Pack Leader :: Jennifer Liptrot

While choosing items for their baby registry a friend told Jennifer to add flat square diapers to the list “because they make excellent burp rags. They are so thin…” she added, “I cannot imagine actually using them on a baby’s bottom!”

Well, flat square sheets was Jen's picture of cloth diapers...until she discovered the cloth diapering boards on the internet.  "It was then that I learned that diapers have come a long way since I was a baby.  I also learned that washing them was easy.  I decided I wanted to go cloth!"  Still despite the help of the wonderful moms on the boards, Jennifer's first diaper purchase was a difficult one.  "I didn't know which diaper to buy or where to find a retailer's website.  I made a few bad purchases and after a few months finally had a stash I was happy with."

One year, one child and two dozen diapers later, Jennifer was a cloth-diapering veteran.  And now she was ready to share her knowledge with other moms and make it easy for them to go cloth.  With that goal in mind, she set off to create Diaper Pin in May 2000. She had a slow start with only a handful of directory members, the how to page and the diaper dictionary.  She launched the product reviews by the following summer and forums a few months after that.  Diaper Pin was not making money, but it was steadily growing and it was reaching other moms. "I bring something different to the table with Diaper Pin, my computer programming skills.  This ability allowed me to hand-code the product reviews, create a diaper directory that is dynamically sorted by rating and to cross reference products with directory pages.  I used Amazon's website as my model and am happy at how Diaper Pin turned out." In January 2003, Jennifer's sister Kathy, who was a new mom, offered to help at a critical time.  Diaper Pin's traffic doubled and continued to increase each month.  Jen could not keep up with the directory submissions and advertising orders.  New diaper businesses were popping up every week.  The forums blossomed and visitors were emailing her with raves, suggestions and comments.  Kathy stepped easily into the role of assistant and has become indispensable.

"What is most important is that we support the cloth diapering community and make a difference to our environment."

Supporting Diaper Pin is not easy for Jennifer because it is not her primary occupation.  During the day, Jennifer works at an insurance ratings firm leading a team of programmers to build financial web applications.  She then spends evenings with her children helping with homework and reading with them.  After lights out upstairs, Jennifer retreats downstairs to the computer to work on the website till the wee hours of the morning.  "Diaper Pin is a passion of mine.  It will never be a huge money maker, but that's ok.  What is most important is that we support the cloth diapering community and make a difference to our environment."

Diaper Pin has matured into a wonderfully supportive community.  Today it has over 500 directory members, over 3500 product reviews and 13 forums and continues to grow every day.