Nurture a Growth Mindset with Jenica Blechschmidt, CEO & Founder of Lovebug

Photo Credit: Kathy Nash.

Lovebug is a new mobile application designed and devoted to helping both babies and parents get more sleep. Using data-backed solutions, Lovebug establishes healthy sleep routines, navigates tricky sleep regressions, and provides parents daily support from certified sleep consultants for newborns and babies up to 36 months of age.

Some of the in-app features include an on-demand lesson library containing hundreds of short video lessons led by pediatric sleep consultants. In addition, the app will monitor a user's sleep log and deliver contextual video lessons when they need them. For example, suppose the app notices your baby is waking up before your desired wake time every morning. In that case, the app will deliver a short lesson to you on how to address early wakings. 

In addition to contextual and on-demand video lessons, the Lovebug app includes a dynamic nap schedule. The Lovebug baby sleep schedule is the first of its kind. It adjusts hourly to guide parents through missed naps, a poor night's sleep, an accidental snooze in the car, or whatever else life might throw at them. With the Lovebug schedule, caretakers will never have to question when to put the baby down to sleep or if the baby is getting enough sleep again. Plus, the Lovebug schedule grows with each child's developing circadian rhythm and guides parents through regressions and nap transitions.

Can you tell our readers about your background?

Hi everyone! I'm Jenica, the CEO and Founder of Lovebug. I started my career in Investment Banking after getting an undergraduate degree in Finance. While I am thankful for learning how to manage a company financially, I knew that it wasn't for me! I moved into the operations side and spent time in Finance, Marketing, and Product Development at a Software Company. Thanks to this broad experience, I'm lucky to now pursue something that is a game-changer in the lives of parents everywhere.  

What inspired you to start your business?

My friends, family, and especially my niece Hazel!

Once I got into my late 20s and early 30s, all of my friends were starting to have babies. A common theme I saw was how frustrating it was for my friends to get their babies and toddlers to sleep at naps and bedtimes. I spent one week with my cousin (and co-founder) and her 10-month old baby and saw how much she struggled with being both an adult and a Mom of a non-sleeping baby. I am a bio-hacker obsessed with good sleep habits myself, so I became addicted to learning about baby sleep. I received my pediatric sleep consultant certification from the Family Sleep Institute. I then started working with hundreds of families to help their babies sleep. I saw firsthand that poor baby sleep is a pervasive, persistent, and painful problem. I knew that technology and tools could help the modern-day Mom. And so Lovebug was born! 

Where is your business based?

Lovebug is based in Naples, FL, because that's where I live, but our team is 100% remote! We also have team members in California. Our app is available worldwide, and our sleep consultants take phone consultations with clients globally.

How did you start your business? What were the first steps you took?

I didn't have a degree in sleep, but was an avid reader about it, and I’m not a parent, though I’ve surrounded myself with many parents. I knew I had to gain credibility in the field, so I went to the most science-based program I could find, the Family Sleep Institute. I always had an app idea in the back of my mind because I come from a software development background. So during my time at the Family Sleep Institute, I started designing my app using Adobe XD software and testing the concept on friends and family members with children in my target market.

I must have changed the product and concept 100 times before registering the business and even talking to potential employees and co-founders to join me. I tested, changed things, and re-tested until I felt confident that something was close. We still do that today while listening so closely to a hand-selected tester group. Our product has been built entirely for and with parents.

What has been the most effective way of raising awareness for your business?

Awareness has been the hardest part. We started by thinking we could do everything based on paid ads. Still, We realized quickly that that was expensive and felt inauthentic to our target market. We pivoted to thinking hard about how our target market, parents of babies and toddlers, are underserved. Marketing messages to new parents that everything is fine, but we know it is messy, complicated, and sometimes disgusting. We created @thelovebuglife community on Instagram, and that has been a game-changer for us. @thelovebuglife is a community that shows the ups and downs of early parenting, and some experts brought in there as well. We host weekly Instagram lives on baby and toddler sleep. We do giveaways, showcase user success, and honor our user's stories when they get tough. Our Instagram has created a bond with our community unlike any other. Word of mouth awareness has helped to grow us from there. 

