New WAHM Website Pre-launch

Myself, and my partners Val Selby & Lauren Haugh have been building an exciting new website for Work at Home Moms, and are about to announce the official launch. I would like to give you, our 2 Wahms readers, the opportunity to join us, and see the site before the rest of the Internet finds out about it!

And so, it is our great honor to announce…

My WAHM Space ~ http://www.mywahmspace.com
The new, up & coming, soon to be revealed to the public social networking site designed by WAHMs for WAHMs. Take a look around and see all there is to see. We also have a blog to go with the site http://www.MyWahmSpaceBlog.com where you will find detailed information about some of the My WAHM Space features, and how you can get the most out of your visit! Our goal is to have a social network where WAHMs can come together to exchange business building tips and resources.

We’re only inviting a select group of Special WAHMs – giving you pre-launch access before the site is officially launched at our all day event  at MomChats.com’s  chatroom. So take the next couple of days to get settled at MyWAHMSpace, then be sure to stop in the chatroom and join our Launch Party on Thursday!

So, what are you waiting for?  Have at it!
http://www.MyWahmSpace.com

I mentioned in an earlier post that we’ve finally set a date to launch what we’ve deemed, The Wahm Project. About time, eh? As I’ve said, we’re planning on a very HUGE launch party on October 18th. In order to do this, we need a lot of prizes. We already have a great list but call us greedy … we want more!
We already have $842.60 but our goal is to have $1000.00 in prizes! Can you help us reach our goal?
We’re offering a mighty thanks to each of our launch sponsors such as listing our sponsors, their prizes and their links here at 2Wahms.com, MommysHelperCommunity.com and our official “secret site” blog. Val and Lauren are also listing the same at WorkingWAHM.com and MomChats.com Not to mention all the same will also be announced each time one of your prizes are given during the Wahm Project Launch Party.
So, let’s get started … wanna see what we have so far?
Lauren Haugh, Val Selby & Anita DeFrank of I-Can’t-Tell-You-Yet.com

(3) Secret Prizes – $59.88 each
Lara Velez of DesignedByLara.com

$50.00 Design Credit to use at

http://designedbylara.com
Sandy Mottola of Avon

(2) $20 Avon Gift Certificates reedmable through Sandy Mottola Only

http://www.youravon.com/smottola
Loretta Arscott of Scentsy

Autumn Scentsy Car Candle $3

Winter Candy Apple Scentsy Car Candle $3

Toasted Apple Butter Scentsy Car Candle $3

http://www.scentsy.com/aroma
Loretta Oliver of Just Not Martha.com

Halloween Recipes Ebook – $10.31

http://halloween-recipes.justnotmartha.com
Kara Kelso of Free-Kids-Crafts.com

Idea Queen Crafts & Activities – $9.99

http://www.free-kids-crafts.com/craft-book.html
Anita DeFrank of Jerky Direct

2 bags of Jerky or Fruit Stix (Winners choice of flavors) – $12.00

http://mommyshelper.jerkydirect.com/?page=prod&pageaction=1&prodcat=1
Kara Kelso & Anita DeFrank of DirectSalesHelpers.com

Direct Sales Success Kit – $29.95

http://www.directsaleshelpers.com/kit.html
How to Build an Ultra-Targeted and Hyper-Responsive List – $7.00

http://www.directsaleshelpers.com/build-list.html
Online Party Success – $9.99

http://www.directsaleshelpers.com/online-parties.html
Number Crunching Made Easy – $14.95

http://www.directsaleshelpers.com/calculating-costs.html
Direct Sales Guide to Controlling Your Costs – Offline Events Kit – $9.95

http://www.directsaleshelpers.com/offline-events.html
Direct Sales success

(Direct Sales Kit in a physical paperback book form) – $29.95

http://www.directsaleshelpers.com/book.html
Holiday Promotion Guide – $5.00

http://www.directsaleshelpers.com/holiday-guide.html
200 Home Party Games – $5.00

