Wouldn’t it be lovely to have a Linked In for creatives (but, maybe one with better aesthetics)? A community of creative mothers who share your interests but also share your experience of balancing motherhood while pursuing a creative career? A space where you can find friends and potential collaborators, but also be discovered yourself? Well, wish no more. Hey Mama, a curated community of creative mothers, where people can discover and be discovered, launched today. Hey Mama’s goal is to help connect incredible women to collaborate, inspire and work together. Doesn’t that sound amazing?! And overdue!
Over the past few months, I’ve had the honour of working with Katya and Amri, the two lovely women behind Hey Mama, helping them in little ways with navigating the world of IG moms and brainstorming ideas for their website. These two have such energy and big ideas it is hard to contain. As much as they wanted to learn from me, I wanted to learn from them. In just a few months of chatting and exchanging ideas we really tested and proved the value of making these creative connections and what they can bring to life.
With their busy schedules and big dreams, and each raising a toddler, Katya and Amri found the time to answer a few questions for me about how they became friends, how Hey Mama got started and what their hopes are for the future. I hope you enjoy reading what they had to say.
First off, how did you two meet?
Amri: We met through our daughters when they were babies. I was working full time and Katya was working from home. A babysitter had left my daughter’s favorite blanket over at Katya’s house on a play date, so I posted a “Desperately looking for Katya” message on the local mom’s board. Luckily Katya spotted the message and invited me over for playdate. We had a total mama crush moment and that playdate turned into a glass of wine and so many more adventures. We come from totally different social circles and career paths and probably wouldn’t have met otherwise. I’m always really grateful for that blanket.
Katya: What started over bonding over a pair of shared JBrand jeans became our realization that we both were craving a friend that we felt was truly close. Amri and I definitely hit a period after about a year or two of being friends that we got really close, and ever since Heymama she’s like my work wife. I don’t know what I would do without her!
Tell me a little bit about yourselves: children, hobbies, background.
Amri: We both have girls the same age 3.5. Mari is my daughter. I’m originally from Florida and nothing makes me happier than a day at the beach or the pool just any kind of water! I’m into all kinds of design. My husband and I are about to start on a gut renovation project of our new home in Brooklyn. I love making things, sewing, crafts, and cooking. We have a pretty great garden and I’m into whipping things up from the garden and having friends over for a feast. This past season I started jarring tomatoes and giving them as gifts. I also love yoga and just being outside with my family.
Katya: My little wild is Liliana Rae. I’m a single mama and was born in St. Petersburgh, Russia. I came her as a little one with some very courageous and brave parents! They moved to Brooklyn, and the story goes that my mom would go into grocery stores asking for blowjobs (she needed a blow dryer). Growing up in New York City I was had access to some incredible cultural and fun social experiences. Thanks to my tiger Russian mama, I studied at School of American Ballet at Julliard, played piano, painted and much to my mom’s dismay went clubbing like a NYC kid does! Now I love to introduce Lili to as many museums, music, dancing and travel as I can. I’m just moving to Brooklyn Heights and looking forward to getting back to my Brooklyn roots.
What sort of work did you do before you had children?
Amri: I spent a decade curating cool fashion and products for major magazines like Glamour and Cosmopolitan. I’m a stylist and a fashion editor.
Katya: I come from a sales, social and digital marketing background. I’ve worked with some incredible startups helping them grow and scale.
How has having children changed your perspective on life and career?
Amri: Before I had my daughter my life was all work, then drinks and dinners after work every night. Once Mari came along my priorities totally changed. I had this tug in my heart that I needed to get home to her, to be more available, to experience things with her. I now understand it is important to slow down and appreciate what we have right now. Things are just flying by, she gets bigger everyday and I can’t go back and make up things, it’s just right now. Being a mom has taught me patience, which I still struggle with. Before I was all deadlines and rush, but no one rushes a toddler putting on their shoes. Anyone who tries to learns it take twice as long. This has been my most important lesson from Mari to sit back and wait and enjoy it. I wanted to find work-life balance and a career that catered to my important role as a mama, this is the place where Heymama came from. Unless you have a child, it’s hard to understand the importance of connection to other women who face these same challenges and who struggle to be great parents and have something outside of that too.
