melanie kaplan & oPPal — Кассета

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.