Celebrating One Year — Letter From The CEO
One year ago yesterday, MBA Mama was unveiled to the world.
As any entrepreneur can attest, the journey has been full of twists and turns. Nevertheless, Nicole and I would not trade this experience and the lessons we learned for anything. In the past 12 months, we have recorded 15K+ unique site visits and published more than 250 blog posts featuring dynamic, inspiring women who are living MBA Mama’s core mission. They are-
- military MBA moms
- entrepreneurs who dare to take risks to create the lives and careers they want
- investment bankers who put in long hours to provide a better life for their children
- current students who are balancing new babies with impending graduation
- expecting MBA moms preparing for the arrival of their first bundle of joy
We interviewed high profile MBA Mamas like Erika James, Dean of Emory’s Goizueta Business School and proven entrepreneur Stacy Blackman, a Kellogg MBA and CEO of Stacy Blackman Consulting. We even featured a history-making Harvard MBA Mama a full 6 months before she become 1/2 of the first all-female ticket elected as Harvard Business School’s Class president.
Our team is purposeful about ensuring that we feature women who are racially and ethnically diverse as well as varied in their backgrounds and career paths. We are proud to bring an international perspective to the MBA Mama community with stories featuring moms from countries like Turkey, Pakistan, India, France, the Dominican Republic, and China.
As our team charts the path forward, we will be crowdfunding a friends & family round to raise money to finance the development of products that align with our three C’s which are-
Content
In the next 12–18 months, we will be more methodical about the content we publish and our blog will continue to be 100% free to access. We do not want to introduce paid content because we want as many women as possible to have free and unfettered access to the information, tips, tools and resources we publish on our official blog. Additionally, we have intentionally chosen to restrict pop-ups and ads that could interrupt the user experience on our platforms. You can continue to look forward to thought-provoking, inspiring content that is ad-free.
We have a goal of increasing user engagement, so we encourage you to start leaving comments on articles you find interesting or even give opinions on posts you may disagree with. We will also be delivering a curated e-newsletter to your inboxes every Tuesday, rather than once per month. It is our hope that this will help spotlight interesting, inspiring content you may have missed on the blog.
Childcare Solutions
Thank you to everyone who completed our childcare solutions survey earlier this year. We received more than 50 responses from student parents at Wharton, Duke, Cornell, Harvard, Stanford, Chicago Booth, UCLA, Carnegie Mellon, UC-Berkeley, and Michigan Ross. After analyzing the survey data, we have conducted dozens of interviews with student parents and identified childcare as a major pain point for graduate students with kids — whether they are JD, MD, or PhD candidates.
While MBA Mama will continue to prioritize the needs of MBA moms, we will be broadening our scope to deliver innovative childcare solutions that aim to help all millennial parents save time and money. We will have more information about our game-changing idea to improve childcare next month when we launch our crowdfunding campaign. We hope we can count on your support.
Coaching
Next year, we plan to roll out a paid coaching platform that connects women with role models who can guide them strategically through MBA admissions, career management and the formation and implementation of entrepreneurial ventures. Not only will MBA Mama coaches focus on career guidance, but they will also specialize in helping women explore and navigate difficult questions related to family planning in the context of career management. We will be releasing a survey this summer to gather data about the specific types of coaching services our users are most interested in as we develop this offering.
In conclusion, I am happy about the progress we’ve made over the past year. I’m humbled by the roadblocks we’ve faced and I’m hopeful that the next year of MBA Mama’s life will be bigger and better! Please consider supporting our crowdfunding campaign which launches next month, and thank you so much for being part of the MBA Mama Movement.
Onward and Upward,
Divinity Matovu, MBA Mama Co-Founder/CEO