Katya: Having Liliana completely changed the course of my life. I was in my mid-twenties when I decided to take the plunge to motherhood and was the only one of my friends to do so. It’s one of the reasons meeting Amri meant so much to me. Liliana is my true north. When I’m with her, I feel whole and complete. Like my other leg is there and I’m not sure how I walked without it. She’s taught me to just let things be, a little messy, not so perfect, enjoy the small moments and most importantly to be silly. She’s a natural comedian and I laugh most with her. Working full time I feel as though I miss a lot, so I’m looking forward to creating a better work-life balance that allows me to have work I’m really passionate about and be present when my daughter needs me.
What is Hey Mama all about? And how did you come up with the idea?
Amri: Heymama is a social and professional network for cool and creative mamas. Our goal is to curate a community of inspired and imaginative moms and give them a space to share their worlds, discover new people and opportunities, and collaborate. We’ve found that unlike so many other communities, moms are really supportive and want to lift each other up. There is plenty of room for all of us to be successful we can only benefit from helping others.
Initially Katya and I started this project to connect moms purely for friendship. As we met with so many women to talk about our vision, we found a common thread that everyone we fell in love with had a creative venture, project, career, or brand that they were passionate about. We started wanting to connect all these women and that’s how Heymama started.
Katya: What we’ve found along this road is that the more mamas we meet who have started projects of their own, the more invigorated we are. If we can get these women together, we have a feeling that something magical will happen.
Who do you expect to be active users of the Hey Mama website?
Amri: Moms who want to collaborate on creative projects with other moms, those who want a place to display their creative work and to be contacted for work/projects. Moms who want to easily communicate with other creative moms. Moms who are really into Instagram but don’t blog and want a space to publish content, those who want to discover cool brands. It’s great for women who want to get in touch with creatives on the other side of the world. So far we’ve been hearing from stylists, photographers, bloggers, Instagram influencers, creative directors, shop owners, designers, Etsy moms, interior designers, artists, the list is really endless.
Katya: That about sums it up!
What are you hoping to achieve with this new platform for creative mamas?
Amri: We want to become an essential resource for these women to put themselves out there, be discovered and discover new talent. Our dream is to bring together a global community of women and build beautiful things for ourselves, each other, and the rest of the world. We aim to inspire and enable these awesome mamas to be successful in their endeavors and connect them with brands that match their lifestyle. We’ll be featuring inspiring success stories and opening up chats with these women to encourage women to take risks and launch their own projects.
Katya: We hope to create a passionate community in the digital world but also allow those women to connect in real life. So we’d love the day to come when you’re anywhere in the world and you can you meet a heymama for a glass of wine or a coffee, and next thing you know you’re working on a project with someone in Paris or London or Jaipur!
What are people going to love about Hey Mama?
Amri: We think that moms are going to love our community.That they will be able to learn some things from women who have faced similar challenges to what they are facing. We want Heymama to be a place to get inspired.
Katya: We hope mamas love that you can get a bit more in depth and learn more about a person’s story behind their brand. How they started, challenges they faced and tips they’d like to share with others. Most of all, they can see who wants to connect and for what so it might feel a bit more inviting to reach out.
What do you see as the next big step for Hey Mama?
Amri: We’ve been taking this one small step at a time. Right now we’re excited that our Beta site is up so we can get feedback from our mamas. The next step is to see what the community wants more of go with that. We’re excited to have some IRL (in real life) events and get people together as well.
Katya: The next big step for us is to continue to build awareness amongst our users and members, and also create really good partnerships. We’d love to work with brands as well as social and digital and events.
When you dream about where Hey Mama is in a year’s time, what does that look like?
Katya: In a year’s time I imagine we’ll have a proper office, with a bigger team of incredible women and thousands of members who are making it happen daily. Get up, be awesome, repeat. Let’s see how that does in 365 days.
Amri: I hope we’ll have connected thousands of women to each other and to great brands. I’m excited to see what kind of collaborations come about. Yes, a real office would be great and a few more people on our team, but if we can help just a few people then this is all worth it.
Find Hey Mama online here or on Instagram @heymama. And find me on Hey Mama right here.
You might also like my post:
Creative Mother: Kaity Ferrell
- Find all my Creative Mother Interviews here
Social Media Minimalism: How to Balance Family Life and Instagram
How to Do Minimalism with Children
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