What have been your biggest challenges and how did you overcome them?

Self-doubt is 100% the hardest thing to overcome as an entrepreneur. Some days feel so good compared to other days that feel hopeless. I struggle with not showing my emotions to my team and remaining stoically confident while our cash flow is dwindling, and I worry about staying in business. Exercise has helped me as well as writing three pages a day on anything. Some days it's a story. Some days it's a manifestation. Some days it's venting. All days are beautiful, though, and I could not imagine my life any other way!

How do you stay focused?

My favorite quote is "strategy is saying no," and I take it to heart. We use a tool called Pivotal Tracker to track everything that we have to do with the business. We meet every other week to stack rank everything that we could be doing in our company. We are ruthless about finishing those tasks in that order. Every weekday, we have a 15-minute check-in where each person on the team says what they did the last 24 hours, what they plan to do the next 24 hours, and if they have any blockers. Then we all chime in to help with blockers. Having everything written down permits us to dream big and plan for the future, while the stack rank enables us to get work done.

How do you differentiate your business from the competition?

Our competition is live sleep consulting. Unlike a live sleep consultant who usually has a 9am-5pm engagement for two weeks, the Lovebug app is with the family 24 hours x 7 days a week x 365 days a year for a lower price. Additionally, the Lovebug mobile app lets parents log their baby's activities on their phone. From the log, Lovebug creates graphs and gives contextual recommendations to the families. For example, suppose your child is waking at 5 am every day, and you want them to wake at 7 am. Then, Lovebug will show you a video lesson from a pediatric sleep coach on how to help your baby sleep in longer. Unlike the competition, everything is quick, self-service, and immediate. Plus, the recommendations change based on the age of the child.  

What has been your most effective marketing strategy to grow your business?

We created an open beta testing program before releasing our mobile app for purchase in the Apple App Store and Google Play Store. Anyone could sign up for the mobile app during the beta to test it out after giving us their email address. We ended up getting close to 1000 subscribers. This beta program helped us confirm our target market and get closer to product-market fit than we would have and gave us a base to sell into once we went live.

What's your best piece of advice for aspiring and new entrepreneurs?

Nurture a growth mindset. You will have the things that you feel confident about doing, and 90% of your job will be in areas you don’t know or understand. Every year, I tackle a new skill to remind me that I’m always going to be a beginner. With practice and patience, you can do anything. It’s frustrating to not know how to do something at first, but when you keep doing it, you will learn and grow more than you’ll ever realize!

What's your favorite app, blog, and book? Why?

App - Lovebug, of course!

Blog - I'll replace this with podcast and say Robinhood's Snacks Daily - it's excellent for business news!

Book - Moonwalking with Einstein - it showed me that a growth mindset can open up your world to many possibilities.  

What's your favorite business tool or resource? Why?

A Masterclass subscription changed my life! The class on Negotiation by Chris Voss and the Entrepreneurship one by Sara Blakely were both life-changing.

Who is your business role model? Why?

Sara Blakely. So much of starting a business is finding creative ways to hustle. She talks about how she hustled in the early days by going from store to store, creating visual displays without permission. That kind of hustle is so essential, and thinking through how to be creative when reaching your market to stand out.  

How do you balance work and life?

We have flexible working hours at Lovebug that allows me to play tennis and walk my dog during the day. Choosing your schedule helps me to live life fully and work fully. Plus, it's so fun to have your own business and help families thrive, so I don't always consider my work to be work - that helps!

What's your favorite way to decompress?

Playing tennis - I like that I cannot think about anything else but hitting the ball!

What do you have planned for the next six months?

Right now, Lovebug is mainly about baby sleep, but we have realized from working with our families that so many other milestones and struggles come up after rest is solved. The other challenges include behavioral issues and discipline as well as nutrition. We'd love to expand our offering to give parents a one-stop shop for all of their parenting desires.

How can our readers connect with you?

We cannot wait to chat with you all!  

Find us at:

Website: www.getlovebug.com

Instagram: www.instagram.com/thelovebuglife

Facebook: www.facebook.com/thelovebuglife