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Laura Gerson and Galite Shafer of MomAngeles. Photo credit to www.kidsinthehouse.com.

WHO THEY ARE: Laura Gerson and Galite Shafer – Principals, MomAngeles Media LLC

LOCATION: Los Angeles, CA

SUCCESS STORY: Launched 3rd website, The Mommy Awards, after producing mom-focused websites MomAngeles and TheMomFair

WORK SCHEDULE: School hours, during toddler naptime, and at night when the kids are sleeping

KIDS: Laura – one daughter, age 6; Galite – 3 kids, ages 6, 4 and 2

SANITY VICE: Get up and walk away from the computer for a bit, come back refreshed (if working from home, watch TV during lunch and veg out for a minute)

SMART READ: Laura tried to read Lean In, but mompreneuring got in the way; Galite reads online business sites like Entrepreneur

BEST TIME MANAGEMENT TIP: Samantha Ettus’ “golden triangle” idea – run your life in the areas between home, work and school — Do not leave the “golden triangle”

GO-TO TECH: ASANA – our entire business can be run on phones with all the apps we use (Capsule, MailChimp, WordPress, GoDaddy, etc) but ASANA is the backbone

WORK-LIFE BALANCE? Work when the kids sleep / Focus on your kids when they are awake

5 Questions for Laura and Galite:

1. Tell us about MomAngeles and why you started it. Are you planning to roll this out in other cities? We started MomAngeles as a resource for busy LA Moms to put the “best of LA in the palm of your hand.” Our MomAngeles Perks Card gets moms perks with awesome brands like SPUD, SoulCycle and SkinnyGirl Daily and local businesses like The Pump Station, Kidville and My Gym. Other cities?  Hmmm – maybe SanFrangeles?

2. You’re also passionate about helping moms get back into the workforce via your MomFair conference. Do you have personal experience with trying to get back in or why is this a passion of yours? While blogging is a super fun experience, making an income at blogging is hard to do. So there were many times in the early years of MomAngeles where Laura was looking for work and just couldn’t land a job. Her frustration as a talented but out-of-work mom led her to do lots of research on the topic. She even worked as a recruiter for a few months, just to better understand why it’s so challenging for moms who opt out to raise families have such a hard time opting back in. Hence came MomFair, an online resource with events for moms looking to return to work. We want to help moms who want to work. We hire moms. We have five moms on our sales team right now!

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Laura Gerson with her daughter.

3. How are you working smart to be flexible these days? Does your team work flexibly? We are a virtual team. We set deadlines but we all work from home and work when it works for us. ASANA is our lifeline. Our developers and social media manager all work from tasks in ASANA. Our sales team is comprised of moms who work on their own schedule. We have bi-weekly sales meetings and set monthly goals, but we are super flexible about how and when things get done. Our motto is “we do what we can.” Our writers write when they can.

4. What is the media missing about working moms, in your opinion? That we are talented, smart, harder working even than Dads…for the most part…because we still run our households (including family schedules) while holding down a job or running a company. We are the world’s greatest multi-taskers.

 

5. What advice do you live by as a working mom? Cut yourself come slack. Don’t be too hard on yourself. No one can do everything. Want to feel accomplished? Pick three things you have to get done that day. Three things. They can be family or household related or work related. It doesn’t matter. But if you can get those three things done that day, you’ve done a lot.

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