Meet The Palm Beach County Women Behind Womaze Smartphone App

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Inside a Boca Raton home, find a slice of Silicon Valley. The Wiser sisters—21-year-old twins Rebecca and Leah, and 17-year-old Hannah—and their mother, Corin, launched a mobile app called Womaze. Headquartered inside the family’s living room, the female-focused content platform supports and empowers women, something the family has done for as long as they can remember.

“This mission goes back to our mom,” Hannah says. “She wrote a guidebook for us more than 10 years ago on how to grow up feeling strong. Now my sisters and I feel that it’s our job to take this to as many women as possible.”

Even though Corin says she grew up with supportive and loving parents, she remembered experiencing issues she never discussed with anyone. “As Becca and Leah were approaching their teen years, I felt a tremendous sense of panic,” says the 52-year-old. “I swore I would do everything I could to ensure my daughters would grow up without those feelings, so I started writing a guidebook for them.”

The Wiser sisters read their mother’s guidebook when they were in their early teens. Then came the family “group chat,” where they’d share additional content, including inspiring stories, funny photos and words of affirmation.

From articles and videos, to uplifting quotes like, “Go easy on yourself, you’re doing your best,” the women spent hours sifting through websites to find the best material. Over time, the family began forwarding the group chat to close friends and relatives. Before they knew it, they had created a small but mighty network of ladies.

“When Hannah suggested we turn our group chat into an app, she verbalized something that was already in the making,” says Corin, who spent years as a sexual and physical abuse counselor. “I looked at her and said, ‘That’s the best idea you’ve had in your life.’”

Later that night, the sisters, Corin and Corin’s husband, Sam, cozied up inside Hannah’s bedroom to plan. The name came easily: a blend of the words “woman” and “amazing.” “It just felt right,” Leah says.

“Our mom, who is a survivor of sexual abuse, raised us with the perspective that our worth comes from within,” Rebecca says. “We don’t want to wait to have daughters of our own to share this wisdom.”

The family poured months’ worth of money, originally set aside to renovate their 20-year-old home, into Womaze, resulting in a free and easy-to-navigate app compatible with iOS and Google Play devices.

With four primary functions—search, discover, save and share—users can search content based on their moods, discover new inspiration and save it all to personal “toolboxes,” which can be shared with others. There’s also the ability for users to upload their own content to share on a feed, accessible to the entire Womaze community.

“It’s so much more than an app,” Hannah says. “We’re trying to change the landscape of media, which tends to be more negative than positive. We’re creating a feed that’s designed to make you feel supported.”

Womaze, which launched in April, garnered thousands of users in less than two months by word-of-mouth. Rebecca and Leah, who took a leave of absence from George Washington University to pursue Womaze, along with high school student Hannah, recently launched a global ambassador program—from New Zealand to London—to recruit more users.

At home, the sisters host local outreach events around Boca. This past August, they hosted a women-led panel with Florida Sen. Lauren Book at Town Center at Boca Raton. More events are on the way, Leah says.

“We hosted an event at the Apple store in Boca and a staff member referred to Womaze as ‘the Google of human spirit,’” Hannah says. “Our events keep exceeding all of our expectations.”

They also enlist powerful female leaders as guest curators to share their own tools for life and success. Otherwise, it’s up to the Wiser family to curate and create content from scratch to share with the Womaze community.

“We’re trying to get in the hands of as many women as possible,” Leah says. “One of our first curators was designer Rebecca Minkoff, who curated content that inspired her.”

“We connect with these amazing women by directly reaching out and sharing our story,” Hannah says. “With Rebecca Minkoff, we reached out through Facebook and her team actually got back to us. We’ve also had the CEO of Peace Love World, Alina Villasante, and life coach Nitika Chopra. We are women on a mission, and people can sense that right away.”

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