Our Story
Our Babies Made Us Do It
When we needed it most, trusted child safety resources didn’t exist, so we decided to create it ourselves. We know baby proofing is a journey, we’ve lived it!
2014
CHAPTER 1
Baby Proofing Panic!
Summer 2014, the Bishop-Smith Family moved into their new home with daughters, Lily, 3 years old, and Aerin, 6 months old.
Shortly after, Baby Aerin is crawling! They need a baby gate – STAT. But the staircase has iron banisters, and Alisa can’t find anything online.
With bleary mom-tired eyes, she read parenting blogs, magazine articles, and baby gate reviews. Largely unregulated, there was no clear guidance for her railings, no expert advice.
So, she wanders the vast aisles a big box baby store, where nobody could help either.
Armed with several baby gates and a mysterious ‘post mount kit’ she went home and installed a hardware-mounted gate. Then she used the post kit’s zip ties to bind wood to her iron banister.
Two weeks later, the safety gate fell out of the wall, but the zip ties and wood held strong.
2015-2017
CHAPTER 2
Be the Solution
Alisa accepted a position at a local baby proofing company.
She passed the Home Hazards Test and became a Child Safety Consultant. She helped many new parents and realized her baby proofing panic was common.
Molly Lavoie and her family moved to DC from Florida.
2020-2021
CHAPTER 3
Mompreneur
Alisa founded Safe Start Child Proofing LLC, offering parents in Washington, D.C., Maryland, and Virginia home safety consultations and professional child proofing installations.
This new baby proofing company wasn’t just about installing gates – it helped families think practically about keeping their children safe, and how child safety fits into their everyday lives.
Alisa hires her first employee and Safe Start gains an outstanding reputation for honest, top-quality work. There is an overwhelming demand for in-person child proofing.
2023
CHAPTER 4
Talking About a Revolution
Molly graduates with a master’s in economics and joins Safe Start Childproofing to partner with Alisa. They brainstorm, they research, they decide:
New parents desperately needed a trustworthy resource for child safety and baby proofing information. They would help families by selling vetted, effective products and providing helpful guidance to install them in a safe and attractive way.
Today
Alisa & Molly are changing this
Safe Start is revolutionizing the baby proofing business model by giving families access to the essential knowledge required to create a safe home.