Wrangle any group of moms together and ask what the hardest parts of parenthood are and you’ll get a laundry list of items, one of which, inevitably, is laundry. However, another item is almost always, “making other mom friends.”
Hey! VINA coming soon to Chicago
There seems to be a persistent gap: moms are often in meetup groups or go to the same music/soccer/ballet/swim/get-your-child-out-of-the-house-to-burn-off-energy classes with their children, but taking that next step of actually forming friendships seems to be the biggest step of all. Sometimes, we are new to the city or none of our friends have kids yet and we’d like another parent friend to talk about naps, sleep schedules, toddler recipes and other mundane things that non-parents just can’t believe is interesting to us. Sound familiar? Wouldn’t it be easier if there were an app for making other mom (nay, women) friends that’s simple? Almost like Tinder … only not creepy.
Well, mom friends-to-be, your prayers are about to come true. Enter Hey! VINA.
According to Hey! VINA creators: Hey! VINA aims to solve the challenge of making new friends as adult women with a Tinder-style UX and their proprietary matching algorithm to suggest potential new friends based on mutual friends, proximity, and quiz data. Once two users opt-in, they get an introduction from a VINA community manager.
Translation: Swipe right for friends.
When you sign in to the Hey! VINA app, you will be presented with potential friend matches based on your quiz data, mutual friends, location and other information. If you’re interested, swipe right on that person, if they swipe right on you, it’s a match and the Hey! VINA community managers will ask if you would like an introduction. If you’d rather pass, swipe left. It’s all anonymous, so you don’t need to feel guilty for swiping left since the other person will never know. The app will also send you fun periodic personality quizzes to better match you with potential friends and will also be targeting moms in particular in the future, according to Olivia Poole, co-founder of Hey! VINA.
Hey! VINA is still a hatchling in the tech world, and has only been launched in San Francisco and New York – with many users in those cities still on wait lists as well while the app is refined – but don’t despair, Chicago moms! Chicago is a big market at the top of the list for next releases and you (“Yes, you!,” said in my best “The Price Is Right” announcer voice) have the power to help it arrive sooner rather than later. The more downloads in a particular location (A.K.A. Chicago, hint hint, nudge nudge, elbow elbow) will help to launch the app there, so while we can’t use the app yet, we can definitely usher in its arrival sooner rather than later.
There is no doubt apps have the power to streamline our lives. Chicago-based Pearachute launched this past week as “Class Pass” for little ones, and Hey! VINA can be Tinder for moms. Who says we can’t have our cake and digitally eat it, too?
