My Appy Destiny: One of the founders of Moms With Apps

This guest post is written by Alesha Bishop, one of the founders of Moms With Apps and new mompreneur of “Henry Nate” consulting. Henry Nate is bringing marketing and branding expertise to the educational app community to help these wonderful apps stand out in the crowd. Thanks Alesha for sharing your story!

I have been telling my story a lot these days and encouraging others to do the same. Your story is important, and it can guide you when you start lose steam or get off track. Your story helps you establish your brand and build on it. I recommend that you tell your story over and over to anyone who will listen. Telling your story teaches you about yourself, your business, and your future goals.

My appy destiny story begins four years ago when my husband insisted I get an iPhone. After a few months of resistance to the idea, I gave in. When I got that mighty little device in my hands for the first time, my head almost exploded with ideas. I knew immediately that it was going to change my life. I met app developer, and fellow mom, Jill Seman, and we started working together on Mom Maps, an app that would ultimately appear on Apple’s app home page, the City of San Francisco’s innovations website, Mashable and more.

I had stars in my eyes when I started working on that app. We heard from Disney and Procter and Gamble within the first few months of launching. I thought it was going to be all up hill from there. Well, it wasn’t. As we discovered, marketing an app with a small marketing budget isn’t all that easy. That’s when I realized that there must be other parents out there who were making family-friendly apps and were struggling with the same problems we were.

Fortuitously, Twitter introduced me to Lorraine Akemann at just that moment. I knew right away that Lorraine had a ton of passion and enthusiasm. We scheduled a call with Lynette Mattke and Jill and thus Moms with Apps was born. During that phone call, I felt we were on to something but never imagined it would become what it is today, thanks to all the committed developers in the group. We wanted to build a community of developers who could pool resources and support one another, and we have achieved that.

About two years ago, my son was diagnosed with Sensory Processing Integration disorder. I slowed down at work and started going to occupational therapy with him once a week and reading lots of books on brain development, learning, and sensory issues. All the while, I stayed connected to the online community through social media. One thing I saw with my son and every single child I came into contact with at his therapist’s office was how much all children love touch screen devices.

I struggled as a mom to figure out how to let my son use our iPad. How much time was too much? How could I know which were the right or wrong apps for his age? Despite my struggles with these questions, I believe that the benefits of the technology greatly outweigh any risks.

Today, I am going on to the next phase of my adventure with family-friendly apps and have started Henry Nate Consulting with an amazing mom and friend, Lisa Valerio. Lisa and I worked at Charles Schwab together for many years. Lisa brings a wealth of both career and parenting experience. The goal of our business is to help our community continue to grow and succeed.

If anyone would had told me that I would find my true calling in life working with technology, I would have told them they had me confused with someone else. I wasn’t anti-tech, but I definitely wasn’t a “geek” or an early adopter five years ago. Now I proudly say I am both.

So that’s my story, up to this point. What‘s yours?