moms, meet!
Clever app that's like Tinder for moms swipes into Houston
Whether it’s nurturing newborns or tutoring teens, motherhood is no easy task. What can be even harder is finding mom friends or women who can relate.
“You may be the first out of your girlfriends to have a baby, or your friends and family who are already mothers may live far away,” Michelle Kennedy, a tech expert and busy mom, tells CultureMap. “Leaving the house to go anywhere further than 10 minutes from home with a newborn can feel like a military operation.”
Kennedy, once a board adviser at Bumble, realized that it was difficult for mothers to admit that they were feeling lonely. Worse still, the results of randomly meeting other moms or being set up could sometimes be awkward and disappointing.
“A bit like dating, moms can experience a lot of, ‘I have to introduce you to my friend, she's a new mommy too,’” says Kennedy, “only to go through an awkward 'date' — where you realize the only thing you have in common is that you both have a child.”
The dating analogy is apropos, as Kennedy headached a solution: Peanut, an app that makes it easy for like-minded moms to meet, chat, and learn from one another. The app/service launched in 2017 and has garnered a membership of more than 1 million mothers. It’s currently available across the U.S., Canada, Australia, and the United Kingdom. Peanut is free to download from the App Store and Google Play.
Good news for local moms: After first launching in Austin, Peanut is arriving in Houston on Tuesday, July 30. “We noticed that a lot of women were actively using Peanut in Houston, despite us doing no official marketing there,” Kennedy says. “This shows there is a need for women in the area to meet other mamas. We hope this will encourage more mothers (and mothers-to-be) in Houston to join the app and connect with like-minded women.”
Users will find that Peanut’s Discovery feature operates similarly to a dating app. Simply fill out a profile, including information such as neighborhood, bio, photos, age/gender of children or due date, interests, and other defining factors, such as work life and education. The app uses intelligent algorithms and geo-location to match mothers with like-minded women nearby. Once matched, users can chat and create meetups.
An interesting item is the “Packs” initial feature. “When you join Peanut, we ask users to select three 'Packs' to describe themselves,” says Kennedy. “This helps us match women with common interests. Looking at Houston, the Top 3 most popular Packs are: ‘But First Food,’ ‘Wine Time,’ and ‘Sleep Deprived.’”
Sounds like three perfect reasons for moms to meet up and commiserate.
