Today on the show I’m *chatting* with Vanessa Quigley of Chatbooks (and, no, I couldn’t resist the pun!). She is a mom of seven and Chatbooker-in-Chief of the photo subscription app, Chatbooks. Since its founding in 2014, Chatbooks has grown into a huge company. We are so excited for her success! Welcome to the show, Vanessa! On The Podcast 1:02 - From Idea to Company 7:08 - Hilarity and Wild Success With A Viral Video Ad 10:37 - Working Closely on a Project 12:30 - More with Real Mom 13:04 - Organic ROI 14:26 - Start Up Business with Investors 17:45 - Working with your Husband 21:04 - Start Up Mom Hustle 23:46 - Day In The Life 24:42 - Adorable Mom Moment Listen Now From Tender Moment to Brand New Company Until she became a mom, Vanessa didn’t take memory keeping seriously. When she had her first child, she bought her first camcorder and camera. Vanessa began using these tools to record their family story through scrapbooking - the old school way! Vanessa remembers, “I would put my baby to bed and spend hours with this creative outlet.” She was an avid scrapbooker for years, but the last time she remembers touching a scrapbook was when she was on bedrest during her pregnancy with her 5th child. “That was the last time I did anything with printed photos,” Vanessa recalls.  Digital photography had become popular and Vanessa noticed she stopped printing hardcopy photos all together. She knew her photos were safe on her hard drive, plus she got busy with 5, then 6, then 7 kids! During that transition, Vanessa noticed she didn’t do anything by way of memory keeping. (And side note, don’t you love that phrase, ‘memory keeping’? I do!) About four years ago Vanessa went to tuck her youngest, who was five at the time, into bed and heard him crying. Her son was holding a photo book! His preschool teacher had purchased simple, Dollar Store albums and filled them with photos from the year.  She gave one to every child as a graduation gift.  Vanessa thought this gift was so sweet - and she had no idea the impact it would have on her son. Looking back on it now, Vanessa remembers this tender moment with a great deal of fondness: “My son felt like he was growing up. And it’s funny to think about a 5-year-old getting nostalgic. But he looked up to me and said ‘Mama, I don’t EVER want to grow up!’ I realized in that moment he was holding onto memories, physical memories of his life.” Vanessa came away from that moment desiring to do a better job at keeping the memories of her children.  Her husband had been working on another project (a cloud-based solution) with the goal of helping people safeguard and organize their memories. He had been operating on the premise that print was dead and everything needed to be organized and easily accessible in the cloud. Vanessa still thinks this goal of cloud organization is a good one, but in that sweet moment, she realized that print wasn’t dead. As she recounts it, “I marched downstairs that night and told my husband I thought physical photos still mattered. I told him I wanted him to print my Instagram account.” Vanessa realized she had started using Instagram to curate her camera roll, and she wanted to give those memories to her kids. She needed to do the important mom work of telling her family’s story. Vanessa thought her crazy idea would be better than nothing. Her husband had already assembled a development team, and they were able to pivot the project they had been working on and put resources toward this venture. In a week they had a working prototype. And it went crazy from there! The app was amazing! Within 60 seconds they were able to print anything ever posted to Instagram into organized volumes. Chatbooks continued to grow with Instagram, and eventually began to add additional photo sources. Vanessa says they’ve grown by listening to customers and developing the product based on the feedback. Hilarity and Wild Success With A Viral Video Ad We’re certain that one key to the success of Chatb