How do you compete with the likes of CafeMom.com, MayasMom.com, MomJunction, and MothersClick.com? You guessed it, you include the dads in the message and in the solution.
Irked that when he became a new father, he couldn’t find a place to interact with other new parents that wasn’t totally geared towards moms, founder Eli Mandelbaum told me that Parentricity is different from most of the competitors in four key ways. These are that it is “(1) the only site that is product centric for parents; (2) the only site in the category for mothers and fathers; (3) the only site that allows parents to find, share, and see what their friends and other parents think of products that they are buying; (4) the only site in the category that hosts business profiles.”
The site is quite broad in terms of the number of capabilities it has. Video sharing, advice, blogging, forums, product reviews, and even contents are part of the mix.
Parentricity launched a private alpha in December of 2007 and has attracted about 33,000 parents so far. Somewhat ironically, less than 1/3 of these parents are male. Parentricity is aiming for both fathers and mothers, but so far most of the interest in products like this comes from the moms.
The three person company has raised a small round of financing from friends and family, and is currently seeking a larger angel round of about $500k. The company plans to monetize the service through advertising, e-commerce, commission-based relationships and strategic partnerships.
Parentricity is still in a closed “alpha” period, but Eli is allowing any Colorado Startups readers to use the site now. See, I get you in everywhere daddy-o.
