A Featured Story Q&A with Citrus Lane's CEO Mauria Finley
We think of the Memolane team as a big family, and beyond our core members there are quite a few Memolane significant others, kids, and nieces and nephews, which is why everyone was excited when we discovered that e-commerce start-up Citrus Lane had joined the Memolane community. Citrus Lane is a subscription service for new moms and dads - think a sophisticated wine of the month club for baby products. We caught up with one of the founders, CEO Mauria Finley, to hear about how, as a busy, working mom, she sees Memolane making family sharing easier! 1) Can you tell us a bit about yourself and how you decided to start Citrus Lane? Mauria: Of course! I studied Computer Science at Stanford, and have spent 15+ years as a product management executive in Silicon Valley. I’ve worked at many big tech companies - Netscape, PayPal, eBay, but had always dreamed of starting my own thing. When I was a first-time mom, I spent months planning for every last detail of motherhood. Since I had no prior mom experience, I approached the whole nesting thing like I would a business deal - I emailed all my mom friends for recommendations, and put them all into the mother of all spreadsheets (pun intended). But it was a lot of work and planning! So I decided to start Citrus Lane, to help other new parents find the best products for baby - without all the work. I met and connected with my co-founder, CTO Claire Hough, and we launched this July! 2) As a new brand, how are you using social media to promote yourself and connect with your fans and customers? Mauria: Because we believe in the collective wisdom of experienced parents, we’ve always envisioned Citrus Lane as a community. So social media is essential for us. We have a very active blog, and have recruited tons of awesome guest bloggers to help provide advice and tips to our fans. We’re also syndicating our content on other sites. Of course, we’re also using Facebook and Twitter. One of our fun Facebook features is our “Ask and Answer” posts - we ask a fun, sometimes controversial question, and get our moms and dads to give advice to new parents. Pictures are a big thing for us - we recently had a baby photo shoot for our friends to make sure we have tons of cute ones! We’re also trying out a bunch of new tools. We’re using Pinterest to track design ideas for our new office in Mountain View, and rely on Hootsuite to manage our Twitter and Facebook feeds. And of course, we’re using Memolane! 4) What are some of the challenges that you face as a new company with new business model? Mauria: One of the biggest challenges for us is making sure that people *get* Citrus Lane. Although there are a ton of new subscription businesses, not everyone is familiar with the idea. We feel we are unique for a number of reasons - we curate the very best products, focus on the age and milestone of the baby, and offer a combination of keeper items and full size consumable products in every box. We are also really focused on our content and parent community, and making sure Citrus Lane extends beyond our boxes! Usability testing our website in the first weeks was really important for making sure we were communicating our message well. It helped us refine our positioning and understand how people actually navigate the site. And it was so much fun meeting some of the Bay Area moms who helped us out! 5) As a mom yourself, how could you see using Memolane for your family? Mauria: I love photography - I have DSLR and am always snapping shots! I use a lot of existing social media tools to organize photos - Facebook, Picasa - but the interfaces are clunky. I love the idea of creating timeline that far away family members could look at every day. My family’s in Texas, and every time they see Xander and Zachary, they can’t believe how much they’ve grown. Memolane is a great way of making a virtual flipbook for grandma and grandpa! Also, making social media profiles for babies is a big new thing - even Facebook just added an “I’m expecting” status. I could see using Memolane to make a virtual record that my sons could look at when they grow up - a much more sophisticated photo album. Of course, I might have to censor the bath time photos - don’t want to embarrass them when they’re older! 6) What is a favorite memory of your children? Mauria: My husband and I have always been very big into celebrating Halloween. We’ve been celebrating for the last seven years with group costumes and a big party. Now that our two boys are 18 months and four, we’ve let them pick our Halloween costumes. Two years ago we were all dinosaurs. I was pregnant with Zachary, so I had to make my own costume! Last year we were superheroes - I had a spiderboy and a superbaby. I love that we do this - it makes for the cutest photos, and the kids have a lot of fun!
7) Where can the Memolane community find out more about you and Citrus Lane? Our Memolane account is memolane.com/CitrusLane. Our site is www.citruslane.com, and our blog is blog.citruslane.com. We’re on Facebook at www.facebook.com/CitrusLaneKids and Twitter at @CitrusLane. And of course, you can always email us at [email protected]. On the Memolane site you can view the entire gallery of featured stories and lanes, and submit your suggestions for featured lanes and stories at . - Meghan