3 Questions With: Father & Son Partners Behind Mobile Parenting App, babe.e.book

Windsor natives Kevin Macilvane and his son, Kevin Jr., launched their startup, babe.e.book, back in July.  The mobile app, which is available as a free download here, is designed for new parents who wish to privately share photos, videos and stories of their children within their designated network.  Here’s more from about babe.e.book and what it’s like working together:

 

How did you come up with the idea for babe.e.book?

The idea for babe.e.book came about as a solution to a family dilemma.  My wife and I were expecting our first born and lived 700 miles away from our closest relative.  We needed a safe, convenient way to capture our journey as new parents and share it with the people who mattered the most to us, our family and close friends.  We needed something more personal than Facebook and less time consuming than putting together a mass text message or email.  We needed a private place for our growing family to share and stay connected.

How has the startup process been for you so far?  What are the short- and long-term goals?

We’ve had a lot of fun bringing this idea to life.  We’ve had our share of challenges and difficulties (every startup does) but continue to listen, learn and constantly improve.  We have a lot of goals, daily/monthly/quarterly goals that we are laser-focused on.  Our number one priority every day is improving user experience. We work extremely hard to fix bugs and optimize our mobile app’s performance, while listening to our users evolving needs.

Short-term (by the end of 2012), we are focused on expanding to the Droid platform.  Longer-term (no later than the close of Q2 2013), we plan on rolling out an in-app upgrade that enables users to opt in or out of extremely valuable product and service opportunities – stay tuned!

As father and son, how is it to start a business together?  

Kevin Jr: [My dad is] the smartest, most focused man I have ever met.  Naturally we butt heads but its healthy — we speak daily over the phone and constantly challenge each other to think from different perspectives.  He has a tremendous amount of experience (over 30 years) starting and running businesses, he possesses a wealth of knowledge for me to draw from  and I never take that for granted.

Kevin Sr.: I have gone from being extremely frustrated with working with young creative minds (who generally fly by the seat of their pants), to a member of a team who has relearned how to: listen, take risks, and make collective decisions.  My respect for my son has never been so high, as I have witnessed his keen sense of insight and caring for his fellow man to create a technology that will help reshape the way the world treats the future of our society — the children.