I have a confession that most mompreneur highlight reels don’t show you: before the bottle-lovey existed, I failed. A lot.
Not once. Not twice. Nearly a dozen times.
Different ideas, different industries, different seasons of life — but the same result. Products that never launched. Businesses that never got off the ground. A graveyard of “what could have been” that I carried quietly for years.
And then something shifted. I invented the bottle-lovey, built a brand around it, and got it to market. So what changed?
Two things. Just two. But they changed everything.
Why I Kept Failing (And Why Most Mompreneurs Do Too)
Before I tell you what finally worked, let me be honest about why it kept not working.
Every idea I pursued before the bottle-lovey had one thing in common: I was building for the opportunity, not the mission. I’d spot a gap in the market, get excited, start moving — and then slowly lose steam when the obstacles showed up. And obstacles always show up.
When your why is “this seems like a good business idea,” it’s not strong enough to carry you through the hard days. The failed launches. The feedback that stings. The moments when you’re exhausted and wondering if it’s worth it.
I didn’t know that yet. I had to learn it the slow way.
The First Thing That Changed: I Got Honest About Regret
At some point, I stopped asking myself “will this work?” and started asking a much harder question:
Will I regret not giving this everything I have?
There’s something clarifying about imagining yourself at the end of your life, looking back. Not thinking about profit margins or market size — just asking: did I show up fully for the thing that mattered to me?
When I thought about the bottle-lovey that way, the answer was immediate and visceral. Yes. I would regret it. Deeply.
That reframe didn’t make the path easier. But it made quitting harder. And sometimes that’s all the edge you need.
For mompreneurs especially, this matters. We are pulled in a hundred directions every single day. If your business idea doesn’t pass the regret test, it will lose every time you’re tired, overwhelmed, or stretched thin — because something else will always feel more urgent.
Find the idea you can’t walk away from. Build that one.
The Second Thing That Changed: My Mission Became Bigger Than My Inconvenience
The other shift was about who I was building for.
I kept hearing moms share the same heartbreaking story — they were struggling with bottle feeding, stressed and exhausted, and someone had told them: “your baby will take a bottle when they’re hungry enough.”
Every time I heard that, something in me broke a little.
Because that’s not support. That’s dismissal. And those moms deserved so much better.
When I connected the bottle-lovey to that mission — using what we know about maternal scent and infant bonding to bring real comfort and connection to bottle feeding — everything changed. The work stopped feeling optional. It felt necessary.
That’s the secret no one tells you about building a business as a mom: the days you want to quit, mission is the only thing that keeps you going. Not strategy. Not revenue projections. Mission.
When helping families through one of the hardest stages of early parenthood became my reason, my own inconvenience stopped being a reason to stop.
What This Means for You
If you’re sitting on an idea — or recovering from a failed one — I want you to hear this:
Failure isn’t the opposite of success. It’s the curriculum.
Every business I didn’t build taught me something I needed to build this one. The timing. The resilience. The clarity about what I actually cared about.
But here’s what I’d tell my earlier self: stop chasing the idea that looks good on paper. Chase the one that keeps you up at night for the right reasons. The one where the why is so personal, so real, that walking away would leave a mark.
Ask yourself the regret question. Find the mission that’s bigger than you.
Then build that.