Tend set out to learn the most pressing problem for expecting mothers and examine the experience through a more holistic lens. We explored important questions around the pregnancy, birth, and post-partum experience through 238 survey responses, 6 1-hour interviews, 4 prototype tests, and 70+ hours of competitive and market analysis. Our findings surfaced a pressing unmet need that addressed the sense of overwhelm felt by first time mothers by giving them a step-by-step digital guide, paced out by trimester that helps create community with their friends, families, and care-takers.
"Working together built my confidence as a founder. I am more trusting of my intuition and process and have research and experience to back it up"
The U.S. is in the midst of a maternal health crisis. Our statistics make it clear to us that a revolution is needed in how we care for and support childbearing people. As we educated ourselves about the state of maternal health in the U.S., our medical system, and the history of birth, we felt grief, anger, and a deep knowing that birthing people deserve better.
We specifically decided to focus on the planning aspect of the pregnancy, birthing, and postpartum journey. Our goal was to make it interactive, deeply reflective, easily shareable, and a little interpersonal.
With a steep increase in home births over the last decade, and the number of pregnancy-related deaths among Black women, it was clear that people were looking for solutions outside of traditional birthing paths. Our initial customer discovery survey had 238 survey respondents with 51% expecting mothers, which led to 6 individual interviews with that segment that identified a core pain point: women felt overwhelmed by the amount of data and information available, and a sudden onset of external opinions and unsolicited advice.
With our testing results and competitive landscape analyzed, we modeled three different revenue structures that prioritized strong recurring revenue and low customer acquisition costs.
The tend app combines audio lessons with interactive guides designed to build your relationship with your self and the family and friends who support you. Tend lessons and guides are designed to nurture self-discovery and relational deepening, as well as offer practical tools for preparing for birth and postpartum. They are intended to inspire conversations, explore curiosities and desires, and support you in tending to your body, mind, heart, and spirit as you navigate your unique journey.
We turned prototypes into development-ready specifications that we hand to our preferred development partners. The core features of the product include:
We've created a holistic curriculum that centers around three pillars: “self-discovery”, “relationships”, and “collective wisdom.”
Navigate important milestones and decisions with curated resources and guides created by our team of mothers and experts.
At the beginning of each trimester, Tend will ground you in the wisdom of your body and orient you to the most relevant lessons and activities just in front of you. Tend knows information and decisions need to happen gradually and in stages.
Hold space for the other people on this journey with you. Tend's exercises help foster discussion and vulnerability between partners, parents, and friends, so you're supported the way you need to be.
After a shortlist of names were drafted, we did legal diligence and scouted for domain options. A mood board led us to a unique brand with its own typography, color palette, and graphic vocabulary. The brand works well for our audience, and maintains the company values.
Before development and release, the Tend team is validating the root of their product: their content. Once the content is ready for publishing, Instagram and other channels will be used before development of a custom tool is begun.