One of the reasons I was so excited to come start Center’d with Chandu and the whole team here is that we all share a core belief – that people are connected through places. Whether it is attending the same school, living in the same neighborhood, working for the same company, sharing an affiliation with a religious organization, having kids that go to the same afterschool activities, or just having a common love for the outstanding margaritas at the same restaurant (try Tres Agaves in SF), shared places help tie us all together.
This idea came to life for me again last week (as it does fairly often) when I had the privilege of meeting Amy Keroes, Founder and CEO of Mommy Track’d (love that she shares our penchant for the apostrophe). Although we didn’t realize it before we met, once we started talking, it became clear that we actually a) went to the same high school, just a few years apart and b) grew up in the same neighborhood, only a few blocks from each other. Suddenly, based on these “place” connections, it gave us a whole new level of understanding of each other. We had been through the same classes, walked the same blocks every day and endured a lifetime worth of San Francisco fog…. What followed was a terrific conversation about wanting to build great Web products and the challenges of doing that while being a Mom, all with a shared understanding of some key parts of what led us to where we are.
This is why we are excited about building Center’d in a way that surfaces the serendipity of shared experiences. Ultimately we hope this will serve a dual purpose – bringing people closer together and helping people get a better understanding of places they want to know about (schools, doctors, hotels, etc) by providing easy access to who in their network might have an association with those places.
I want to thank Amy for the great feedback and ideas. I love her site…one of my favorite parts is the “Funny Papers.” Check it out…it’s like Dilbert for working moms.
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