melanie kaplan & oPPal
A Mom Who Gets It: How Melanie Kaplan Turned Her Postpartum Story Into oPPal
We're creating space for the brains behind the brands we love, and asking good questions along the way. The result is a deep dive into the how and why of brand-building, from blueprints to launch day, customers as community and the detours in between. Big lessons, easy listening.
the Show Notes
In this episode of Read Receipt, Sean sits down with Melanie Kaplan, founder of oPPal, the platform that matches a mom who is pregnant or freshly postpartum (a Little oPPal) with a trained mom a couple of steps ahead of her (a Big oPPal). Their slogan says it plainly: "A mom who gets it because she's been there too."
Melanie spent her career in entertainment, lifestyle and impact PR and never wanted to start a company. That changed after her own postpartum experience, and an Instagram post that filled her inbox overnight. She walks through going down to 10 hours a week at her agency, a survey that drew 300 responses in 48 hours, and a free beta run on Squarespace, Typeform and iMessage that she calls "Love is Blind for moms."
She also gets into the $20 model, a friends and family round, a PR-led launch built around a practical baby shower, the seven-video training every Big oPPal takes, and why growth comes from showing up in person, not ads. Plus why oPPal is web-based instead of another app, and why, in a world of AI chatbots, she is betting on one human connection.
Keywords
oPPal, melanie kaplan, postpartum, new moms, motherhood, mom community, peer support, matching platform, founder story, pr, public relations, community building, beta testing, startup launch, read receipt, antidote
Takeaways
- Start with the mission, then find the model. Melanie did not start with an idea. She started with a gap she had lived through, then talked to doulas, therapists, pediatricians and moms until the model showed up: moms helping new moms.
- Test demand before you build. One survey, sent to every mom who replied to her story with a ready-to-paste message, got 300 responses in 48 hours. Over 80% said yes or maybe to mentoring a new mom.
- Run the beta by hand. A Squarespace site, Typeform intake, Excel sheets and group texts were enough to prove it worked. She stayed on the threads to learn in real time, and left when people asked.
- PR is a founder skill. People won't say yes if you don't ask. She has sat down with over 300 people in a year, built an advisory board, and pitched her own company the way she used to pitch clients.
- Launched is not the same as done. A friend told her "You're still in build," and it took the pressure off chasing a scaling plan too early.
- Pick the channel that fits the product. Someone told her an ad would never have made them sign up, but meeting her and hearing her speak did. So growth runs on in-person events, word of mouth, brand partners and doctors' offices.
Sound Bites
- 00:00 "I woke up one morning and laid down on my kitchen floor and said to my husband, 'I can't do this today.'"
- 18:43 "People just aren't gonna say yes if you don't ask them, and that's what PR is."
- 19:48 "Moms don't need more stuff. They actually need more help."
- 21:27 "Just because you've launched doesn't mean you're not still in build mode."
- 28:53 "If they had seen an ad for this, they would not have signed up... I was like, 'Cool, I'll just multiply myself and put myself everywhere.'"
- 37:42 "When you become a parent, it's the biggest lesson in letting go of control."
- 46:23 "An AI chatbot is never gonna get you the way another mom... our slogan is, 'A mom who gets it because she's been there too.'"