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October 27, 2006

Maya’s Mom Raises Angel Round, Launches

Michael Arrington

34 comments »

Palo Alto based Maya’s Mom is a sort of Yahoo Answers plus Facebook, for parents, that we previously announced back in April. The site went live yesterday and already has fairly deep content.

Other companies are addressing the parenting/family social network opportunity as well (we’ve covered Minti, Famster and FriendsForFamilies). But Maya’s Mom is focused on allowing users to request and offer advice to others first, and more traditional social networking features second.

The heart of Maya’s Mom is their “Talk” section. Rather than following the article format of Minti, Maya’s Mom allows you to post about any questions you have publicly, anonymously, or to specific friends. Users can subscribe to the most recent questions via RSS. Questions are grouped by tags and analyzed for duplicates when submitted. You can search for answers by keyword or tag. If someone has already posted a question like yours, Maya’s Mom will direct you toward their answer. Like activities, you can also create list and be alerted when new answers to your questions arrive.

The company boasts a strong group of initial investors from a recent “around $1 million” angel round - True Ventures, Jeff Clavier, James Currier, Caterina Fake, Geoff Ralston, Raymond Stern, and Michael Tanne. The Maya’s Mom blog is here. And if you are wondering about the name of the company - Maya is founder Ann Crady’s daughter. I wonder if Ann’s son Derick will someday feel less loved because the site isn’t named in his honor instead.

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This entry was posted on Friday, October 27th, 2006 at 1:06 am and is filed under Company & Product Profiles. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

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Comments

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  1. David Stone

    October 27th, 2006 at 4:41 am

    I see a flaw in naming sites after your kids… well, unless you only plan a few sites.

  2. WTF

    October 27th, 2006 at 6:31 am

    That may be the most awkwardly written headline I’ve ever read.

  3. Steph

    October 27th, 2006 at 7:22 am

    This looks really great.

  4. Jessica

    October 27th, 2006 at 7:43 am

    The “kidisms” are really funny. I reloaded the page ten times to see more.

  5. Patricia

    October 27th, 2006 at 7:43 am

    I agree I don’t like the name. Why do mothers always do stuff like this?

    But aside of this, one of my partners in another venture I started built a site very similar to this one. It’s been tied to a woman with a big popular mom book - I think it’s doing well and don’t see any reason why Maya’s Mom wouldn’t either.

  6. Brandon

    October 27th, 2006 at 9:10 am

    Awesome, another social network market for niche advertisers to target.

  7. Josh

    October 27th, 2006 at 9:11 am

    We’ve recently launched a site for moms (and dads) too, called Pongyow.

    It’s a family-centric photo/movie/blog hosting site with some of the requisite social networking stuff built in, including access controls and collaboration. We’re targeting moms and dads with family photos, movies, etc., who want to put together a nice-looking site to share their stuff with friends and family.

    If you’re a parent wondering what to do with all your photos, check us out!

  8. Turtle 2.0

    October 27th, 2006 at 9:29 am

    Nice site and the name makes sense as that’s how parents often refer to one another, using kids as reference points. I know lots of parents but don’t know their names.

  9. john

    October 27th, 2006 at 10:43 am

    What’s new about this site? there doesn’t seem to be anything new. It is like a lot of web 1.0 sites done before like babycenter or something. I can’t think of any reason why it qualifies to be on techcrunch and such a favorable review.

  10. Andra Davidson

    October 27th, 2006 at 10:46 am

    Mike,

    Guess you missed the news of our launch last week.

    We’ve gotten some good press (http://www.mothersclick.com/press_news) and hope you’d want to include us while mentioning “other companies are addressing the parenting/family social network opportunity.”

    Furthermore, I’ve been an avid reader of TechCrunch and remember reading your original post about MayasMom. Seem to recall someone questioning your editorializing, asking how you know it’s “going to be great,” to which you added: “Disclosure: Ann is a former colleague and so my opinions may be favorably tinted.”

    Somehow that appears to have fallen off the original post, and no mention here either. I trust that doesn’t have anything to do with your lack of coverage of our launch and this weeks strategic partnership announcement.

  11. MetroBellevue

    October 27th, 2006 at 10:55 am

    This has a very familiar feel to Judy’s Book but for parents.

  12. john

    October 27th, 2006 at 11:12 am

    Andra,

    they get a favorable review because mike is friends with the company and jeff clavier is an invester in mike’s edgeio as well as maya’s mom. Apparently jeff and mike share an office and are best of friends.
    Connections help :) Ultimately it’s his blog, he can write what ever he wants!

  13. Patricia

    October 27th, 2006 at 12:56 pm

    I’m friends with Mike and he doesn’t write about me!

