members by using coupon code BABBSPEC for 15% off any baby sleep consulting services at Pick Nick’s Brain during the month of January 2009.
Please do not hesitate to contact us if you have any questions. Happy New Year!
Thank you,
Aruni and Nicole
Posted by Aruni
10:41 am •
babble soft •
December 22, 2008
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. 
December 11, 2008
It’s been a whole week since I last posted something despite wanting desperately to do so. As usual, life got in the way. I participated in a fabulous 3 day and 1 weeknight long seminar called the Landmark Forum last weekend which was extremely time intensive and extremely insightful. I’ll write more about it when I get the chance.
My new Babble Soft partner and I have been been making progress on a new blog, new product development, and other creative endeavors.
Life at my day job has been interesting in as much as office politics are interesting. It’s amazing how one person can cause so much strife and another so much joy and both be in the same organization.
So until life provides me a window of opportunity to write about the
a) Landmark Forum,
b) our “fireside” chat with Jimmy Treybig, founder of Tandem Computers and partner at venture capital firm NEA and Jim Hoover, investor, entrepreneur, and ex-Navy Seal,
c) how the difference between being perceived as stubborn or persistent is how pretty you are,
d) school supplies,
e) Poke Mon,
f) a new children’s book called Nacho the Party Puppy, and/or
g) how my 6 year old son is so wise and smart
go re-read my post called The Strength of a Thought. It might be the most profound post I’ve ever written — well at least according to my aunt!
November 23, 2008
I’m excited to announce that I’ve found a new business partner for Babble Soft! You can see the full write-up on GigaOm on the post 5 Tips for Vetting a Business Partner - Online. The really neat thing is that I have never physically met Nicole Johnson. We did the whole transaction online, on Skype, and on the phone…a true first for me.
Nicole is our new VP of Product Development, a mother of two, and is amazingly talented! So in case it isn’t obvious by her title, we will be releasing some new products in 2009…
I can’t republish the entire article here because I wrote it originally for GigaOm which may get redistributed throughout their entire network! So go read 5 Tips for Vetting a Business Partner - Online and share your comments.
September 21, 2008
Photo by Sandy Blanchard
Yes, the title of this post is another fortune from a fortune cookie I got a few weeks back at PF Changs, and I’ve found it true in many respects in my life and career. [As an aside, I started this post while listening to Chiquitita by ABBA and after a glass of red wine! I'm usually not able to write or think while music is on because I'm easily distracted so take that into consideration as you read.]
The title of this post is also in a well known Christian Bible verse in the book of Luke Chapter 11 verse 9 (”And I say to you, ask and it shall be given to you: seek, and you shall find; knock and it shall be opened to you.“). I believe when you set your intention on something, if it’s with pure intentions, and if it’s meant to be something will happen. It may not be what you envision but something happens. I guess it’s sort of a cross between the belief that many people hold like Edward Mills, who writes about the Law of Attraction, and taking destiny in your hands. You seek but you also pay attention to what people are saying and doing.
I’ve had people tell me I’m lucky to a) start a company before, b) to get the education I’ve gotten, c) to find the amazing childcare for our kids, for d) having the friends I have, d) to have the things we do, e) etc., etc., etc. What most people haven’t seen is the hard, dark times in between that I’ve been through. I’d venture to say that most people who the world perceives as doing something beyond “normal” have struggled through many things.
I’ve always felt there is a healthy portion of luck involved but also a good portion of seeking, asking questions, and listening involved. Finding good childcare (gosh we are so lucky with the people we had take care of our kids part time and full time when they were little and where they go to school and pres-school now — knock on wood!) didn’t just happen because I sat on my couch all day. Finding good jobs or opportunities didn’t happen because I was watching TV or drowning my sorrows (which is tempting!). Plus, I think I like to see the good in people and expect great things from them so when I do get disappointed, it is pretty deep.
So just over a month ago, I finally let the realization that I could not continue with Babble Soft with a day job and no funding, and I needed to do something different hit me. There are many options out there including a) moving on to something else, b) finding a business partner, c) finding a large baby-related company to take the risk early on and buy us. Given the economy and the hard realization that we are in fact creating a market with Babble Soft, option c) is unlikely. And I’m not ready to just give up. So now I’m seeking a business partner (so I’m not just a lone pumpkin by a tree). Hopefully, the right person will happen across my path…maybe she or he already has!
