Something has changed!

I have been busy working on kidwinks.com. Our web developers sent us the most recent beta site last week. As usual, there were over 100 problems with the site. Links that go nowhere, run time errors, missing functionality and a huge number of other problems. This has been the way it has gone for 9 months. The only difference this time, is that they seem like they really want to fix the problems and do the work, quickly. We found out that the programmer who was creating our site didn't know what he was doing and has since been fired. Our project manager seems to be treating us as a client again as opposed to an open wound that won't go away. We may have a live site in the next month or two. I hate to be too optimistic. We have been told since May that we should be live next month, next month, next month...... We have another meeting tomorrow, we will see how that goes.

Birthing Gerbils

Our gerbil had babies last week. January 13, 2008 the same birthday as our cat (we had a party for the cat). Why is so easy for the gerbils to give birth to something and so hard for kidwinks.com. The gerbils, Sunny and Rocket weren't supposed to have babies. When we bought them they were supposed to be sisters. They were pretty young when we got them. They shared the same cage so they could hangout and play with each other. One day I noticed that Sunny was much larger than her sister Rocket. A couple of days later my sons came running upstairs yelling that Sunny had a baby. We instantly separated Rocket from mom and baby. Now I have two cages to clean. The baby didn't make it. Sunny was too young still when she had him. So you ask, if they are in two cages how could she get pregnant again? I wish they could fix rodents. When we take them out of the cage to play we let them run around together. We had to pull Rocket off of Sunny a lot but I thought we were on top of it. Seems we were a little too slow. So a couple of weeks ago I noticed that she was looking big again. She also started chewing everything and anything. Non stop chewing. She was getting ready to have her babies. That is what we are doing too. I think that the website is in labor. I am quickly trying to get everything ready for the delivery but I feel a bit overwhelmed. And like when I was going to have my children the hardest part was not knowing exactly when it was going to happen. One would think that giving birth to website would be more like having a cesarean. But it's not! This time it is the web developer who is in charge not the baby. Which is worse?

We still haven't seen the babies but we have heard them. Mom is keeping them undercover. I can't wait to see them.

SCORE Meeting

Yesterday we meet with the Des Plaines Chapter of SCORE "Counselors to America's Small Business". They are retired business executives who provide advice to start ups and small businesses. We talked to two men, Gene and Don. We presented our business idea and let them know where we are in the process. They liked our idea a LOT which is great they also gave us a couple of great ideas. One, to have a brochure and poster created by a professional. I have always thought that we needed to hire someone to help us create our marketing material. However, it was good for Jean to hear someone else say the same thing. Two, contact libraries and park districts first. Once we have the big guys on board with the website the smaller business will be more willing to follow.

Web Designer

We have a great website idea, we have a cool name now we needed to find someone to design the site for us. We considered designing it ourselves but thought it would take too long and we wanted it to look GREAT. First we tried people who we knew who designed websites. We sat down and talked to a couple of them. The plan was they would create the website in their spare time. We quickly realized that 1) they would not be able to get the site done quick enough and 2) it was too complicated for them to create. We then meet with two web developing firms. That is what there business was, designing websites. The first had been recommended to me by a friend. They had created a great site for a not-for-profit that she worked with and had only good things to say about the company. The second company was local which would make it easy to meet and they ran a lot of ads on the radio. We talked, we emailed our ideas, we meet with both companies, we emailed some more and some more. Finally we had made our decision. They had great ideas, it was a smaller company, we like the person we were dealing with. They were a little far away....all the way in Chicago, but that would be okay too. We liked the other company too or should I say that we liked the sales person we were dealing with. The reason we chose not to go with them was that their price was a little higher, we were not going to get as much, we feared that they would start to nickle and dime us for every little thing, we thought that our sales person was just that, a sales person and would be disinterested once the contract was signed. We were happy with our decision. They told us it would be two months before they could start on our project but that once they started it would only take 3 months to complete. We were fine with that. Were we excited and started to plan accordingly.

What shall we name our baby?