    I think it’s more about their funding and not their launch, though. Even if he’s close to them, it’s still funding news just the same and probably pushed out to all the blogs and media that cover funding news like this one.

    I don’t think it’s off to give the site a decent review - I went to it, it’s cute. I would think targeting nannies and caregivers would be ideal, too, for this.

  14. Carrie

    October 27th, 2006 at 2:34 pm

    Congratulations to Ann & Co for identifying the power of the mom community, and for putting together an impressive raise.
    I do agree that the site is surprisingly a bit Web 1.0, though the interface is nice and clean

    We also have an upcoming product that is geared toward moms. Operation Mom (www.opmom.com) is currently in private beta and we’re looking forward to our public launch.

    Carrie
    http://www.OpMom.com

  15. Ariel

    October 27th, 2006 at 2:52 pm

    Hi Patricia - It’s funny you should mention nannies and caregivers….

    check out http://www.CareSquare.com

    We are a social network connecting families to babysitters and nannies, allowing for feedback, peer-review and real-time booking of care.

    Would love to hear what everyone thinks. -Ariel

  16. Frank Gruber

    October 27th, 2006 at 7:01 pm

    Poor Derick. :-S

  17. grumpY!

    October 28th, 2006 at 7:53 am

    sure, because as a parent of twins, i have so much time to create content for someone else’s site???? parents need time *savers*, not time *wasters*. look at the sites for some of the mature bay area parents clubs - big on content, short on “communities” drivel. oh well, you’ve got the site up now, pay the hosting for six months and learn the lesson

  18. Clay Cook

    October 28th, 2006 at 9:44 am

    Congrats to Maya’sMom on the launch.
    Mike - thanks for linking to Minti - much appreciated.
    Our Q&A area is a popular feature on our site, members get answers sometimes instantly.
    – Clay
    Minti Co-Founder

  19. Mark Suster

    October 29th, 2006 at 6:40 pm

    As a parent of 2 young kids I used to regularly wait for my BabyCenter email to come weekly and tell me what to expect in the coming weeks and to figure out if my first son was progressing. But typical of the Web 1.0 world the content was really stale and lacked the ability to tap into other people’s experiences. BabyCenter basically is one big advertisement for Johnson & Johnson.

    I welcome sites like Maya’s Mom because they solve a basic need many parents have to reach out to other parents on critical issues like child development, illness, eating, finding help and planning activities. For me Web 2.0 is not about having Ajax on every part of the site it is about the power of participation. And on that front in my test of this site it scores well.

  20. Ravi

    October 30th, 2006 at 3:50 pm

    good comment mark! I agree with you that being web2.0 is more about being authentic (caring about the product/consumer) than about flashy ajax.

  21. jen lemen

    October 31st, 2006 at 6:19 am

    someone sent me a link to mayasmom last week–as a mom/writer i love the whole idea of web 2.0 parenting sites where i can have a high level of participation. there’s lots i like about mayasmom (it’s a beautifully done site), but i prefer the way minti is set up for advice giving/taking. the level of participation is so high by members that you can post a question and get 10 decent answers in minutes. also, as a writer, i really like that minti let’s me write longer articles. 100 characters for a tip or a question on maya’smom just isn’t enough space.

  22. Andra Davidson

    November 2nd, 2006 at 9:08 am

    Dear Mike,

    Last week, as seen in the comments above, I posted a comment on TechCrunch out of frustration – the classic knee-jerk reaction – which has stirred up a brand of dialogue that I deeply regret instigating.

    Let me be direct: as a mom who recently poured her heart and soul into the launch of a new site for mothers, I was disappointed – ok, hurt – by your omission of our news. I had thought we were a natural for inclusion, in part because we’re a local start-up, and also because we’ve read with great interest your other posts about companies in the parenting space. You know what they say about “people who assume.”

    Clearly, stress (and an elevated level of entrepreneurial moxie) hijacked my better judgment that day. My remarks were unfair, off mark and utterly out of character. It’s your blog, and if you don’t cover us, that’s your business.

    I regret also that others are adding insult to injury with additional comments, and I hope this sincere “mea culpa” puts this string to bed. TechCrunch is a great publication and I will continue to read it daily.

    Lastly, Mike, it’s a small town, and I do hope we’ll meet some day soon. If so, lunch is on me.

    Best regards,
    andra

  23. Ren

    December 13th, 2006 at 7:32 pm

    Perhaps the reason Maya’s Mom has such “deep” content already has more to do with the fact that they have posted an ad for hired hacks to write this dribble which is supposed to come from real parents. Check out Seattle craigslist under jobs and type in “kids activity researcher” or mayas mom. I assume the reason they aren’t posting to the SF Bay area craigslist is because they don’t want to be “outed.”

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