Fran Maier is the founder and the young CEO of BabyQuip, a company that rents baby equipment while traveling. She is also the founder of TRUSTe Private Solutions and one of the co-founders of Match.com.
BabyQuip focuses on offering baby gear rental services for those traveling families. Fran Maier has managed to work with top names like Randi Zuckerberg, who offers advice. In addition, Jason Calacanis, an early investor with Uber, backed up the startup. Fran Maier is an alumnus of Stanford University, where he studied for a bachelor’s and masters in business administration.
After graduating, I went to a new home within San Francisco. I secured a job at Airbnb Superhost. From the job, I gained knowledge in the traveling industry. In addition, I worked with great individuals in the hospitality industry. That is where I met Kerri Couillard, one of my co-founders in BabyQuip. I saw and cherished her idea about baby gears.
We did some research, and we identified a market gap. So, we opted to start the company as a part-time job. Our aim was to convey a positive message to parents, to show that we care about them. Although we had little funds, our first product did well in the market. We got a lot of requests about baby gear rentals.
I have had several accomplishments since we started our company:
- There has been rapid growth in all races, from distributions to manufacturing.
- Our suppliers are called Quality Providers who never fail in their roles. I love when a mother makes an order and pays before the product is ready.
- We have earned mutual trust from people.
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We researched and identified that many parents liked the baby service. It reduced their stress during holiday traveling moments. Some came with testimonies on how we rescued their vacations. Those minor achievements need to be celebrated.
Certainly, any company faces difficult moments during pre-seed seasons. Although our growth was stunning during the first six months, it reached some point where we had financial problems. In addition, this job required a lot of commitment and dedication. We even cut off some lazy workers. So we transformed our name from Babierge to BabyQuip.
At that moment, we hosted some fundraising to launch various branches in our nation alone. Many investors came along but never liked our ideas. Also, I realized most investors don’t like the product with females only, taking it as gender imbalance. So, most of our ventures were female figures.
I don’t think I am a different CEO because of my gender. But sometimes, I have to control my emotions, temper, and high pitched while working. For sure, I have achieved a lot as an entrepreneur. But, it’s much more difficult to be a female founder.
Some of the reasons are getting the right investors who will believe in you. Second, acquiring the right talent who thinks like you is very ambiguous.
I managed to coach several female entrepreneurs in different fields throughout my career. As a woman, you must be strong and identify what you want in life. And when women talk to an investor about her idea, it sounds different, unlike the male figure. So, they should learn to defend what they know is right. My experience in the marketing department has sharpened my mind.
For sure, women also experience some advantages with their startups. When I founded Match.com, it went viral to become one of the top dating sites. Many women were inspired to find their spouses on the site. The startup made me famous. I have an already identified audience to put my product in and get clients.
To my younger Fran Maier, imposter syndrome is a silent killer disease. Gather confidence in anything that you do. Sometimes I advise females to think positively like a guy. For example, women will write long emails explaining something to the investor. But if they think and act like a guy, they would write very short emails.
I like how male investors lay a hand to each other. Ladies will support you, but with different thoughts. If you go array with something, the contract gets terminated. With BabyQuip, we have experienced such occasions. So let’s transform and be good to everyone.
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