I’m wrapping up this post listening to 70s music…for some reason I enjoy listening to 70s music. I also enjoy 80s music but there is just a deepness to 70s music that resonates with me sometimes. The song currently on is Piano Man written by Billy Joel. I was fortunate enough to hear Billy Joel in Concert when I lived in Dallas several years ago and I remember thinking to myself “What a feeling it must be to hear hundreds, nay thousands, of people singing along word for word to a song you’ve written.” It must be so energizing yet so surreal at the same time. I wonder if I’ll ever experience that kind of feeling…
September 11, 2008
Photo by Sandy Blanchard
There’s a little hurricane heading our way here in Texas called Ike. Many places along the coast have been issued mandatory evacuation notices, including Houston, one of the largest and sadly also one of the fattest cities in the country. Houston has also still been working on integrating all the permanent victims of hurricane Katrina (2005) that evacuated to their city since then.
The schools here in Austin are closing early tomorrow, airports are in a muddle, and far more importantly for all of you college football fans out there, they have actually rescheduled the UT Austin vs. Arkansas football game that was going to be held this Saturday! Of all the things that have been happening, I think rescheduling a college football game in a college town that’s not directly in the landing path of the hurricane speaks volumes about the fears and concerns of the people around here as well as the anticipated amounts of rain.
So shifting to HARO (Help A Reporter Out) and it’s relation to hurricanes, it might be a stretch but Peter Shankman (the founder) seemed to bring it out from nowhere a few months ago and now he has tons and tons of subscribers – both reporters and sources. He’s managed to make ProfNet/PR Newswire nervous because he’s giving all his leads out for free and us resource and money constrained entrepreneurs are loving it. He even got on the radar screen of Seth Godin who mentioned Peter and linked to HARO on a recent Getting reporters to call you post.
I can quickly scan the queries and make a decision as to whether to try to pitch based on my company and my personal background. Because of HARO, I don’t have to pay tons of money to get access to these great queries from reputable sources. I have had couple of people interested in learning more about Babble Soft (mostly bloggers) and am crossing my fingers that I’ll soon have the opportunity to share with national/international reporters my ideas on how the world of parenting is changing and how technology can support that transition! I guess I’m hoping that by using HARO I can eventually create a hurricane of activity around my company. 
So may you all be safe and avoid the disastrous effects of Hurricane Ike but also take advantage of HARO (tell your friends). I, for one, am glad the last two big hurricane’s have male names instead of female ones like Katrina. I was getting a bit tired of all the jokes/innuendos surrounding the big hurricanes being referred to as feminine and destructive.
Posted by Aruni
8:32 pm •
FYI,
babble soft,
rain •
September 7, 2008
A couple of friends of mine recently released a book called Some Assembly Required: A Networking Guide for Women
and for some bizarre reason, they actually included me in their book! I guess that means I’m a good example of how to network.
I’ve known the authors, Thom Singer and Marny Lifshen, for probably close to 8 or 9 years now. I met them somewhere along the journey of my first high-tech startup and we’ve remained in touch off and on since then. In fact, Marny was one of the very first beta testers of Baby Insights when her daughter was born!
For long time readers of my blog, you may remember that Thom Singer did a great guest post called Networking and the Stay at Home Parent that continues to get a lot of eyeballs. If my 2009 SXSW interactive panel idea is selected, then Thom will serve on the panel with me because he is building his speaking and writing career after hours just like I’m trying to do with Babble Soft.
The book is easy-to-read, easy-to-understand, and a great reference guide for those looking for some tips on how to network. Although it’s written for women in mind, much of the advice they share is great for men too!
I attended an informal book party they held this weekend at Marny’s house and gladly paid for my autographed copy. Check it out and look for my name in the Acknowledgements and in a nice little vignette on page 172. See below for a link to buy their book at Amazon:
August 14, 2008
Earlier this year, I had such a great time at SXSW Interactive 2008, that I submitted a panel idea for SXSW Interactive 2009 called Building A Web Business After Hours and more people than I thought are interested in seeing it happen!
