MyWorkButterfly: not your ordinary social networking site

 

When Bradi Nathan and Terry Starr met by chance in a bookstore over Labor Day weekend last year, they did not know that within a year, they would have launched a vibrant interactive social networking website called MyWorkButterfly for stay-at-home-moms thinking about returning to the workforce and for working moms "trying to juggle it all."

In less than a year, their website has attracted over 3,000 members, including an impressive celebrity membership that includes New York working moms, Jill Zarin and Kathie Lee Gifford, and New Jersey model mom, Emme.

It's a chic website that launched via a house party hosted by Malaak Compton-Rock and Chris Rock in January 2009. 

They could not have known all this would happen in a year.

And  yet, when you talk with Bradi and Terry about the website and their passion for its mission and the hard work that has gone into the website thus far, it all seems very . . . well, obvious that this website would have happened in this way and succeeded so rapidly. 

As is the case with all successful joint ventures, the matchup of experience and backgrounds was lucky and right.  Bradi, whose children are now 8 and 5, currently owns a Mommy and Me company, called For You Two.  In her pre-mom life, she was an advertising executive at Marie Claire and Town and Country magazines.  Terry Starr has been in recruitment marketing, (for the last 30 years), including most recently heading up SL3, the strategic arm of Success Communications Group, an advertising/PR/recruitment marketing firm that was beginning to get into the social networking business when she met Bradi.  Terry also has two children, ages 13 and 9, and works at SL3 full-time.

After Bradi and Terry met last year, they explain that they had to work literally "around the clock" in those early months to get the website off the ground in time for the January 2009 launch party at Chris Rock and Malaak Compton-Rock's home.

The celebrity presence is what makes MyWorkButterfly glitzy and fun.  But make no mistake about it, MyWorkButterfly is indeed for everyday moms, moms that Bradi and Terry identify with, and personally greet with customized, individualized messages when each mom joins the website. 

What's so unique about this site?

In addition to the hands-on approach of the founders, the content of the site makes it unique.  Membership to MyWorkButterfly is completely FREE, and members have access to numerous resources such as video and other Q&A interviews on a number of topics ranging from career advice to child care to education.  A few clicks into the site and you can find a welcome message from NYC "Real Housewife," Jill Zarin, find a discussion about the stresses and joys of adoption from author, Diane Clehane, and also find work-life balance advice from professional corporate executive coach, Lisa Hudson.  Get advice from the "resident" career coach or psychotherapist.  Join a small group forum set up by and run by a member leader.  You can even peruse job listings.  (Click on the "Using this Site" icon to get the most out of your MyWorkButterfly experience.)   

The research

It is clear from speaking with Butterfly founders that their "in the trenches" work ethic drives the rapid and compelling success of the website.  Terry has even set up a workstation for Bradi at her SL3 office, where the women can come together several times per week to deal with the business of MyWorkButterfly, even while both women have numerous other competing responsibilities that they seem not to mind juggling.  "We honestly would not have it any other way."  Bradi explains.

But most interesting is the homework Bradi and Terry did prior to launching their unique social networking website. In fact, the founders of MyWorkButterfly conducted a national survey of moms working full-time and part-time, as well as stay-at-home moms contemplating a return to the workplace.  It is these statistics that Terry and Bradi consider when developing the vibrant and interactive content on their site.

Not strictly virtual

Bradi and Terry have partnered with Junior Achievement to plan what Junior Achievement and MyWorkButterfly hope will be the First Annual Future Leadership Conference, scheduled for November 2009. 

They also have partnered with American Heart Association's Go Red For Women and plan on participating in at least one of the Go Red conferences coming up in the fall. 

Bradi and Terry also report that next year they would love to put together an entirely "Butterfly" event in which they will bring together the website members with some of the experts that help to make the website such a dynamic, practical and interactive site. 

Given what they've accomplished this year, that seems like a piece of cake.