We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Erin Floyd. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Erin below.

Alright, Erin thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. We’d love to have you retell us the story behind how you came up with the idea for your business, I think our audience would really enjoy hearing the backstory.

When my husband and I had our first born in Los Angeles, there was an abundance of New Parent & Me support groups that provided community and guidance through our early days of parenthood. I had a virtual group and an in-person group that met in the park every week. My husband had a group that met at a bar every other week, and we had a weekend group that we could go to together. We loved it! We felt like we were better parents and better partners because of it. When we relocated to Denver in early 2022, I was eager to find my ‘ mama village’ here too, but making parent friends on the playground is awkward, the moms at the baby art classes didn’t really talk and I had trouble finding any offerings focusing on the parents bonding like the ones I had experienced in Los Angeles.

I longed for that connection again with people that had babies the same age as mine. I wanted to be part of a group of parents, supporting each other through highs of milestones and the lows of postpartum depression. That’s when I decided that if I couldn’t find find what I needed, I would make it. And Parenting Avenue was born! So I’ve experienced in LA what I wanted in Denver, I just had to build it.

Erin, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

I have been a yoga instructor for 11 years, I got into it because I worked for the Ellen DeGeneres show in Los Angeles. It was my first job in the industry and I was working 15 hour days and it was brutal and I was often running around with my head cut off. One of my many jobs was to find talented people to plug into the audience to perform on the show and one day my team found a 70-something year old yoga instructor who could do scorpion pose (headstand with feet on head), so we had her put a hat on her head for the show. This woman was calm and serene, she knew what she wanted and knew how to manage her stress and I wanted to be her. Two weeks later, I was fired (you could say I deserved it, but no one is good at having 100 jobs a day when working over 75 hours a week, while making only $600 a week) and the next day I tried yoga for the first time. Two years later, I got certified and for the rest of my sint in Los Angeles worked for many production companies while teaching yoga on the side.

After teaching for 3 years, I wanted to plan for my future, so I got certified in prenatal and postnatal yoga. It opened so many doors for me and I really found where I could thrive. My LA clients lovingly refer to me as their “Friend Bully” because I take the awkwardness out of making friends and pair people together who are the same weeks gestation or have babies around the same age, “You should be friends, you will want to text each other in the middle of the night!” I’m thrilled to report that many of my clients’ babies are 2-5 years old and still have the same great connections they made in my yoga class; they call each other the “Yoga Moms” and have monthly dinners. This is what new parenthood is all about, building the camaraderie, a mom team, a dad team, a village. That’s what I want to build in Denver, Parenting Avenue will be that place for people to make lifelong friends.

Parenting Avenue hosts new parent support and social groups for new mamas, new dadas and new parents. All the babies in the groups are born within 12 weeks of each other, so new parents in the group will experience every stage together, creating a solid bond.

The groups are led by licensed psychotherapists who specialize in family and perinatal counseling. We will also have guest speakers—skilled professionals who can answer questions about sleep, tummy time, bonding, feeding, childcare, babyproofing your marriage, and much, much more!

We have a new group called “Growing Families” for parents considering (or working on) expanding their families. There is so much out there for first time parents, but not so much for the second time parents. We want to set these families up for success and give them all the tools they need not just to survive as a family with a new baby, but to thrive!

Our group facilitators will guide them through the emotional and mental health shifts of transitioning to a family with multiple children; our guest speakers will help everyone in the family prepare for the newest addition. And if after this group, they’ve decided they are a “one and done family,” then they know that they’ve thought it through thoroughly and even spoken to a therapist about it, so they can move forward confidently knowing they’ve made the best decision for their family.

It’s always been hard to make new friends as a new parent and the covid pandemic has made it even harder. We offer a chance for parents to build friendships that will tighten and uplift the community.

We know people are tired of virtual, but there is definitely a place for it when it comes to being a parent, we have introduced a hybrid style of group where some of the group meeting are held on a couple of Saturdays and the other times are virtual evenings. This is great for the parents to make those in-person connections but can’t lend every weekend to it. It’s also great for parents who have gone back to work, parents with multiple children and for when parents just don’t feel like leaving the house in the snow.

