Women on the Web

Written by Allison Aubin

Before the Internet, no one could have predicted how it would have revolutionized our daily lives. From instant communication to that sinking feeling that your party photos just reached a wider audience than you thought, or the ability to purchase anything from your own home, the Internet has made it more convenient to run a variety of businesses and especially, to start your own. Blogs, mail-order, and running a physical recurring service are all ways to support yourself or supplement your income. These Kern County women have found that the Internet helps them be stay-at-home moms, carve out unique niches, and help other people all without the inflexibility of a nine-to-fiver.

Smartyrents.com

The Internet has helped mail-order businesses and created new systems of rentals so that customers no longer have to spend the gas and $5 to rent a single movie or expensive game. Sites like Gamefly, that rent to a variety of entertainment consoles, allow customers to try out costly games without buyer’s remorse (or renter’s remorse) with easily forgotten due-dates. But for parents who want to steer their children toward educational consoles like the Leap Frog and Vtech systems, no site has maintained the same subscription style for educational games. Enter Smartyrents.com.

“We try to save time for the customers, going to buy a thirty dollar game [only to discover] the next week their child is bored with it,” Christy Baker, co-creator of the site, said.

Smartyrents.com was conjured up by two teachers who had left or were in the process of leaving the workforce to spend time with their growing families. Baker and Jennifer Scheidle met in the classroom, teaching at the same school. When Baker left to have her first son, she and Scheidle were still interested in working together. One day Baker, whose son had a Leapshare, wondered why she couldn’t rent the expensive games.

Smartyrents.com goes the extra step above the normal rental service. Instead of just offering games to rent on a wide variety of educational consoles, Scheidle and Baker review each game for over 150 skills. It means parents who want their kids to get an early start on addition can search for those games, and parents who want to be sure their child won’t get frustrated with a game outside their skill or age level can find each game comprehensively evaluated. It allows parents to ensure the game will be at the appropriate level for their children, rather than discovering a game is outside a child’s age or skill range after the package is opened and non-returnable.

The business didn’t spring into being overnight. Baker and Scheidle discussed other business ideas before Baker’s epiphany. Both wanted to have a flexible business that allowed them to spend time with their families.

“They’re only going to be little and out of school for such a short time,” Scheidle said. She and Baker attribute their success to putting forth time and detail into creating a fully-developed service. Supportive husbands have especially helped.

Smartyrents.com currently serves customers as far as Nevada and grows every week. In addition to the subscription model, it also offers the ability to purchase games with a “Love It” price that is subsidized by the rental fees. Some games have a “Love It” price that is higher than normal because those games are no longer produced. Baker and Scheidle are careful to keep every game ever created for their supported systems in stock, and spend hours scouring eBay and other sites when a customer purchases that hard-to-obtain game.

As for the future of Smartyrents.com, Scheidle and Baker are eager to look at educational DVDs in addition to branching out into other consoles as customers make suggestions and requests. “We want to maintain that educational link,” Baker said.

Saveathomemommy.com

Kerri Scarlett said she always wanted a box of dishwasher tabs, but could never justify the cost to herself. She began collecting coupons and one day realized she could use enough coupons to bring the cost of a box of dishwasher tabs down to fifty cents.

Her blog, Saveathomemommy.com, began as a way to share stories and pictures with family members and was hosted through the free blogging site, Blogger. When the economy took a downturn, she faced a hard decision many families have had to make: whether to join the workforce to bring in more income, or cut spending so she wouldn’t have to. Initially, Scarlett, who has always been a stay-at-home mom, didn’t want to leave her children. When she discovered that first coupon coup, she posted it on her blog and began posting other coupons and strategies for saving money.

Scarlett sent her tips and coupons to other blogs and got excited when she saw her name in print on someone else’s page, credited for the finds.

“I remember the first time I called my husband over to the computer to show him my name on someone else’s website,” Scarlett said.

As her readership grew, Scarlett decided she needed to make her own domain name and purchased the Saveathomemommy.com website where she hosts her blog and advertises for Save At Home Mommy Seminars. She uses her seminars to teach people the four steps of saving that she learned, like creating a household budget, developing a new shopping strategy, understanding coupon rules and store rewards programs, and getting organized.

“There were several times in the first few months of running my site that I was tempted to quit because it was taking up so much time,” Scarlett said.

She was working on it from the time she got up in the morning to the time she went to bed, and realized that in order to keep it, she would have to make it more manageable. Since then, she has begun having a more set schedule to work on the site and to take care of her home and children, including trading with a friend for childcare duties some days of the week.

Scarlett has heard from readers who have saved enough to continue their way of life after one family member lost a job, or quit a job in order to stay-at-home full time, or in one case, managed to use the strategies presented on her site to save $500 in two weeks. Scarlett said, “I never get tired of hearing the stories as they remind me of why I set out to do all of this, and why I keep plugging on.”

Littlecabooses.com

Like Scheidle and Baker, and Scarlett, Tesa Kurin of Little Cabooses Diaper Service turned to the Internet to create her own business. Serving from Bakersfield to Antelope Valley, Little Cabooses provides drop-off and pick-up for cloth diapers to satisfy a range of ages and body sizes for babies, and does all of the washing and sanitizing, which Kurin said is a big relief for many customers.

Kurin said that it costs about $1,600 per year to diaper a baby using disposable diapers whereas one year of her service is roughly $1,000. She added that her service uses industrial washers, which use less water and soap per single diaper than a home washer, and adds to the environmentally-friendly aspect of her service.

Kurin created her website as a do-it-yourself and doesn’t spend much on advertising. She said that she uses the Internet to search for things she needs and assumed that her customers would find her the same way. “Ninty-eight percent of my customers find me from [an Internet] search,” Kurin said.

In the future, Kurin would like to expand her business through education. She plans to make videos available on YouTube so people can see how non-intimidating cloth diapers are. She also plans to begin live classes in Bakersfield once a month. Currently, a local support group called “The Kern County Diaper Circle” helps families with cloth diapers. The group currently has 30 members in Bakersfield.

“Use only what you need,” Kurin said, as advice to others interested in beginning their own at-home business. She said that it’s possible to go overboard in starting a website and that too much clutter will drive people away. She has also found that she can barter with customers who have certain skills that can help with the business, offering free service in exchange for help.

Taming the Big Bad Internet

The most common piece of advice these women have for starting your own Internet-based service is to take it slow and think about what you want to offer. Scheidle and Baker said they thought their business would spring into being overnight, but that the reality has been much slower. If you don’t prioritize your schedule in the beginning, your new business can risk eating up all your time rather than offering the flexibility you originally wanted.

If you already offer a service, think about using the Internet to draw in more customers. Alternatively, some sites already exist to help people sell items they have created like eBay and Etsy.com. These collective sites offer pre-designed, customizable virtual storefronts with built-in payment options that mean you don’t have to go that extra mile in coding your own site, or hiring a professional.

The Internet is here to stay, so why not use it to your benefit...these industrious women have and, boy, are they reaping the rewards.

Article appeared in our 26-6 Issue - February 2010