#6 Ways Parenting Startups Can Make Their Way To Mainstream Success Considering the intense penetration of the digital media, parents often prefer the digital route to seek solutions to various parenting problems.

Good parenting has always been a matter of concern for a new parent. After all, parenting involves taking care and responsibility of a new life that is completely dependent on you.

In today's world, parenting has become challenging as parents spend a considerable amount of time at the workplace. Besides that, families are now predominantly nuclear. I personally comprehensively believe in the old adage, "Children learn from who you are, rather than what you teach!"

Considering the intense penetration of the digital media, parents often prefer the digital route to seek solutions to various parenting problems. Parents have a close friend named "Mr. Google". They go to Mr. Google and ask him various queries like

1. How To Be A Wow Parent,
2. How To Build Self-Esteem In Your Child,
3. How To Effectively Communicate With Children
4. How To Help Children To Study Better
5. How To Make The Child Ready For The Future
6. How Were Celebrities Parented
7. And Much More.

Parents are constantly in search for a website/portal that would offer content addressing their concerns. If you wish to guide parents if you believe this issue needs to be addressed if you believe you have it in you to answer the queries that arise in the minds of parents.

Here are 6 ways a parenting startup can pave its path to success:

1.Focus on the Individual Context:

In public speaking training, we often say, "Public Speaking is essentially one to one communication. The only difference being, you are speaking to many ones at the same time. When you can get this right, you become a great public speaker. Similarly, in digital servicing, you may be creating a product for millions of people. However, it is going to be consumed only one person at a time. Any organization that can stay focused on this truth, offer customers a little leeway to customize their experience, is on their journey towards success and impact. The Marketing and Communications Head of Unilever, Keith Weed, calls it as the "Market segment of 1'. Service a million customers...one customer at a time. To explain "context' a little deeper

1. Village vs Town vs City is different contexts
2. Single parent
3. Remarried parents
4. Long-distance relationships
5. Nuclear families
6. Joint families are all different contexts

2. Understand that Each Individual's Needs (+ challenges) are Different.

Parenting involves a deep and a thorough understanding of the needs and challenges faced by children. Children might face different challenges while growing up, and it is highly imperative to be acquainted with the fact that even if the issues faced by two children might be the same, the solution might be different. For example, Five parents might complain about indiscipline of kids. Different solutions will be applicable to different parents.

1. One parent might be searching for encouragement.
2. Another might be searching for endorsement.
3. Third might be searching for incentives.
4. Fourth might be looking for a buddy to share with.
5. The fifth might be looking for data and insights if this is common to many or exclusive to them.

Knowing who is searching for what is the key to success for a parenting website.

3. Map out Short Term and Long Term Goals in Parenting

If you have ever attended a goal setting seminar, you would have heard the trainer/facilitator insist on setting goals in different time zones. You would have heard these two terms - short term and long term. Short-term goals are goals for which you have the resources and you have the ability to make it happen. You just need application. You just need to prioritize. It needs a burst.

Long-term goals are goals which include uncertainty, requires some things to change, where you need more co-operation and a strategy in nature too. it needs commitment and patience. Long-term goals are a series of many short-term goals. Like in health, business, financial planning, etc., parenting too needs long-term as well as short-term goals.

Short term goals will include things like the quality time you should invest in the child, a gift that you might want to buy for them, the help you want to give to them for their studies this weekend, a discussion to solve their pressing issues, etc.

Long-term goals would include things like, making them courageous, giving them an exposure to various cultures, developing the communication skills, guiding them in becoming a relationship, inspiring them to break their comfort zones, helping them set high personal benchmarks with morals and ethics, etc. Parents who have both long-term and short-term goals for their children will nurture complete children. If your portal can help them do that, it will be incredible.

4. Give Them Offline Support Too

It is true that in today's world people prefer the digital route in order to gain insights and seek solutions to the problems that they face. This has, in a way, given rise to a lot of entrepreneurs to start their own portals that would offer detailed insights and solutions about the problems their customers face. However, in case of parenting, offline support is just as important as online support. Special one on one sessions with an expert, group sessions with like-minded parents, add to the brand credibility giving it huge leverage in the minds of the consumers. This offline support system acts as a huge reassurance for the parents.

5. Pay Fantastic Attention to User Experience.

It should be noted that the website apart from offering great content and service, should be highly customer-centric and user-friendly. Hence while designing a website; it becomes imperative for the entrepreneur to keep a user-friendly approach in mind. Website offering great content but failing to meet a user-friendly approach find it difficult to attain mainstream success. What we intended as the impact is not important. How the parents are using the website is more important. Products must evolve to serve the customer's burning needs. The delivery of the product should be in line with the comfort of the parents.

6. Reward the Parents

Just like everyone else, parents too need gratification. Who does not like gifts? Everyone does! Entrepreneurs must think of creative ways to reward parents. As more parents stay engaged with your website, the more it helps build trust thus leading the way to a positive word of mouth. Following are the awards that can be given to the parents.

1. A virtual badge of honor
2. The honor of being the "parent of the month'
3. Mention them by name when an insight by them is found to be useful for many
4. Gift vouchers for a cup of coffee
5. Mugs / T-Shirts / Key Chains etc
6. A designer horn that can be displayed at their work that (kind of) announces how good they have been
7. Certificate of merits

With these six steps in place, we are sanguine, your parenting startup is all geared for success. All the best. Parents of today's world are eagerly waiting for your site. Go ahead and make the impact!