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Two weeks ago we were announcing that a promising Romanian startup: Good Momming! is looking for new colleagues. Although being a good mommy is not part of my next 5 years marketing plan, I loved the idea so much that I asked Cristian — Founder & CEO Good Momming! — a couple of questions. As always, enjoy!

1. What is Good Momming! and how did you come up with the idea?

Good Momming! is an personal app that assists parents with their baby’s development, in the first years of life. Starting with the feeding process, Good Momming! analyses the baby’s characteristics and gives parents specific recommendations, based on their little one’s specific needs and preferences. We know that every child behaves differently. So everything from healthy choices and new foods to get inspired with, to a daily lactation schedule or the ability to plan perfectly balanced menus is adapted to the baby’s preferences and behaviour.  And we’ll do it all both mobile and in real time.

The idea started to emerge about one and a half years ago. I was working with Bogdan, one of my co-founders on his parenting project and part of our work was in talking to moms and understanding the challenges they face during the first 3 years of their baby’s life. We then discovered the main issue was that each child behaves differently and all the information available must be adapted to his/her specific behavior. New parents lack the know how and experience and moms have trouble in trusting their decisions based on the maternal gut feeling.

So we started to do research and data analysis, talked with a lot of moms, scouted forums, did tests, partnered with nutritionists and pediatricians, discovered that the problem is global and now here we are, trying to pursue the solutions. We still have a lot to learn and we’re eager to do that.

2. Like the concept, so we need to know the team. Can you tell us a little bit about yourself and your colleagues?

The core team is awesome. We’re about 10 and we cover the main areas that we’re interested on. Customer and product development, medical, research and algorithms. We work on several verticals and we measure progress on each one. The main focus is on learning. And with previous experience in parenting and business from the founding team( the two Bogdans and Dan) we’re constantly adapting the things we learn to our incremental progress.

About me, there’s not much to tell. I’m constantly adapting to be able to pursue innovation on big global markets. A huge believer in great teams and scalability. In the past, I’ve tried to disrupt the Romanian travel space. Great lessons learned from there. Also co-founded an agency on brand research, based in Bucharest and backed by the EU.

3. What’s Good Momming’s business model?

We consider two options regarding our business model.

The main revenue stream would be charging customers for access to the platform and its features based on a subscription based model. When analyzing the market and calculating the ROI for a single family that uses the product for a single year we discovered that we have an efficiency boost of up to 80% when it comes to saving money. Liberating parents from the hassle process of adapting the information to their particular needs is a great thing.

We also consider to offer the product for free to the end users (parents). This way the adoption would be faster and at a larger scale. We would generate revenue from other verticals, such as big data analysis and interpretation. There is a big opportunity to do so, because when talking to other organizations serving the same market, especially the governmental ones, we saw that the need for tangible and actionable data is enormous.

4. At the moment, you’re looking for new team members. Have you found them?

We’re looking to expand the development team and accelerate the development process. We’re still searching, we found some people but we’re not in the point in which we can say stop. So if you know anyone who’s willing to work in a start up, feel free to recommend.

5. Any competition out there? If so, what makes Good Momming! unique?

The way we see it right now, competition is a bit mixed up. Our competitors are actually an array of niches: (1) all major parenting sites that currently do their job very well; (2) all experienced mom blogs/guest blogs that have a huge power over

The soon-to-be-mommies and last but not least is (3) each mom in particular. You can never compete with the maternal gut feeling that each woman has over protecting their little one. We’re overcoming this with a structured plan to educate newer moms on how important is to leverage and educate that feeling. This is why we’re trying to have as many pediatricians, nutritionists and experienced moms on board and involved. We differentiate by positioning our product as an AI system. And we’re also trying to make Good Momming! as a complementary tool for every expert out there. It is very important for create a symbiosis between parents, children and healthcare professionals.

6. Good luck at TechCrunch Disrupt. How have you prepared and what do you expect from this event?

You can only think you’re prepared, you never know the reality until you experience it. We’ll be demoing all day and pitching everyone. The main purpose is to get out there and get feedback. There’s a lot of start ups there, some with general consumer markets bigger than ours, but I think we have a chance to be the public choice award and get on stage. Even if we like it or not, Good Momming! has and needs a lot of research behind. We need to accelerate that process before running our of money so we’ll probably need external capital to do that. If ever in need of money, there’s “smart money” that we’re looking for. Silicon Valley is a great place to get feedback on that too and see how investors value your strategy alongside with your team and product.

7. Considering pitching your business at VentureConnect? What do you expect from such a business interaction?

We’re thinking about it. We just saw that the registration process opened. Venture Connect is a good experience for every young entrepreneur. And the opportunity is on both sides. I think that through events like this one, investors could better understand the entrepreneurial ecosystem in Romania and develop new ways to act and improve on that. I think Romanian entrepreneurs need guidance and something to validate that their “big thinking” is correct.

8. We always like to end the session by giving the entrepreneur the floor. Any other detail you wish to mention and we have not asked?

There’s a long way ahead. We’ve just peeled the surface. Wish us good luck. That’s important.