(Not yet released!)
$25 Gift Certificate for anything at DirectSalesHelpers.com

(excluding Paperback book Direct Sales Success and Team Incentives)
Anita DeFrank of MommysHelperOnline.com

Front Page Text Ad (One Month) – $30.00

Front Page Button Ad (One Month) – $30.00

Full Site Text Ad (One Month) – $100.00

One Free Basic Classified Ad (One Month) – $10.00

One Free Featured Classified Ad (Six Months) – $50.00

One Free Premium Classified Ad (One Year) – $100.00

$50 Advertising Credit to be used on ANY advertising at MommysHelperOnline.com – $50.00
Mom Survival Pack -

Includes 2 Mom Message Pads, 5 Mom Messengers, and 2 School Message Pads

(Not for sale.)
Kick Start Your Online Business – $9.99

http://www.mommyshelperonline.com/kickstart.html
36 Secrets to Building a Spectacular List – $15.00

http://www.mommyshelperonline.com/list-building-secrets.html

Anne of 2Paupers.com
The Ultimate Book of Fancy Dress Ideas from the Making Life Easy series at http://www.2paupers.com – $19.97And … Beauty Banquet
Sterling Silver and Paua Shell Necklace – $50.00
http://www.beautybanquet.com Patty Gale, co-author of the Home Office Recovery Plan
Copy of the Home Office Recovery Plan – $24.99
http://www.homeofficerecoveryplan.com Nicole Manyen of Megan’s Pantry
A set of dips including Rasberry Fruit Dip, Spinach Dip, Chive and Garlic Dip, and Garden Vegetable Cheese Ball Mix – $18.00
http://www.meganspantry.com/nicolemanyen Linda Brinston of Watkins
$20 Gift Certificate for Watkins
http://www.18hrwk.com/customernews/338267Lauren Haugh of Mom’s Online Retreat
The Genealogy Guide – $12.97
Great Gifts in a Jar – $14.97
Sizzling Breakfast Recipes – $12.97
The Essential Guide to Organizing Your Home – $12.97

http://www.momsonlineretreat.comLauren Haugh & Val Selby of MomChats.com
(2) Company Advertising Pages – $25 each
1 Premium Site Sponsorship – $209
http://www.momchats.com
(And donation of a chat room for ALL day!!)Val Selby of WorkingWAHM.com
2 Product or Site Reviews – $15 each

http://www.workingwahm.comVal Selby of Moms Indulgence
Citrus Whipped Body Creme, Citrus Dead Sea Mud Scrub, Juicy Pear bath salts – $20
http://www.momsindulgence.com

That’s a total of $842.60 $972.57 $997.56 $1015.56 $1543.44 …Our Goal? We want to reach over $1000.00 in prizes! Can you help us reach our goal?!?
Anyone interested in sponsoring our launch party, please email me at mommyshelperonline @ yahoo.com (without the spaces) with your prize(s), retail price, your name, company name and website link with Launch Party in the subject line.
Thanks in advance!

Woo Hoo!! We did it!! We’re OVER $1000.00! (And now we’re over $1500!)
Still want to sponsor the launch party? Sure! We’ll still accept more!

Finally, finally, finally we’ve set a date for the launch of The Wahm Project!  It’s been a really long time coming now but we’ve finally decided on a date.  There was so much to do with this project and it was so different from the typical websites we’re used to creating.  This was certainly a learning experience for us all.  I know I’ve learned things that I never knew before such as PHP (if you call what I did learn, lol) and different things you can do with Cpanel.  (Thanks both Val & Lauren for teaching me a techie thing or two!)

Not only did it take so long to get everything ready to go but I’ve also learned that the three of us are a bunch of professionalists who think we’re going to be able to get everything just perfect.  To be honest with you … that’s just not going to happen.  Not at all.