Panel Description: Many businesses are built after-hours or during odd hours of the day and night. Join us for a panel discussion by entrepreneurs who built (or are building) their Web/E-commerce/Other business while holding a day job, multiple jobs, or who are currently balancing two+ career options.
For those of you who don’t know, I am attempting to build a web business (Babble Soft) after hours and lets just say it has it’s ups and downs but mostly it’s really hard and challenging with a big upside bejng that in my day job I get to be around other entrepreneurs.
How many of you (or people you know) are building sites and businesses in their spare time (on the side)? What kind of businesses are they? Many great businesses start with tinkering on the side…
I’ve started to assemble a great group of panelists including:
- One of the co-founders of BlogHer, the top female blogging site in the world that has partnerships and customer relationships with some of the top recognized brands in the world! Elisa Camahort Page, a co-founder, awesomely mentioned my panel in her Time to vote for SXSW panels post. Check out Elisa’s post to see the other great panels she’s recommending.
- Thom Singer is the director of business development for Austin based vcfo. Additionally he is the author of four books about the power of business relationships and is a professional speaker. With the support of his employer, he successfully manages his job and his own business, speaking to companies around the country on how to network. He blogs at Some Assembly Required.
- Karen Bantuveris, Austin founder & CEO of VolunteerSpot, knows firsthand what ‘juggle’ means. She’s built VolunteerSpot from the ground up while running a successful management development and executive coaching business, and being active in her daughter’s school PTO Board and Scout troop. She even manages to sleep, occasionally.�
- Jeremy Bencken, co-founder of ApartmentRatings.com, Tenant Market, and PR for Pirates. Jeremy and his wife, Katie, founded ApartmentRatings.com in 2000 out of their one bedroom apartment in Mountain View. They bootstrapped the site while attending business school at UT-Austin and then during full-time jobs for 4 years before selling the company to Internet Brands in 2007. Along the way they grew traffic to over 12M unique visitors per year (without an ad budget), built a base of advertisers, fought off frivolous lawsuits, and got their site featured on NPR Marketplace, and in stories in the NY Times and AP.
Please, please, please go vote for the panel by clicking on this link: Building A Web Business After Hours. I believe 30% of the weight on whether a panel is chosen is from people like you voting. The only downside is that you have to create a log in, but the upside is that you will be in the SXSW system and see all the other cool panels going on and vote for many more!
Thanks and I look forward to seeing some of you at SXSW next year. 
July 3, 2008
I hope everyone here in the US enjoys their long 4th of July holiday weekend. We’ll be heading to a couple of parties with some fireworks and sparklers so I know the kids will enjoy themselves immensely and we’ll be making sure they don’t burn themselves on the sparklers.
Since we no longer have a tree to put our US Flag on, I’ll have to do an extra patriotic blog post!
By now most people around the world know that July 4th is when we here in the US celebrate our Independence as a country. We celebrate our freedom by getting together with friends to watch fireworks.
I’m not sure what our troops overseas do on July 4th or even if they will get to see fireworks in Iraq, Afghanistan, or elsewhere. I bet they miss their home and would look forward to communicating with people back home.
So, if you would like to share emails with someone in the military, you should sign up at eMail Our Military and have them assign you an active duty military personnel to communicate with. I signed up and hopefully soon I’ll get assigned someone to share experiences with back home. It only costs $2 plus a couple of stamps!
Also, my company, Babble Soft, partnered with eMail Our Military to offer free subscriptions to active duty military personnel with newborns to help them stay connected while they might be separated by thousands of miles.
Happy 4th of July!
June 29, 2008
It’s been a while since I’ve shared a Parent Story and now we have a great one! I met this fabulous mom (Kerry Reynolds), who also happens to be a doula, on twitter. I was introduced to her by none other than her mother, Susan Reynolds, of Frozen Pea Fund and Boobs on Ice fame! Check out the post I did on the Frozen Pea Fund back in December 2007.
Stories like these are what keep me going and and make all the ups and downs of being an entrepreneur building Babble Soft all worth while!
