I Wish My Mom Had HoneyBook

My mother was a solopreneur. She actually still is. Over the years of our childhood, my mother went from being a speech pathologist to owning a poster frame business and a hat distribution business (she had a partner in the hat business) from our apartment in Manhattan. Today, she has a very successful executive consulting business that she runs from our parents home in Jerusalem. My mother was actually quite heroic. She was a solopreneur and mother of 7 all at once.

More accurately, back then my mother was almost a solopreneur. There was (and still is) the bank. Back in poster-frame days, there was my grandfather who ran the inventory stock. There was a stack of invoices for him to compare and the typed proposals she sent out by snail mail (then it was only mail with bad tasting stamps) and fax. There were checkbooks and family bookkeepers, doing favors and collecting sums for their service. I remember those BIG checkbooks, looseleafs with three checks and stubs to a page. I think I may have even created a letterhead for her on our old Original Mac. When I think about it, my mother was more than heroic because the amount of time she spends and spent on administration was a big burden to her business.

The truth is: even today, my mother still has a ton of administrative mess to handle for her consulting business. However, that is only because she now lives in Israel.

If my mother lived in the USA, she would use HoneyBook. When I invested in HoneyBook 5 years ago, I thought about my mother. HoneyBook was originally in the “events business” but when we invested, it was transitioning to make the lives of a solopreneur like my mother much easier, streamlining the process of managing leads, sending proposals, signing contracts, and getting paid. No more giant checkbooks because it is all digital. Now, Honeybook is deepening its service to solopreneurs like my mother.

I am excited about our new partnership with Citi Ventures and the potential financial services this can open up for customers. While I do not think HoneyBook would have helped my mother with raising seven rambunctious children, it would have helped and does help today with financial management, reducing headaches, collecting payments and clearing significant time in the day.

This is why HoneyBook is exploding today. My mother was way ahead of her time but today many people are running their own business, mixing family life and work. They are looking for seamless digital experiences, far beyond just the poorly designed letterhead I made on our Mac. They want to look professional, collect payments online, and find like-minded service providers who complement them and with whom they can collaborate. Unfortunately, for my serial solopreneur mother, so far, HoneyBook is only available in America and she now lives in Israel.

Our continuing investment in HoneyBook is powered both by a secular trend of growth in solopreneurs across America and the world, as well as a personal mission of helping more people like my mother grow their businesses and their families while finding their passion and purpose. We are inspired to keep investing because HoneyBook will keep helping people and tiny businesses build more professional and resilient businesses. We have a lot of opportunity to ensure that solopreneurs get the business and financial tools they need to be successful. We have a responsibility to do that for the entrepreneurs and their families.

One last thing: If you need advice on raising children, you will still need my mom. There is nobody better to ask and I don’t think HoneyBook can help with that.

Originally published at https://aleph.vc on March 25, 2019.