MommyAssistant helps parents around the house

When MommyAssistant founder Stephanie Feltus and her husband had their first child they started to understand the old adage, “It takes a village.” During the first few weeks of bringing home their baby, Feltus was often asked when her mother was going to come stay with her. Feltus’ mom lived five hours away and had…

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Claire Roehri, Operations & Business Strategy Intern and Stephanie Feltus, Founder & CEO. Photo by Melanie Phelan.

When MommyAssistant founder Stephanie Feltus and her husband had their first child they started to understand the old adage, “It takes a village.”

During the first few weeks of bringing home their baby, Feltus was often asked when her mother was going to come stay with her. Feltus’ mom lived five hours away and had her own work and responsibilities. Slowly, Feltus started to realize that motherhood and parenting have drastically changed in the last few years.

“My husband and I didn’t realize how busy our careers were until we had our first child,” said Feltus. “We were miserable working long hours, and having to come home to do more tasks was terrible.”

Feltus said she soon realized that her and her husband were not able to spend enough quality time with their daughter.

“So we started hiring people, and I realized that we were spending a lot of money hiring people for different services, and that it would be great if we could just hire one person to do all of those tasks,” said Feltus. “I hired one woman, and I started calling her my Mommy Assistant. Then my friends started to ask me to match them up with assistants, and it just went on from there.”.

MommyAssistant helps with household management. The assistants will help with things like laundry, light house cleaning, meal prep and grocery shopping. The MommyAssistant team currently consists of 15 assistants and have helped over 60 families in the Omaha area.

Finding a MommyAssistant

Families are currently assigned a Mommy Assistant by Feltus and her team. The assistant usually lives relatively close to the family, and will help out at least once a week.

“The assistant will take care of whatever the family is in need of,” said Feltus. “That way, when the parents get home, they can enjoy spending time with their family.”

Feltus explained that her current team of assistants mostly consists of stay-at-home-moms who are available for work while their kids are at school.

“It’s an easy way for them to make a little extra cash, and they get to do what they do best, be moms,” said Feltus.

The team currently consists of all females, but Feltus is very open to hiring men as MommyAssistants as well.

“We have interviewed male MommyAssistants, but they just didn’t think it was a good fit for them,” said Feltus. “We would love to have some men on the team though!”

Joining StraightShot

MommyAssistant is one of the eight new startups that will be participating in the StraightShot accelerator starting this June. Feltus explained that the team will be adjusting their business model while in the program.

She explained that the MommyAssistant team currently matches all of the families and assistants manually, however, the ultimate goal is to make it more of an automated process, in order to help as many families as possible.

“The goal is to make it more of a membership/subscription/matching service,” said Feltus. “We want it to kind of be like Tinder and Care.com for household management.”

Feltus’ goals for the business also include a mobile-friendly site and a household management system within the site, which would help communicate reminders to the family and assistant.

“We also want the site to include tools and tips that would help people manage their time better in order to create a healthy work-life balance,” said Feltus.

The team also recently received a Nebraska Prototyping Grant in order to continue to develop their ideas for the platform.

Working on rebranding

Prior to starting their time at StraightShot, the team also plans on going through a rebrand in the coming weeks.

“We’re thinking about changing the name a bit because right now it really gears towards women,” said Feltus. “As the millennials get older, specifically millennial dads, we see more of a need and calling for help. We help a lot more people than just moms.”

When looking at the future of the industry, Feltus explained that she sees nothing but growth.

“The household management industry is definitely rising as the economy gets back on its feet,” said Feltus. “All of the tasks we manage, like laundry and meal prep, are showing an increase in their markets so I’m pretty confident that this is a need that will just keep growing.”

 

Melanie Lucks is a communications intern for Silicon Prairie News and AIM Careerlink.

This story is part of the AIM Archive

This story is part of the AIM Institute Archive on Silicon Prairie News. AIM gifted SPN to the Nebraska Journalism Trust in January 2023. Learn more about SPN’s origin »

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4 responses to “MommyAssistant helps parents around the house”

  1. Wize Adz Avatar
    Wize Adz

    We could really use this service!

    Alas, it’s clearly aimed at moms — and I’m a dad. Am I allowed to sign up?

    Seriously, the marketing is a little sexist for something that’s aimed at working couples.

    1. Brooke S Avatar
      Brooke S

      That was addressed in the article:

      ” Prior to starting their time at StraightShot, the team also plans on going through a rebrand in the coming weeks.

      “We’re thinking about changing the name a bit because right now it really gears towards women,” said Feltus. “As the millennials get older, specifically millennial dads, we see more of a need and calling for help. We help a lot more people than just moms.” “

      1. Stephanie Minor Feltus Avatar
        Stephanie Minor Feltus

        Of course you can call us! And thank you Brooke. Yes, we are working on a rebrand and we would love to hear your feedback. If you would like to join our focus group, please email us at: info@mommyassistsnt.com or call us at 402-915-2831.

  2. Rebecca Hendrickson Avatar
    Rebecca Hendrickson

    I think that you’re on the right track regarding household management. While I do not have children, I definitely could use and want a household assistant. While keeping the house clean and getting laundry done-done, there is more to managing one’s household. The app should include an al a carte type of menu that enables people to select the services they need. Also having an ‘on-demand’ feature could be very helpful to clients, i.e. something just came up and I need someone to go to the grocery store, who is available right now that can do this.