VITALIZE Throwback: Mastering G2M, Eliminating Marketplace Friction, and Unlocking Economic Opportunity for Moms, with Allison Robinson of The Mom Project

The VITALIZE Podcast: Venture Capital | Startups | Angel Investing

This is a special episode pulled from the VITALIZE vault—back when The VITALIZE Podcast was Talking Venture! Justin Gordon (@justingordon212) talks with Allison Robinson (@mrsrobinson_a), CEO and Founder of The Mom Project, a VITALIZE portfolio company. The Mom Project is a digital talent marketplace and community that connects professionally accomplished women with world-class companies for rewarding employment opportunities. They are changing the way women work and redefining career structures by providing women with real work opportunities that are in balance with their personal goals. This evolution will keep more talented, professionally accomplished women in the workforce. As of September 2022, The Mom Project hit a major milestone: their talent community is now home to over 1 million moms, dads, and allies.

After having her son Asher in 2015, Allison identified how universally challenging it can be for American mothers to juggle the demands of motherhood with a full-time career and decided to tackle the issue on a national scale. Prior to founding The Mom Project, Allison spent 7 years at Procter and Gamble working on go-to-market strategies for leading household brands with a special focus on moms during her tenure on the Pampers brand.

Website: The Mom Project

LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/allison-m-robinson/

Twitter: @mrsrobinson_a

Email: [e-mail]

Show Notes:

• How The Mom Project is connecting talented women with world-class employers as a marketplace matchmaker and their growth plans for the future
• Allison’s journey from joining Procter & Gamble at the age of 19 to founding The Mom Project
• The customer discovery process and steps Allison took to build an MVP
• Deciding to partner with an agency to build their product
• Leveraging their mission to pitch and onboard companies for The Mom Project’s marketplace
• From bootstrapping to VC fundraising
• What has fueled The Mom Project’s growth
• Their three-pronged go-to-market strategy and scaling by minimizing friction
• Developing their business model
• What moms want from work
• The pandemic’s impact on working moms and how it further validated The Mom Project’s mission
• Acquiring Werk and Glassbreaker and how they approached integration
• Launching their 501c3 Rise to elevate women of color
• The platform’s user experience for moms
• How they’ve solved the supply-demand matching challenge by strategically engaging moms beyond job placement
• Building out The Mom Project’s team
• How Allison’s role as CEO and founder has evolved since the early days
• Allison’s view on the Future of Work, particularly for moms
• How she views the potential of the creator economy
• How Allison stays inspired

More about the show:

The Vitalize Podcast, a show by Vitalize Venture Capital (a seed-stage venture capital firm and pre-seed 400+ member angel community open to everyone), dives deep into the world of startup investing and the future of work.

Hosted by Justin Gordon, the Director of Marketing at Vitalize Venture Capital, The Vitalize Podcast includes two main series.

The Angel Investing series features interviews with a variety of angel investors and VCs around the world. The goal? To help develop the next generation of amazing investors.

The Future of Work series takes a look at the founders and investors shaping the new world of work, including insights from our team here at Vitalize Venture Capital.

More about us:

Vitalize Venture Capital was formed in 2017 as a $16M seed-stage venture fund and now includes both a fund as well as an angel investing community investing in the future of work. Vitalize has offices in Chicago, San Francisco, and Los Angeles.

The Vitalize Team:

Gale - https://twitter.com/galeforceVC
Caroline - https://twitter.com/carolinecasson_
Justin - https://twitter.com/justingordon212

Vitalize Angels, our angel investing community open to everyone:
https://vitalize.vc/vitalizeangels/