Once the parents register, they get to choose (as a group) from an expansive list of possible guest speakers to speak to their group. I love this because they get to choose a topic that is relevant to them and the age of their baby. Guest speakers are experts in their field and range from Pediatric Occupational Therapist to Baby Sign Language to Sleep Consultant, to Intro to Solids Expert, the list goes on. I am actually a guest speaker, I teach a Functional Movement for Parents, I share how to stretch out achy muscles while encouraging baby’s development. They can learn how to include their child while strengthening their core and glutes, easing neck and shoulder discomfort, and stretching their low back and hips.

I dreamt up Parenting Avenue up in July 2022, we had our first round of groups in November, and two more groups in February 2023. We have five star google reviews that rave “This group provides not only a community of parents, but also connects parents with resources that might be helpful now or in the future. The peace of mind I felt after each session was amazing.” and “It helped me to realize I wasn’t going through it alone and that all the feelings I was having or the things that were happening were completely normal. To say it helped my mental health is an understatement. What an incredible group!” and “I found each speaker to be very relevant to what I was experiencing in real time, and always walked away with some helpful info in addition to having a nice time hanging out. It’s just been a low key chill group of supportive folks that I don’t think I would’ve found elsewhere. I highly recommend checking Parenting Ave out! You won’t regret it.” I set out to make a difference in parent’s postpartum experience and I am absolutely delighted to have made this a reality in such a short period of time.

Can you talk to us about how your funded your business?

So something I haven’t shared yet, is that I’m a working stay at home mom… So that means I work when my 21 month old daughter, Jade sleeps or when my husband has an extra hour to spare. I’m pretty sure that’s how I was able to get so much done for the business in so little time, I had very little time! There was no time to procrastinate, I have a baby who will get up in an hour and I gotta hustle to make calls, to network, to instagram live, to drive to drop off flyers, to interview therapists and guest speakers, to location scout, the list goes on. My husband is just as excited to make new parent friends as I am, so he loved my idea and we put up 4k of capital that lasted from July to December. Once that ran out, my yoga business kicked in, so every penny I make teaching yoga (about six hours a week, mind you, while my daughter is sleeping) goes to Parenting Avenue -morning, noon and night, if she’s sleeping, I’m hustling on one of my two companies.

Have any books or other resources had a big impact on you?

Brene Brown said it best, “Comparison is the thief of joy” and comparing could be my downfall, I quote those words back to myself often and it is definitely a practice to get comparison out of my head. Right now, I feel like i’m in an untapped market, so i’m feeling optimistic in Parenting Avenue thriving.

You Are a Badass: How to Stop Doubting Your Greatness and Start Living an Awesome Life by Jen Sincero, has this great affirmation for having a great relationship to earning money “I am so grateful I have a positive and thriving relationship with ___fill in the blank___. So I fill in the blank with everything from “myself” to “my family”, “my yoga clients” “earning money” and of course “Parenting Avenue”. Fun fact, when I started repeating that quote over and over again back in LA 6 years ago, I started making $1k more a month! I believe in affirmations.

The Fearless Woman’s guide to Starting a Business by Amee Quiriconi taught me that most female owned businesses fail because they don’t pay themselves enough. So once we start turning a profit, I plan on paying myself a living wage. She also taught me that if you have the ability to do something that frightens you, you should probably face the fear and give it a fighting shot!

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.parentingavenue.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/parentingavenue/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/groups/parentingavenue
• Other: Google reviews: https://www.google.com/search?q=parenting+avenue+google+reviews&oq=parenting+avenue+google+reviews&aqs=chrome..69i57j33i160l4.6328j0j4&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8#lrd=0xae566aafe45a24fb:0x483ad4ea118d7d01,1,,,,

Image Credits
Yoga photo of me with my baby, Jade: Rachel Stelter Photography