MomSpace: A Place to Get Things Done

When I told my 10-year-old I was going to meet the founders of MomSpace, an information resource and social networking site for moms, she said: "Moms don't have time for social networking!"

That's precisely what Erica Rubach and Joani Reisen had in mind when they conceived MomSpace. The new site was created to help moms find information fast to help us in every role of our lives—CEO of the house, woman in need of some R&R, mom in search of a reliable recommendation for a 7-year-old birthday party. It's designed with utility in mind first. There's a directory of local businesses and resources that can currently be tapped in 56 cities, and more will be added every week. With the site so new, you may not find every type of business you're looking for, but the founders say it will fill up quickly, especially as moms add their own recommendations.

They want MomSpace to be the one-stop web site where moms can take care of the stuff that keeps our home lives chugging along while planning what we need to do to take care of ourselves, too. You don't have to create a profile to use the directory and calendar on the site, but there's a simple sign-up if you want to review a business or a contractor and set up a profile for journaling and connecting with other groups of moms.

What you first see on MomSpace is your local weather forecast and tabs for a local directory, events calendar, and My MomSpace, where you can set up your profile, contact other moms, and write a journal for private or public consumption. The events calendar has event categories that start with me, romance, girls' night, and end with family.

As time goes on, they will be adding photo-sharing and other features to the site, Rubach says. But the focus will always be on utility.

Here's one of the best things about MomSpace. The site's advertising sales force is moms and only moms. They are training women across the country to sell ad space on the site. In return, the women earn 15-percent commissions on every sale and get sales training and experience for their resumes while they are home caring for their kids. I like that a lot. So far, there are 60 women on the sales team, and Rubach and Reisen have at least 200 more resumes to pour through.

Rubach has two daughters, ages 8 and 2, and Reisen has two sons, 6 and 4. The women forged the idea for MomSpace during longs talks over their shared experiences as parents of children with ADHD. Their strong desire to provide parents with special-needs children a forum to connect and share information led to the wider vision of MomSpace for all moms to get the information they need on just about anything from other moms.

The pair has had some offers by men who would like to be CEO of the site, but Rubach, who has eight years experience in TV news station marketing and business development, says she's it. The site, they promise, will always be run by moms. "The site is made my moms," Rubach says. "We are, every day, our product."

Moms need a reason to go back to a web site more than a few times, something Rubach and Reisen, a magazine publisher and entrepreneur, say they have found lacking in many other mom web sites, and I have to agree. Check it out and let me know if you think they've hit on the right mix of resources, info, and sharing to make you come back again, and again.