Top 50 Mompreneurs, 2011
They cook, they clean and, between naptimes, they run kickass companies. For those who run their own mom-centric firms, the responsibilities of motherhood are only half the battle. Babble is running our first ever salute to the top 50 mompreneurs who pull all-nighters, suffer enormous financial set-backs, and balance business and baby every day to make their entrepreneurial dreams come true. Here's how they did it.
- Christina Couch
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Cathy Alessandra | What’s Up For Kids
Cathy’s Rankings
bright idea
Company: What’s Up For Kids
Location: Los Angeles
Children: Two daughters, 16 and 18, son, 14 ⢠Age: 45
Inspiration: Living just outside of Chicago back in 1995, Alessandra couldn’t find any literature on children’s events in her suburb, so she decided to make her own.
Perspiration: A few months after printing 1,000 copies of the first What’s Up For Kids, a four-page black-and-white newsletter Alessandra peddled to local stores and pediatricians’ offices, she and her family moved back to L.A., where she was a mom by day and an editor by night. “My kids were young then, so I would make sales calls when they took naps and do stories and layout when they went to bed,” she says. “There were a lot of late nights, but this is what let me chaperone my kids’ field trips and have playdates with them, so I kept going.”
Success: What’s Up For Kids is now a 32-page glossy with strong ad revenues and a circulation of about 20,000. Alessandra also founded the National Association of Entrepreneurial Moms.
So excited to be honored by Babble.com as one of their top 50 mompreneurs!
congrats Cathy!!!! You rock!!
Congratulations, Cathy! Great job.
I’ve never even met her, and I’m stnitig here with tears in my eyes.I imagine she is too. The good kind of tears.Happy birthday, Mrs. Groves!