In the businesses of helping other Mums

SMTM Speaks with Candice Pendergast from Mum Space about starting your own business, Candice is the founder of Mum Space, shes in the "businesses of helping other Mums"

1. What is mumspace.net all about?

Mumspace.net is a place where mums can sign up for and set up their own space on the internet – their mumspace. Once it is set up, they can use it for whatever they want – keep a personal journal, create photo albums, make friends and network, promote their business – whatever they want. Mumspace is all about freedom – about making it easy for mums to really make their mark online.

2.How long has mumspace been up and running?

Mumspace has only been open to the public for about a month, but we did have an invite-only period of about a month before that, while we tested the technology. At the moment we are working on some big promotion campaigns and some new functionality that will make mumspaces a must-have for mums online.

3. Is your target mainly Australian mums? Or do you find yourself attracting interest from overseas as well?

At the moment we are mainly focusing on Australian mums with promotions, but we have had a lot of interest from overseas. We have mumspacers from the US, Canada and even a mum in Singapore.

4. What made you decide to start a website for mums?

As a journalist, I was initially going to start an e-zine for mums, and started by blogging on places like myspace and other social networks and blog sites. But the more I used them, the more I got frustrated with the mum-“unfriendly” environment. Mumspace initially started out as a hobby, to give me a platform to start my ezine on, but I have realized its potential to be such a tool to all mums, and here we are!

5. Did you have any prior experience in websites before you started mumspace?

While I have done a lot of online publishing, I have never set up my own website before. Every day is a learning curve!

6. Did you do any research before starting mumspace?

To be honest, not a lot. It started out as a hobby and wasn’t supposed to get this big. But while I didn’t do any official research, I did do a lot of reading up on what technology was out there and how it is being used, and found that this kind of technology wasn’t being used in Australia at this level, particularly amongst a niche group like mums.

7. What has been the most challenging part of starting mumspace?

Definitely time. My husband is helping me with the technology side of things, and this is in top of his full-time job, and with me still working bar shifts on the weekends to pay the bills. When my daughter is around sitting at the computer is impossible, so it has meant a lot of late nights!

8. Did you need a great deal of capital to start mumspace?

Not at all, but this is mainly because I haven’t needed to hire anyone to build it for me, as my husband has been handing all the technical stuff. As the site grows however we will require funding to keep it going, and will be looking at possibly getting some venture capital to help out.

9. What advice would you give to mums who wanted to start their own website?

Look around at what is already out there, and make sure your idea has a unique point of difference so you don’t get lost in the crowd. And make sure you have a good web designer – I was lucky enough to marry one!!

10. What advice would you pass on to those mums out there who would like to start their own business?

Believe in yourself. When you are starting out, it is easy to feel small in the face of big business. Talk yourself up to others and to yourself and be confident.

11. What are your long-term plans for mumspace?

Long term, I am looking to make mumspace.net the place to go to for mums online. I want to be able to give mums an opportunity to be really successful online and to be able to assist mums with real-life problems using their mumspace. I am also looking at extending the mumspace brand to include several different user-generated mum sites – but you’ll just have to wait to see what I have in mind!

About Mum space

Mumspace.net aims to give mums every opportunity to succeed, both personally and financially, and embrace the challenges that come with motherhood.

Founded by mums, mumspace.net is a service designed to bring together the fantastic technology today's web has to offer, and make it easy for your average mum to use. And while they're using it, they can band together with other mums within the mumspace.net community and continue to offer each other support and encouragement, whether child-related or not, through this thing they call motherhood.

Mumspace.net has come through many different stages, beginning as a single blogging engine and now becoming a social network which offers so much more to mums (or moms) everywhere - even our design has changed atleast three times!

Mumspace.net is here for the mothers of the world. At the moment, we have released in beta, which means that we are continuing to improve our services every day. To drop us a line, head to our Contact Us page. We look forward to hearing from you.

Click here to visit Mumspace.net

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