MOMPRENEURS SHARE THEIR SUCCESS STORIES

Last night, I attended a packed-to-the rafters event at Kidville in the upper east side.The event was organized by Collective-E and Big City Moms.

Moderatedby Collective-E founder Beth Schoenfeldt, the panel featured mompreneurs - mom entrepreneurs - who shared stories of how they took ideas for products and services and turned those ideas into reality. The speakers included Ellen Diamant, Co-Founderof Skip Hop; Grace Welch, Founder of Patemm Pad; Shari Misher Stenzler, Co-Founder of Kidville; and Risa Goldberg and Leslie Venokur, Founders of Big City Moms.

Although each woman had her own story to share about her journey as an entrepreneur, all of them shared a common lesson learned: "You can't do it all." These ladies stressed the importance of asking for help in every stage of the game, from conceptualizing a product or service to producing it to getting the word out about it. Phrases repeated often throughout the evening were: get help, hire people, get interns, barter services, ask family for assistance.

One of the liveliest stories of the evening came from Grace Welch of Patemn Pad, who was contacted via phone by The Oprah Winfrey Show one day and whisked off to Chicago within hours of the call to participate in an episode about moms who invented products for other moms.

The evening ended with time for participants to network and collect goodie-bags full of promotional products.