Finally I belive it was Val that said, okay ladies lets make a date.  This one or this one?  By setting a date we’ve forced ourselves to make sure it’s ready by that day.  It’s easy to procrastinate when you don’t have a set goal date.  But, when you say okay, this is it … and it’s less than two weeks away.  Boy, it’s amazing what you can get done while you’re under pressure!

So, with all that said … ready to hear the launch date?  Mark your calendar for October 18th!  Be prepared to see an awesome new WAHM website that’s unlike all the other WAHM websites you’ve seen.  We’ve done a lot of research and we’ve found similar websites but all the others are just a little different.  Different niches, different markets, different hmm … let’s just call them different visitors. 

If you’ve been following along with our saga, you already know that we’ve had some “secret helpers” with this project that have been sworn to secrecy.  Very soon I will be introducing our little group of helpers along with their businesses and links to their websites – just as a little thank you (with many more thank you gifts on it’s way).  Oh and when I do tell you who they are … don’t bother asking any questions because  … well because if they told you, then they’d have to kill you  :twisted: 

So how’s that for an update?  Are you interested?  Keep an eye on the blog because we’ll be announcing it here on October 18th and you are all invited!  That’s less than two weeks and believe me, this is one launch you’re NOT going to want to miss  :wink:   Let’s just say if you like prizes, then you’ll wanna be there – with bells on because we’re going to have LOTS of them!  The list is already a long one … and it’s getting bigger every minute!  This is going to be the most interactive launch you’ve ever seen!

Oh and one more thing before I go …
If you haven’t figured it out yet, we’re planning coming out with a bang!  And I do mean a BIG bang.  As I said, we already have a big list as it is … (what with jerky, candles, tons of free advertising, business cards … and that’s just a taste) but we need more!  If you’re interested in getting a little extra exposure for your business and would like to donate a prize, click here to see our request for contest sponsors.

Don’t Miss Out - Mark your calendar for October 18th - Your business will thank you  :wink: 

Wow!  It sure is amazing what a couple of extra eyes can do for you.  Just when you think you have everything done and ready to go, you get bombarded with problems and ideas.  Well, I’ll be honest with you … problems … there weren’t many   It was just more of suggestions of ways things could be done and a couple of things that weren’t that big of a deal but were out of our control. 

At this point though, we’ve all been super-busy so it’s been a slow go.  I have to get my Q & A session written for my SEO series for Smart Moms  (You will come listen won’t you??)  I also have a project that Kara and I are working on that has been put on the back burner for too long (sorry Kara!)  I just feel as though I can’t get ahead.  This being a soccer mom takes some skill and MAJOR time management, lol!  Anyway, Lauren and Val have had some other things that they need to get done too so it’s been a slow go for the past couple of days.  NOTE TO SELF:  Do NOT ever try to start a huge project over the summer in time to launch when school starts!!  Val’s also come up with some really cool extra features and I’ve been working on a few “extra touches” that will really make us stand out.  So, it’s going to be well-worth the wait!

Woo Hoo!  Tomorrow marks day one of our “Soft Launch”.  What’s a soft launch you say?  Our soft launch is where we’ve handpicked our “VIP Staff”.  Our VIP Staff will test each of the features on the website, give us feedback (yeah the good and the bad, lol), and help us catch any bugs before our “official launch”.  Our VIP Staff members will also have first dibs on becoming “actual staff members” once we officially launch.  After the official launch, whether they decide to keep their “staff” status or not … in return for their help now, they’ll get some added bonuses.  So, each of our handpicked VIPs have been contacted already to see if they’re interested.  We’ve already heard back from two of them and one of them has already started!

Boy, it’s getting exciting now!

And there ya go … there’s your update AND your tip all in one.  LOL!  The tip being that our new website is in PHP – and the update being that I HATE PHP!  I think Val is trying to convert me to the Cpanel world – eh, give me a good old ftp any day!  First you spend forever looking for the files you need … then you have to dig into the code that is a whole new language to me to make the changes.  OH and I almost forgot … to get one little thing changed, you have to change it on 3 pages! 

