Meet 7 Mompreneurs Creating Products For Moms, Inspired By Real Motherhood

Amanda Hunt was working as a bra designer specializing in bra fit, construction, and product development when she became a mom and found options for maternity and nursing bras to be limited. “I knew I had the knowledge and experience to change this industry,” Hunt says. “I wanted to wear something beautiful that I was proud to put on, and looked almost like a regular bra but for breastfeeding. Once I started mentioning my idea to mom friends, an overwhelming response was that this product was needed immediately by moms.”

Because she was already in the industry, she was able to move quickly, turning her dream into reality. “I called in my favors and had the first product, our Nursing Bra Liners, launched in six months,” she says. “Our first bra collection was launched seven months after the liners.”

But that doesn’t mean everything came easy. “The very first batch of Ella Bralette came with all defective hardware,” says Hunt. “I cried a lot and almost gave up. I ended up getting creative with another bra designer friend of mine, and one by one we replaced thousands of nursing clips together, allowing me to continue selling the Ella Bralette while we solved the manufacturing issues.”

Today, a mom of children ages 7, 4, and 1, Hunt says, “I used to think I needed to hide behind the brand and make it look like a large team. Instead, showing my hard work as a small business mom and entrepreneur has been my greatest success.”

A severe lack of sleep inspired Tara Williams to launch Dreamland Baby. “My fourth baby, Luke, was 6 months old and still waking up multiple times during the night,” says Williams. “One night, he was on the couch next to me, and I gently placed a heavy throw blanket on top of him, and he instantly calmed down. That was my ‘aha’ moment. I started to research and saw that there were weighted blankets for adults, but nothing that a baby could safely wear. I called my mother-in-law to sew my idea: a gently weighted sleep sack. The first night wearing our prototype, Luke slept 12 hours. After weeks of testing (and resting), we knew we had an amazing product that was safe and effective. We’re now on a mission to help families everywhere get the sleep they deserve.”

It took about a year to go from conception to a product line. Williams, who appeared on Shark Tank, says, “The biggest [challenge] was launching without funding. My husband got laid off the day before my son was born, and I was laid off during maternity leave. It was a rough time to start a business. I did a Kickstarter so that I could fund my first order. Also, I didn't have child care during the first two years of the business. I was burning the candle at both ends, waking up super early and staying up into the middle of the night working. Ironically, I traded not sleeping because Luke was waking up to not sleeping because I was working. It was a grind, but the hard work and sleepless nights have absolutely been worth it.”

Williams encourages inspiring mompreneuers to “make sure you have a strong ‘why.’ There have been so many moments that I have cried and questioned the long hours, late nights, and time away from my kids, but knowing why I am doing what I am doing has been my north star. And remember, there will never be a ‘perfect time’ to start your business. But if you believe in what you're doing and have a strong ‘why,’ you can take the leap.”

One of the biggest challenges Arpi Khachatryan faces as CEO of the Luli Bebé diaper bag line is keeping her product — a bestseller at Nordstrom — in stock. “It’s a good challenge, but we always sell out too fast,” Khachatryan says. “Another of my challenges is that I always want to be on top of everything, and sometimes I feel like I don’t have enough time. For example, lately I have been wanting to create new designs — it’s me doing everything, I don’t have a team of designers — so I’ve been having challenges creating new things. I usually spend somewhere from even months to one year to come up with a new product/design.”

A mom of children ages 3 and 6, Khachatryan credits her daughter as inspiration for starting the line. “I started the company after she and my niece were born, and my sister and I both wanted stylish and unique diaper bags for the moms,” she says. “I was born in Armenia but raised in Barcelona, so I was used to European fashion and was inspired by luxury brands to create a stylish yet practical diaper bag solution.

“Once I made the decision to start Luli Bebé, it didn’t take long to get the company itself up and running. I woke up with the idea, and after a few hours I started the Instagram account, created the logo and was working on the website. Before I designed my own bags, I imported diaper bags from a European company to get things started. After a while, I realized I could do so much better and make the adjustments that I wanted as a mom myself.”

For those thinking of following in her path, she warns, “Don’t expect help from family and friends when you start the business, and don’t be discouraged when something doesn’t work out. Keep trying until you make it happen. Ask for advice from the successful people in business. Don’t ever feel shy to do it.”

Melissa Orijin’s experience as a mother and supporting her eldest daughter in her self-love journey inspired her to start creating Orijin Bees, the dolls they wanted to see. “Our beautiful dolls are available in various skin tones, curly hair patterns, and hair colors to be representative of Black and Brown children,” says Orijin. “We are creating products to ensure children feel seen, valued, and included while they play.”

