What is your name & how many children do you have?
My name is Louise Zweben and I have two daughters, aged 9 and 5.
What’s the name of your company and the inspiration behind it?
I am originally from Scotland and moved to California on assignment 14 years ago while working with Sun Microsystems. I met my future husband and decided to stay in the U.S. During that time there have been several deaths in my family in Scotland and being unable to join in all of the events surrounding funeral and related activities I started to realize how important it is to be able to be with family and friends during this time to physically comfort each other, share stories and memories about the deceased, grieving together with the community and starting the healing process. In these days of families spread throughout the world, I started to think about how we could use the internet to somehow attempt to address this problem.
I initially created SympathyTree.com to enable family and friends around the world to be instantly notified about all events relating to the death of a loved one but we quickly evolved into a community site, where each memorial is highly customizable and enables people to honor their loved one by sharing their stories and memories, uploading photos and videos and allowing others to comments thereby starting a conversation about the deceased and creating a very rich highly interactive memorial community site for friends and family to visit for generations to come.
What is your current business struggle?
The biggest challenge for is what every web business faces – getting the word out there about www.sympathytree.com and highlighting the differentiation about us and the typical online memorial sites in the minds of the user. SympathyTree.com is much more than an online memorial site, it is a community of friends and family of the deceased who come together to start a conversation about their loved one through stories, photos, videos and to spread these stories and any news regarding events virally through out the world within minutes.
What is your current business goal?
My business goal is to become the leader of highly customizable unique online memorials which can be virally transmitted across the world in mere minutes and which enables conversations and exchanges of stories and memories at the time of the death of a loved one.
What one quality do you think is a “must-have” for a mom entrepreneur?
I think there are many skill sets that are must-haves but the one quality that any entrepreneur have must be passion about their vision. If you have passion for what you do, a proven need, a dedication to customer service and a good team behind you, you will succeed.
What are your 3 favorite blogs?
http://www.workitmom.com/blogs/
What is your favorite quote?
To ask permission is to seek denial.
What advice would you give to a new mom entrepreneur?
Apart from having the qualities described above, my biggest piece of advice would be to make sure you do your market research and verify the need. As you come close to your product launch, it is critical that you perform user testing, you may think your product is obvious and easy to use but it’s only by watching others engage with it that you get the true story. It is better to do user testing prior to launching your company than having your first customers have a negative experience.
How can we connect with you?
Please visit www.sympathytree.com for more information about the company, or you can contact me by email.
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How beautiful that you took a heart wrenching situation and made it possible for friends and family to celebrate that person’s life virtually together. I never knew such online communities existed. Thanks for sharing.