Michelle Kennedy was working as an in-house lawyer for dating app Badoo before she gave birth to her son in 2013. “I was the first to have children in my friendship group, and it’s really hard when you’re the only one,” she says. “When you’ve got that tiny little person, life is completely different. You don’t lose your friends, or your other friends become less important – they actually become so important – but it just means you’ve got these huge, vast gaps in the middle of the day, and that’s scary. Plus, no one really tells you what you’re supposed to do with a newborn.”
She returned to work full time in the spring of 2014 before joining the board of dating app Bumble that summer, but the boredom and isolation of early motherhood had planted the seeds of what would become Peanut in her mind – an app which could connect nearby mothers of children aged up to 16 based on shared interests or common values – which was showcased at Apple’s annual developers conference WWDC last week. Once a match is made, the app cleverly syncs the two women’s calendars to work out when they are mutually free to meet.
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A chance meeting with Deliveroo co-founder and fellow parent Greg Orlowski through a mutual friend led to the two becoming business partners, and realising not being in the dating game left her with little to contribute in a full time position, Kennedy resigned from her “very nice, very stable” job early last year and began seeking funding for Peanut.
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The app matches mothers through the same yes/no system popularised by dating app phenomenon Tinder, though the rejection element is tempered as a ‘Not now’. “Tinder changed a social behaviour, and a social acceptability around online dating – everyone used to think it was cringey. I feel like we’re trying to do something similar with a different market, obviously.”
‘Yummy mummy’ or ‘Alpha mum’, the labels we give motherhood are unhelpful
She met her first investor on a trip to New York with Bumble, but raising further funding was challenging. “When they say you have to kiss a few frogs, oh my god, I must have kissed toads,” she sighs. “The first investor was amazing, he just got it. Other times, it was so challenging. I was told that women don’t need this, or ‘Don’t you wanna do something sexier?’”. Many male investors announced they’d need a second female opinion from a wife or sister.
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The reason there are so few current digital resources for mothers is probably down to the fact that in the past, fewer women with children were working in the tech sector, Kennedy muses. “We’ve got Bumble and Tinder and Uber and Snapchat and Instagram, but once you hit motherhood, all you’ve got is an internet forum, or a Facebook group. I’s not even like I’m creating something new. I just want to take what’s available, and apply it to this market.”
Women in tech, or lack thereof, is an issue which continues to dog the industry, which many major companies facing calls to implement female quotas to tip the stereotypical white male power balance. Positive discrimination is something Kennedy feels especially conflicted over, especially when accusations of tokenism are bandied about.
“It’s that horrible conflict when we have to keep talking about women, and celebrating when women are breaking barriers and smashing ceilings, but it’s so tough because you want to be at the table for merit, not just because you’re a woman.” Yet it’s not yet an problem limited to tech. “It’s any industry when there aren’t a lot of [women].
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The few prominent female tech figures, such as Facebook’s Sheryl Sandberg or Yahoo’s Marissa Mayer tend to get pushed into talking head positions, she worries. “There are actually many incredible women doing incredible things, and we don’t talk about them because they haven’t written a book, or haven’t come out and made a very female-focused stance, they’ve just crept on and gone and done their job. Sometimes you don’t want to see the same women all the time. They’re great, but I want to see something different, and fresh.”
“Amazing things can happen when women get together” – Michelle Kennedy
Kennedy says she often finds herself feeling defensive of Peanut, particularly as she is a woman heading up an app for mothers. Interest in the app fuelled by the status of her male co-founder left her feeling “chippy”, she admits, when she feels the concept, target market and team behind Peanut deserve credit.
The free app launched in the UK and New York in February, and will launch in Los Angeles on 8 June. While Kennedy won’t reveal user numbers, its few months of operation has sent more than 8.5m swipes.
![One of Peanut's cleverest features is its in-app poll and calendar scheduler (Photo: Peanut)](https://i.inews.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/meet_crop@2x.png)
Only women can use the app via a Facebook account currently, (“It’s for safety. If you knew what I knew, you would thank me.” ) which has attracted the ire of some male primary carers. She has received death threats and emails telling her they hope the company folds, but acknowledges that while opening Peanut up to men is not a priority, it will probably come eventually. “For so many years, products have existed to solve male issues. That’s cool. But female issues are finally being dealt with, and I want to be part of that story. Amazing things can happen when women get together.”
MICHELLE KENNEDY ON…
Motherhood: “I am a mum, it’s part of who I am. But I am also lots of other things.”
Peanut’s USP: I realised we had to be superior in some way, and that’s through out polling and scheduling feature. When I showed Apple they were like ‘Huh, why aren’t we doing that?’ I was like, ‘Okay, please don’t steal that – I really love it.'”
Workplace inequality: “I feel like we’re at a point in society when you’re told you can do everything, you can do whatever you want. But [as a woman] you do have to work that bit harder, and you do have to prove yourself more than a guy. Because of that, there is an inherent thing that women don’t like failure, because we know we have to succeed in order to get that next job, or career trajectory. You cant fail. But [at Badoo] I was surrounded by people who weren’t afraid to fail, and that was a huge shift in mindset for me.”