Once we had the idea for the website and all of the features that were going to make it useful, we had to come up with a name. What name would let people know that we were a website jam-packed with kid-friendly activities, events, restaurants, stores and services in the Chicago Suburbs? What name would let people know that parents could rate and review kid-friendly business? What name would let parents know that they could search by location, rating, price, season or a dozen other criteria? What name would let parents know that they could get email reminders of upcoming events; or find the distance of a venue from their house; or win prizes in our monthly contest; or that they could sign up for our E-Ad Letter to get coupons and learn about sales. What name would let kid-friendly business in the suburbs of Chicago know those same things? We couldn't think of a good enough name. Finally, we turned to Jean's (my business partner) twin sister for help. Between the 3 of us we must have come up with 200 names. But Jan (Jean's twin) did it! She came came up with the name and so it has been since that day kidwinks.com. Could you have thought of something better?

Everything and the Kitchen Sink

We wanted to create a website that would share knowledge, parent to parent, about things to do and places to go with young kids. When I had my first son I felt like I was in a totally different world. There are so many things geared toward children, I had no idea! I didn't realize that there were channels on t.v. totally dedicated to children's shows. Although, I didn't let my 1st watch t.v. until he was 2 years old. Or that some restaurants had days when kids eat free or for $.99. Or that there were movie theatres that had special showing of movies to which moms bring their infants. Then there are all of those places that don't advertise or don't advertise much. The only way I found out about the really great places was from other parents. We needed a place where we as parents could share our knowledge and experiences. The businesses that we are going to have on our site need to be reviewable. If I love a place or I hate a place I want to share that with other parents. We wanted to have email reminders. So often I would look through the newspaper and see something that I would wanted to do with my kids only to discover that the event had already passed by. On our site if you see an event, and are a member(free), that you like you can request an email on a certain date that will remind you of the upcoming event. We wanted the ability to know how far a place was from our house. On our site, if you are a member (free), you will know the distance a venue is from your house. Pretty cool! We even include a map. We wanted EVERYTHING to be searchable. Not an easy task but we have it. We wanted to have a Dining Deals Calendar. If you click on a day of the week you will see all of the dining deals (example, free kids meals) for that day. We wanted the site to look good, really really good. We think we nailed that one too. We wanted parents to be able to rate a venue so that we could search for the highest ranked places to go or services to use. We wanted businesses to be able to include a link to their website and a photo or two of their business. I always hated it when I would read about a kid-friendly place and then have to search the web for the businesses website. On kidwinks.com all one needs to do is click on the link. Most importantly it had to contain a lot of information and it had to be free to use. We knew that to get the most information about things to do and places to go that it would have to free to business too. The point was to create something really useful.

In The Begining

I, and my business partner, have started a company called kidwinks.com. I feel like we have been working on "starting" the company forever! It all started when my friend and I were talking on the phone about life and kids. We both stay at home raising our kids (then very small kids) but know that some day our children will not need us to take care of them all the time. We both agreed that we did not want to work a regular job again. The hours would be too much to allow us to be with our kids as much as we would like. I had just been to Pump it Up party and thought that was such a great idea. For a while I looked into starting a Pump it Up franchise. That I idea was quickly put to rest when they informed me they would not allow any more locations in my area. I then put on my thinking cap. I do some of my best thinking when I am in the shower or trying to go to sleep. A glass of wine also helps to get my creative juices flowing. I came up with two ideas. One was a line of premixed premium martinis that would be sold cold or frozen. They were going to be called Premium Martinis. The second idea was a website that would have all kinds of great places to go with kids. It would include restaurants that ran kids eat free days. It would describe in detail places to play, hangout, and dine with kids. I love to try new things and am always taking my kids out to different places. Some of these kid-friendly places were great and some of them were a disaster. I would talk to other parents and find out other places to go. It seemed like parents knew a lot of great places but there was no where to find all of those great places in one location that was searchable. Well, I told my friend about my two ideas. As you may have guessed already she didn't like the martini idea at all, not a big drinker. However, she loved the website idea. I have come up with a lot of ideas in my 30 some years and rarely did any one else think they were feasible. And so kidwinks.com was born. Or maybe I should say was conceived.