Mother: Kerry (SAHM/Birth Doula)
Father: Mike (Project Manager)
Baby: Emma
Born: April 2008
Place: Burke, VA
Browser: Mozilla Firefox v2.0.0.11
Website: www.birthinbloom.com
Kerry’s story
Emma is my second child and her birth was long awaited as she was seven days overdue! Labor lasted 20 hours and was exhausting. In the process I was up for 50 hours straight and was so ready to come home. After Emma was born we brought her to her first doctor’s appointment only to discover she had a worrisome case of baby jaundice. We were concerned about her health and the doctor told us to make sure we kept careful watch of her weight gain, feedings, and diapers. We were very worried about little Emma but little did we know at that time, jaundice would be the least of our concerns.
When Emma was one and a half weeks old she had a frightening episode which resulted in a trip to the emergency room. We discovered she has a heart condition called Wolffe Parkinson White and learned she would need to be on a heart medication until she reaches three years old, when her heart will be large enough to have a surgery to correct the defect. After three nights in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) we arrived home frantic and sleep deprived, her medication schedule had to be so exact that we needed Baby Insights to help us keep track of every detail of her routine. In addition, her dosage was on a schedule to increase as her weight increased so it was imperative that we monitor it closely.
Babble Soft helped us through some challenging times
The information I got from using Baby Insights was and continues to be extremely useful! It helped us think in a time we could barely add two plus two or string coherent sentences together. The ability to go to one place and see all of Emma’s information was a life saver. I use Baby Insights to:
- Keep detailed notes on how often and when she was eating, which helped us track improvements in her jaundice and report feedings to her pediatrician and cardiologist.
- Monitor her diaper changes so that we could feel comfortable she was in fact absorbing her food and that all was working well.
- Monitor her heart medication which helped us remember the exact time and dosage as that is a critical part of keeping any further episodes at bay.
- Keep track of how much breast milk I was pumping to make sure we had enough to give to baby Emma and to ensure my milk supply would stay steady and increase over time.
- Stay aware of any decreases in her appetite as this could be a sign of another episode with her heart.
—End—
If you are interested in participating in your very own user story, please activate a FREE Babble Soft Trial. All you need is an email address! If you find that Babble Soft applications work for you and you want to tell the world about your great experience, please email us at info at babblesoft dot com for more information.
June 15, 2008
You’ve probably seen those Nationwide insurance commercials that go something like “Life comes at you fast. That’s why there’s Nationwide.” And they show people whose car gets hit by a garage door, a leaf blower or some other random, humorous, or shocking thing. Check out some of their video ads on their site.
Photo by Sandy Blanchard
Well in every entrepreneurial journey things can happen fast and often there appears a fork in the road. I decided to pick one of the paths that will have quite an impact on my ability to spend time on Babble Soft. The opportunity presented itself when I wasn’t looking and I had to take a cold, hard look at it. The difference between success and failure can often come down to being open to opportunities that seem to randomly present themselves.
The decision on which path to take was not an easy one. It was not made without much thought, stress, doubt, questions, frustration, etc., but I believe it is the right decision for me, my family, and yes even for Babble Soft.
I worked part-time on Babble Soft for a while and started full time in late 2007. As some of you know, I went out to raise funds in early February 2008. By end of March and early April (because I’ve raised funds before and could see the writing on the wall) it became clear to me this was not going to happen right now for a variety of reasons including:
- We are too early. In other words, we don’t yet have enough users or market traction to make investors comfortable enough to take the bet given they have started losing money on many of their Web 2.0 companies that they invested in at the concept or early beta stage. It’s become clearer to me that we are trying to “create a market” which is often quite painful and takes a long time. Therefore, I cannot yet prove that the market is HUGE for what we were trying to do. By the way, what you see on the site is just a fraction of what I envision as a site for new parents. It also did not help that we continue to struggle to find a good SEO rhythm due to a variety of reasons including the fact we are, as I mentioned, for all intents and purposes making a market.
- I need a business partner. It’s tough going it alone without someone to bounce ideas off of on a daily basis. What I need is a strong technical co-founder and/or an expert consumer marketing partner. I remember meeting with another Austin entrepreneur, Chris Justice of Sparksight, a while back and he shared with me a sound bite from one of his mentors: “People fund teams, not individuals.” My husband helps me a lot, but he has a full time job and isn’t really into the business concept the same way I am.