I was literally ready to pull my hair out.  Actually, to be honest with you, at first I was super-proud of myself.  I thought I got in there, dug right in and did what needed done.  So, I refresh the website after a couple of hours looking for the files, looking for the code and getting all 3 pages changed … all excited that I’m learning to do something new.  As my slow *$*#@(#* dialup refreshes the page and the excitement builds in me … Bam!  NOTHING … absolutely NOTHING is changed!  It looks identical to what I started with … GRRR

So, at after 11:00 PM … Miss Lauren shows up and tells me to go to bed.  (Yeah, she really did tell me to do so, lol!)  Said she’d give it a whirl.  So after very little arm twisting I give up and let her take over.  Of course the first thing I do this morning was to go straight to that page and see what came up.  And there it was … My idea, exactly the way I wanted it!  Woo Hoo … Way to Go Lauren!  She rocks! 

But … (did ya feel that but coming along?)  But … I didn’t take the time to test it.  I didn’t take the time to really dig into what she did.  I of course email her thanking her and praising her and I get a reply from her telling me I must have jumped the gun a bit because it’s NOT right!  Sure, it might LOOK good on the outside but the forms don’t do what they’re supposed to  

Have I mentioned GRRR or I HATE PHP!!

Since we have a lot more people watching now … I figured I ought to get a little better with my updates!

So, we’ve managed to get all the not-so-fun stuff pretty much done.  One more proofing from Lauren and the Privacy Statement and Terms & Conditions will all be in place.  Lauren said she saw some typos and would let me know them when she returns … however, apparently Val and I are blind cause we can’t find them!

Oh and thanks to Val (remember, our techy) … we’re officially moved over to the .COM  If you’ve been following along, you’d know that we’d bought the .NET and put the almost available .COM on backorder.  Well, it was looking pretty grave and we’d all almost come to the conclusion and were just getting to used to the idea … then Bam!  I got one of the most wonderful emails I had gotten in quite some time … announcing how lucky we were to obtain the .COM!  Can you say sweet?!? I personally think it has something to do with the fact that we already took the .NET   Hey, they left it open, right?

Now that you’re up to speed ….
Lauren’s been busily working to uh, hmm… OH!  I know what I can say, Lauren has been working on perfecting our personalization   Then we were pleasantly reminded at how good of a job she really was doing when we saw what it could be without it!

We’ve also been working on listing the goals of the website.  What we’d like to see happen in the future, WHY, and all that good stuff.  And believe it or not … it had nothing to do with the money aspect, lol!

Oh yeah and it can’t go unsaid that I’m getting quite an education in PHP and Cpanel – which I’m starting to love by the way (Cpanel – NOT PHP, lol!)

Well, I guess that’s going to have to do for this update.  Bothering you yet?  LOL!  I’m really starting to like this in a twisted kind of way!

Need another tip?  It has something to do with what’s NOW ( <– edited – see below ) being dubbed as the new wave or future of the internet

 Stay tuned … Till next time!

I must apologize, it’s been quite a while since my update.  The three of us have been super-busy with home life this summer and we were all busy enough BEFORE taking on a new project, so therefore, I can honestly say Val, Lauren & I have been working our cabooses off!  But, that’s okay … it’s going to be WELL worth it

So, let’s see … what have we been doing?  Well, I guess it’s more than obvious that it’s going to be a new website for work at home moms (yeah, I know … you can say DUH now).  So, I can tell you that Val has been busy with the techy end and making sure everything is going to run smoothly.  And I can tell you that Lauren has been doing a fantastic job with creating us some creative ads, logos, buttons and banners.  Me?  Well, how can I tell you what I’ve been doing without giving it away.  Oh!  Here’s one thing … I worked on the privacy statement.  You can get a “fill in the blank” privacy statement http://www.the-dma.org.  So, basically what I did was go and fill in the blanks, took the form generator and basically edited it till it no longer looks anything like the generated form. 

