BodiMojo Teen Health Blog – Teenage Nutrition, Fitness, Stress, Relationships & More

BodiMojo founder Tara Cousineau (“Dr. Tara”) is featured this week on SmartGirls Way, a social-venture dedicated to empowering women entrepreneurs. Tara’s video is part of 100×100 Project, which celebrates successful women entrepreneurs and provides video case studies and other interactive forums for aspiring entrepreneurs to learn from other women.

Tara, a clinical psychologist and eHealth entrepreneur, founded BodiMojo as an innovative solution to help teenagers take control of their health, leveraging the “digital” playgrounds they reside in.

Here are some excerpts from Tara’s Q and A on SmartGirls Way:

Q: Can you give us a brief summary of your story and business?

A: I’m a clinical psychologist by training and have been doing that for about 15 years. Somewhere along the way, I became really interested in the use of technology in health communications to see if we can leverage technology to improve body image and self-confidence in girls. I applied for a NIH grant, and BodiMojo is the outcome. This is the first project I’ve done on my own, and I found it empowering – I have a lot of ideas and I wanted to have some control over the outcome and really see it get out into the world.

Q: Can you share some examples of how you leveraged creativity, intuition, integrity, and curiosity to realize a vision-inspired big idea?

A: One of my biggest strengths is my creativity. I have a strong sense of aesthetics. When I look at products, I immediately go to the aesthetics. There is a sense of design for BodiMojo and I want teen girls to have an experience of delight as they experience the website. I also have an instinct for finding talent and people who have their own set of creative instincts, and I have brought a team together who brings together their talents and creativity, including encouraging teens to embrace their creativity.

Q: What advice would you give to others starting out as entrepreneurs?
A: The advice I would give to others starting out is not to do it alone. There’s a sense that women need to prove themselves but women are also great multi-taskers, so these two innate abilities can clash. My biggest challenge was to bring other people to the team. I am a visionary but I’ve realized I can’t do this alone. I need to bring other people with other skill sets to the table. Don’t think you have to do it alone, because you don’t have to.

Q: What’s next for your business and life?

A: I’m really excited we have completed our research and shown our product works for girls. We are at this really exciting phase of now launching BodiMojo and getting strategic partners, raising funds. We have accomplished so much at this point that the only path forward is success.