- The economy is in flux. Investors and consumers alike are concerned about the economy, high gas prices, home foreclosures, job losses, the presidential election, impending tax increases, etc. and their behavior and outlooks have changed. I won’t freak you out with links to all the articles about the demise of Web 2.0/social networks and people losing their money and their jobs but suffice it to say there are many. There’s also a lot of good stuff happening but uncertainty is definitely in the air.
- Other personal stuff I can’t blog about yet but which is probably the biggest driving force for choosing this path right now.
So, not being one to continue banging bang her head against a brick wall, I took a J-O-B (another form of insurance that I don’t think Nationwide or any other insurance company offers) to support my entrepreneurial addiction!
I wasn’t looking, but the opportunity arose for an interesting, most likely fun, hopefully low stress job working with people I like. My boss (who has been a long time subscriber to my blog) is a very cool guy who I’m sure I’ll enjoy working with. He knows I will continue working on Babble Soft and is very supportive of my doing so. He also knows I’m a mom to two great kids and wife to a pretty good guy. 
I’m excited about the potential of this job combined with what’s going on in the rest of my life. Of course, I will have to become a guru in time management to make it all work.
The entrepreneurial lifestyle is not made up of beautifully paved, straight roads. There are often detours and roundabouts. Right now I’m crossing my fingers that this path I’ve chosen will lead to bigger and better things for me, my family, and my company. A friend of mine, who is a screen writer trying to make it big in Los Angeles, CA (probably similar odds to building a successful company), wrote an excellent post about his decision four years ago to do the same thing I’m doing now when he took a job. He reflects on how its been both a good and bad decision for his goal to become a recognized, well-paid screen writer.
I’ll continue to blog and will eventually tell you more about my new ‘day job’ so Sign up for free email updates so you can see a) how I make it work or b) a train wreck in action. If you see a train wreck about to happen, please leave comments and maybe if I read enough of them, I can find a way to build another track or jump off the train beforehand!
Aruni
May 29, 2008
Trish and I were pleasantly surprised at the number of people who blogged and tweeted about our partnership with eMail Our Military that we announced just before Memorial Day weekend. We are forever grateful for them in helping us spread the word about Babble Soft giving free subscriptions to Baby Insights and Baby Say Cheese to active duty military with newborns who are members of eMail Our Military! We’d like to thank each and every one of them!
Please check out their posts and leave them a comment and let them know how great it is that they picked up a partnership created by two entrepreneurs who are trying hard to make a difference in the world. 
If you’ve blogged or tweeted about it and we missed it, please let us know and we’ll add you to the list. Even though it’s past Memorial Day, if you are only now finding out about our partnership, please continue to tell everyone about it because the partnership is ongoing and Father’s Day is just around the corner. We will still link to your post!
Blog Posts
Fred Wilson at A VC - Memorial Day
Jeff Nolan at Venture Chronicles - Markets are Communities
Maryam Scoble at Maryamie - Memorial Day
Lauren Vargas at This Mommy Gig - Serving the Homefront
Robert Hacker at Sophisticated Finance - Memorial Day
Barbara Ling at - 77 Great Resources for Memorial Day (she links to www.eMailOurMilitary.com)
Jeremy Bencken at PR4 Pirates - Anatomy of an A-List Blog Mention
Omar Gallaga at Austin 360 - Post-Memorial Day Web catch-up
Ashlee Allen of Mama Speaks - Keeping in Touch State Wide
Nicole Johnson at Pick Nick’s Brain - Quick Tip - Logging Sleep
Tweets
Pistachio - Challenging: newborns. More challenging: while your partner’s on active duty. @emailourmilitary @aruni memday help http://tinyurl.com/5gmmrs
KeithBurtis - (aruni)Happy Memorial Day! Help us spread news of @MailOurMilitary (aka @Dayngr) and @babblesoft partnership http://tinyurl.com/5gmmrs...
MikeChapman - Two of my favorites! @MailOurMilitary and @babblesoft join forces post http://tinyurl.com/5gmmrs
TroyTurner - @aruni , @dayngr FYI - I just fwd’d your offer to some insiders at Walter Reed, Ctr for the Intrepid-BAMC, and Naval Med Ctr-San Diego.