We also had some very HUGE good news!!  Long story short, we had bought one domain for this site but all that was available was .NET  We had also noticed that the person who owned the .COM version didn’t do anything with it (don’t you hate that??).  So, we had Mommy’s Helper Affordable domain names and hosting put it on backorder.  Good news!  Sunday night we capture the .COM name!!

We’re planning what we’ve been calling a “soft opening” here very, very soon.  We’ll have a few of our closest friends come in and test the waters for us.  Then . . . after that, we’ll be ready for our Official Launch!  Yay!!

Oh, and the tip this time around … how about
MWS … does that work for a tip for you?

He he … Remember The Wahm Project ?

I guess you could say Val is our techy on this project.  (Well gee, you didn’t think I was did you?)  After fighting with it for a little while, Val was finally able to get it installed – with minimal hairloss

So, this evening I wondered on over and familiarized myself with it a little bit.  For me, THIS is the fun part!  I love, love, love to tweak things!  I might not be able to initially set it up … but give me the basics and the permission to tweak … and I’m good to go!

Now I won’t be able to sleep tonight and I’ll set the alarm so I can get up nice and early.  I have to make myself take care of the necessities before I go running over there.  So, don’t email me unless it’s an absolute emergency!  I’m hanging the “Do Not Disturb” sign on my email tomorrow!  LOL  (Just kidding of course!!)

Hmmm . . .

Do I have a hint this time?  How about it’s for work at home moms exclusively.  Ha ha … vague enough for you?

I know you’re thinking okay, now what the heck is The Wahm Project – well, sounds a heck of a lot better than the secret project, doesn’t it?  LOL!  I just don’t like calling things a secret but really, that’s exactly what it is.  We don’t want to tell everyone what it is until the big launch this fall.  Nope, we haven’t even picked a date yet.  Two Fridays ago we …

 OH wait!  I better tell you who we are.  I bet you’re thinking we is Kara and I.  Nope, not this time.  Kara doesn’t really have the time to work on a project of this magnitude (and I think I do?  lol).  So, I hinted around to two other good friends of mine Val and Lauren and it turned out that they were thrilled idea!  Can you say Sweeeeet??

So, where was I?  OH!  I remember …
Two Fridays ago we brainstormed a bit and bought the domain name.  We bought the .NET because whoever had the .COM version has left it expire.  (Yippee for us!)  We brainstormed and brainstormed and brainstormed some more over a domain name.  The one we all wanted in the first place was so-called taken.  Well, me being the stubborned person I am, decided to check out the WHOIS to see who owned it.  That’s when I found out it was in limbo.  So, we paid the price to backorder the domain name and we’re just waiting for it to go through.

Throughout the week, the three of us kept in contact via email and discussed some ideas we’d like to do with the site, discussed who was going to be in charge of what etc etc.  And then yesterday we bought the program needed to do this – yay, yay, yay!  We’re all way too excited and have made the plans of launching this fall … we’re all gonna go insane till then!  Anyway … We didn’t have the money to outright purchase the program but they also had a monthly lease.  Val decided that she’d just buy it outright and we’ll make payments to her.  That’ll save us a lot of money in the future – thanks Val!! 

So, Val bought the program and started the install.  Then she emailed the manual to us to look over.  O.M.G. – I LOVE this software!  It’s going to make everything so easy.  And tweaking … oh how I love to tweak things.  This is nothing but tweaking!  They give you the very basics and you tweak everything until it’s just how you like it.  Oh we’re so going to love this so much … you just wait … we’ll be ready to break in a month!

 But for now, the only thing I can tell you is this:
#1  This is going to be for all work at home moms.
#2  This is going to be HUGE!  (Trust me … It is!!)