Name: weeSpring
One-Liner Pitch: The first comprehensive social review site for baby products, where parents can research baby gear and follow other parent reviewers they know and trust.
Why It's Taking Off: Parents used to send 85-line Excel spreadsheets to friends who were expecting. WeeSpring uses the wisdom of the crowds and a simple rating system to help new parents find exactly what they need, from the pre-natal to pre-school stages.
As many new parents will tell you, navigating Babies R Us or Buy Buy Baby for the first time can be an overwhelming, maybe even terrible experience. And even if you do get over your initial anxiety, you probably won't know how to evaluate the products you're seeing. Of course, conversations about baby products are happening all the time — via email, detailed Excel spreadsheet, text message, Facebook query, phone call, face-to-face chat and more. But that intel isn't aggregated or organized for all to see — or at least, it wasn't until Ally and Jack Downey decided to make it happen.
Ally and Jack first met as co-workers on Eliot Spitzer's '04 campaign. Four years later, they married. Three years later, they had a baby. In 2012, they launched weeSpring, armed with wisdom from their MBA experiences (she at Columbia, he at NYU). Later this month, weeSpring will show its product to the world — and seed investors — at TechStars' Demo Day.
Some investors might be wary of husband-wife teams, but, "We joke that we worked together so well that we decided to get married," says Ally Downey. "It may get more challenging with traditional investors, but it gives us so much credibility with our users, and it's such an important part of our story."
After giving birth to their first child, Logan, the Downeys realized that the answers to most questions about pregnancy and raising newborns are product-related — formulas, food, onesies, toys, books, etc. For example, "What do I do when my baby is teething?" Downey quickly rattles off suggestions: wearable silicone Chewbeads necklaces, Hyland's teething gel, a teething feeder, and Advil, "but make sure you get the Advil without dye, because the dye will stain all the onesies." That's the kind of advice you could only get from a parent who's been in your shoes (the three weeSpring co-founders have three kids under the age of two!).
"It's astonishing how many of these questions are answered by products," says Downey.
Rather than letting new parents fend for themselves and forcing them to nag fellow parents for advice, the Downeys founded weeSpring as a one-stop shop for baby product information, tips, reviews and recommendations. Users log in with Facebook (you can be stealthy if you don't want to let the cat out of the bag), and indicate whether they own a product, and if so, whether they love it or regret it. (There's no five-star rating system because the average score for online ratings is 4.2 out of 5, which doesn't help you differentiate products.)
Users can leave reviews, which are capped at 250 characters so users are more inclined to share their experiences with a given product. When browsing the site, you can see what the entire weeSpring community thinks of a product, or you can filter to show just your friends. Each user has a profile with a bio that explains their approach to shopping for baby products, their kids' ages, whether they drive or take public transportation and whether they're a "minimalist" or "fully loaded" with baby products.
Each product page enables you to click through to purchase on Amazon (an integration with Yoyo is in the works), or you can add it to a wish list so friends can purchase the items as shower or birthday gifts. Every product on weeSpring has been rated by at least one user, and the site's 1,500 products have a combined total of 25,000 ratings (weeSpring doesn't disclose user numbers). The site welcomes suggestions for products, though Downey foresees a time when weeSpring will cap the number of products, so the platform is a curated search engine.
The site's navigation is clean, the layout is visual, and the platform is searchable and efficient — Downey describes it as "the opposite of a message board." If you're looking for information about baby food, strollers or childproofing, just go to dedicated sections.
The weeSpring blog addresses other issues (i.e. what to do with a carsick baby) and recommends products available through the site. The team is currently working with IDEO to build out a "burning questions" module that will function as a "visual Quora" for everything baby-related.
When you find out you're expecting, you'll want to make sure you're 110% prepared and have everything you need to be the best parent ever. WeeSpring seems like the right platform to help you efficiently glean and share advice with fellow parents to make sure you're well equipped for the job. After all, it was started by two parents who've been through it themselves.
Have you used weeSpring? Tell us about your experience in the comments.
Image via iStockphoto, STEEX
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