She shares, “Orijin Bees just started as a passion project that I worked on late at night when the rest of the world went to sleep.” From idea to reality, she says it took just a few months to launch.

Mom to children ages 8, 6, and 3, Orijin took a leap to run her business full-time. “I was so nervous and really leaned on my faith to make that decision,” she says. “At the end of the day, I knew that even if I failed, my children would be proud of my decision when they got older because I was doing this for the right reasons. I hope that taking this path allows me to be better equipped to support them through challenging life decisions when they are older.”

It paid off. The line’s Baby Bee Doll Collection was featured on an "Oprah's Favorite Things" list.

She reminds women, “We were built for greatness and capable of any and everything we set our minds and hearts on. Remember to invest in yourself as much as you invest in those you love.”

Constance Panton started her company as a Secret Santa gift exchange. “Feeling overwhelmed with the amount of killings of unarmed Black men — Eric Garner, Tamir Rice, Michael Brown, and more — I wanted to give our community a hug,” she says. “Since I could not do that physically, I thought, why not use gifting as a great way to send an 'economic/financial' hug to our community? The only criteria was that the gifts had to come from a Black-owned brand. Through sending gifts, not only were we showing love to one another but to Black brands as well.”

Four years later, Bifties Gifts became a full-fledged brand. “There was a part of me for a long time that did not view my business as a ‘real’ business, but rather an extension of the gift exchange,” Panton says. “I did not pay myself and was barely generating any revenue because I wanted people to see the value I was providing, so my pricing barely covered my labor. That mindset could not last long, and I needed to change it immediately. I talked with other female business owners in order to understand the true nature of running a business and making profit. You have to invest time and money into your business, learning your business as well as yourself, because we all carry limiting beliefs that affect the way we conduct business.”

In 2021, Bifties Gifts was asked to provide gift boxes for the 2021 ESPN Humanitarian Awards. “It really provided me with motivation as well as confirmation that our service provided value,” Panton says.

She wants other moms to “reach out to people in the same industry as you if you have questions or need advice. In reaching out to my Instagram business friends, they referred me to resources that I did not know existed. It helped my business tremendously. I would not have gotten those resources if I had not established those relationships prior to asking.”

Over four years, friends Kelly Morrissey and Lisa Loyd built the ecommerce business JJwinks and, five years later, opened their first retail store. “To see our product hanging in our beautiful store in Fashion Island in Newport Beach for the first time was an amazing, ‘pinch-me’ moment,” says Loyd.

Within one year, they outgrew their space. “The day our husbands took the day off, rented a truck, and helped us move all of the product from Lisa's living room and garage into our first fulfillment center was an amazing feeling,” says Morrissey.

The moms (Lisa’s kids are 15, 16, and 15, while Kelly’s are 25 and 27) sold out of almost all of their attire products three months into the health crisis. However, they have faced challenges. “Overcoming the high prices we pay to make in LA and use sustainably made products while still building a profitable business,” Morrissey says is one. “We have had so many people tell us to go to China to make our products and to not worry about how our JJs are made and the impact they have on the environment. It's incredibly frustrating to try to maintain the mission we began with about how and where our products would be made. We have sacrificed the pace of our business's growth to do so but are sticking to our guns as much as we can.”

Loyd advises other mompreneuers to “find a good partner to do it with, stay true to yourself, and trust your gut. Then, don't look back.”

Alaina Moulton launched Baby’s Brew as a way to weave motherhood into her pre-baby life. “I was on bed rest with my first child and knew that my military husband and I weren’t the types to completely change our lives after welcoming our baby,” she says. “We still wanted to take weekend trips, go on remote hikes, and enjoy our pre-baby adventures, and I knew that we’d need an easy way to warm bottles while on the go. After a quick Google search, I realized it didn’t exist yet and set to work creating the world's first battery-powered, portable bottle warmer.”

Moulton began creating the idea in 2017, received her first prototype in 2018, and launched the final product in June 2019. “The biggest challenge we have had to date is for sure [the health crisis],” she says. “The inventory shortage and delays were by far the worst anyone had ever seen.”

She used Kickstarter to fund her project. “After launching, we barely made our quota of $5,000. I was a little discouraged, because if there's one thing you are taught when launching a new product, [it's] will the demand be there? Although we didn't have an incredible launch, I decided to keep going because I believed it was something that the baby market was desperately missing and parents needed. All I can say now is thank goodness I did. In our first year in business, we did $38,000 in six months. The next year we did over $3 million and continued to grow at a rapid rate till this day.”

To inspire other moms, she says, “Don't get discouraged by obstacles, take them with stride and figure a way around them. Whenever people asked me what my job was when I first started, I said to put out at least one fire a day.”