We all get them: email requests from neighbors and friends looking for a recommendation on a good handyman or house  painter, a dog walker or after-school tutor. But now, there is a single go-to website that’s locally based, sourced by recommendations from friends and friends-of-friends, that allows you to get referrals for all kinds of jobs and projects: Momstamp.
A sort of amalgamation of Yelp, Angie’s List and Pinterest that gives users the names and numbers of service providers and programs they are looking for, Momstamp also provides the platform on which one can keep it all organized. A modern day rolodex of sorts.
“It’s sort of the genius child of Angie’s List,” said co-founders Paulette Light and Staci Miller over coffee at the Pain Quotidian on Larchmont Blvd. “There’s so much noise out there with people asking their friends for advice and contacts. We were looking for a way to get things done more efficiently. We provide referrals, but also feedback – and a bit of inspiration too.”
Along with a third partner, Julie Hermelin, the busy trio of women launched Momstamp in February of 2015. Light lives in the Larchmont area, while Miller resides on the Westside, and Hermelin lives in Los Feliz. Many of the providers are local to our area, given that the project was “initially seeded with lots of Larchmont people”, but the website taps recommendations from all over Los Angeles and expects to go national  national with local sites for communities across the country this fall.
Every provider on the site has to be recommended by a user. A service provider may not just sign up and be a part of the Momstamp system.
“It sets a high bar for quality service because there must be a happy client somewhere who is willing to share their experience for a provider to become part of the Momstamp system,” Light told the Buzz. Users’ requests and referrals can be filtered by geography and quality of recommendations. One can post a request and get suggestions quite promptly, or just scan the recommendations already available on Momstamp. Users can then build “collections” of their information on the Momstamp site, to keep it all organized in one place.
“We’re all so busy, we wanted an easy way for busy parents to get answers fast and keep them organized,” Miller told the Buzz. While the name Momstamp connotes it’s a women-only site, approximately 25% of users are men, the Momstamp founders said.
Momstamp is free (so far) with initial funding from a venture fund and support from a technology firm that saw value in the Momstamp idea.
So if you’re looking for a place to take ballroom dancing, a contractor for your bathroom renovation, or a guy to clean your gutters before El Nino, consider joining Momstamp. Larchmont Buzz has placed a search bar in the banner ad space above our headlines: check it out.