MackCollier - Retweeting @aruni: @MackCollier @MailOurMilitary and I have positive news to share too re: Memorial Day http://tinyurl.com/5gmmrs
NewMediaJim (we know he tweeted but can’t seem to find the tweet now)
Hametner - @aruni @mailourmilitary Glad to see the partnership between www.BabbleSoft.com and www.eMailOurMilitary.com, looks like a great fit!
May 23, 2008
I met a gal on twitter who tweets by the name of @MailOurMilitary and @Dayngr. Her real name is Trish. We got to tweeting and emailing and then talking.
Since Trish had gone through the hardship of being away from her husband when her first child was born, we both thought it would be a great idea to join forces to offer members of her non-profit organization, eMail Our Military free subscriptions to Babble Soft applications as well as access to a discount code for 20% off purchases for non-active military and friends.
So please let the military families you know about our offer and encourage them and others to sign up at eMail Our Military. We know there is no way to make up for the lost time and touch of a parent who is away but now they have access to a free tool that can help bridge the unavoidable physical gap between two parents of a precious newborn. We wanted to give people another reason, which is often overlooked (i.e., being away from their baby), to remember all those men and women who have put their lives at home on hold and/or laid down their lives to protect our freedom.
You can see the press release below, on our site, on PR Web, and on eMailOurMilitary’s blog. Trish also wrote a more personal blog post called Baby Memories, Milestones, and Our Military where she mentions her experience as a new mom whose husband has to leave one week after her baby was born!
Happy Memorial Day everyone!
Babble Soft and eMail our Military Join Forces to Offer Free Subscriptions to Babble Soft Applications for Active Duty Service Members with Newborns
Just in time for Memorial Day, Active Duty Service Members with Newborns now get free access to Babble Soft’s web and mobile applications through their membership at eMail Our Military.
AUSTIN, TX; MIAMI LAKES, FL - May 22, 2008 - Babble Soft and eMail our Military are partnering to offer free subscriptions to Baby Insights and Baby Say Cheese for active duty service members with newborns.
“We are very excited about the opportunity to partner with Babble Soft.” said Trish Forant, Founder and President of eMail our Military. “My husband was called into service only one week after our first child was born. I had very few friends and family to turn to for support where we were stationed and it was difficult for me to convey to him what I was going through with our new baby. I would have loved to have the online tools Babble Soft provides to communicate to him how often and when our baby was feeding, sleeping, etc. as well as important picture milestones!”
“Our goal at Babble Soft is to help strengthen and enhance connections between family members during that wonderful, yet chaotic time after a baby is born.” said Aruni Gunasegaram, founder and president of Babble Soft. “We support our troops and know how important it is for new parents who have to be away from their newborns to feel connected to what is going on at home. Partners can share experiences and photos with each other through Babble Soft’s unique web and mobile applications. As an added bonus, members of eMail our Military will have access to a discount code to purchase gift subscriptions for their other family members who may or may not have military ties.”
Baby Insights helps caregivers keep track of 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 a fun, cute picture postcards of any of your baby’s milestones to anyone with an email address!
About eMail our Military, Inc.
eMail Our Military was created in 2001 as a response to the DoD’s cancellation of the “Any Service Member” and “Operation Dear Abby” mail programs. As a safe alternative, eMOM picked up where these programs left off. eMail Our Military is composed of volunteers from all walks of life who understand that regardless of our political views, our military service members deserve our respect, support & encouragement. Website visitors can join and take part in a number of support projects ranging from sending eMail on a one-on-one basis with a service member to year round support projects that are open to the public. For more information on eMail Our Military, please visit http://www.eMailOurMilitary.com
About Babble Soft, LLC
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:
Trish Forant
eMail our Military, Inc.
(786) 228-7096
Info(at)eMailOurMilitary(dot)com
Aruni Gunasegaram
Babble Soft, LLC
(512) 961-6002
aruni(at)babblesoft(dot)com
Posted by Aruni
11:53 am •
FYI,
babble soft,
baby,
baby insights,
baby say cheese,
baby sleep,
breastfeeding,
diversity,
entrepreneurship,
father,
national holiday,
parenting,
twitter,
working father,
working mother •
