It's not easy being the first person in your friend group to become a mom. Take it from Michelle Kennedy.
When Kennedy had her son, Finn, she was the first of her friends to enter parenthood. Everyone was around for the beginning — the hospital visits, the drop-ins right after they come home, texts asking how it's going. But eventually everyone returned to the beat of their own lives, and Kennedy was left with the same stress of new parenthood but with a drastic lack of support.
Enter the idea for Peanut, Kennedy's new app that expands into D.C. today.
Much like a lot of social apps nowadays, Peanut is a "Tinder for X." In this case, it's the Tinder for moms. Using a similar swiping mechanism, users can comb through a batch of potential new friends who are also moms, going through the same thing. Maybe think of it like Bumble's BFF feature, but exclusively for mothers.
"When you're feeding at 2 a.m., and you feel like the whole world is asleep, to be able to speak someone who is going through the same thing as me, at that point, would've been really, really life changing for me," Kennedy said in an interview. "Those moments can feel quite dark, so that's where an app is important."
Kennedy, a former Bumble board advisor and executive at Badoo, launched the app in February from her home base in London. The team focused on a group of markets to seek out users and push out marketing campaigns; in other cities, women could use the platform, but there wasn't a huge marketing campaign or in-person events to help amplify the Peanut voice.
On top of the swiping feature, Peanut gives users the ability to schedule out playdates and hang outs from within its chat system. Much like an online Doodle poll, users can send their available times and days with the hope that something will overlap.
"We have this demand to give women something that reflects modern motherhood," Kennedy said. "I think that's what we were focused on."
Today, Peanut is making its presence in the District official. Until now, the D.C. market has grown organically. So much so that Kennedy realized they should put their flag down here, too.
"Peanut just started to grow on its own volition, and D.C. has been one of our top cities in that respect," Kennedy said. "It's not that I had a network in D.C., this was women sharing it amongst themselves. We have to respond to that."
Moving forward, they're just watching the community and seeing how it grows. Seeing as the startup is less than a year old, they want to ensure that their product is being well-received and make time to listen to their users' feedback.
"We do this for the women who are using it, and for me, that's the most thrilling part when you get those emails from women saying 'Thank you so much,'" Kennedy said. "It's amazing."
Correction: A previous version of this article misstated how Peanut's D.C. market expanded. It was not through a referral system, but just organically on its own. DC Inno apologizes for the mistake.
