Making Authentic Friendships: The App Specifically Designed for Those with Special Needs

Anamesa is proud to showcase, represent and support individuals who dedicate their time to making the world a little better (in whatever way that may be). Fortunately for myself, I know a lot of inspiring, hard working people. One of them being my friend Juliana.

"My name is Juliana Fetherman, I am the founder and CEO of Making Authentic Friendships LLC. I have a bachelors in Health Science and a Master’s in Business Administration from Sacred Heart University. I was the president of the autism club at Sacred Heart, which inspired me to start my own business to help the special needs population.

Making Authentic friendships is an interactive web application that enables children (ages 13+) and adults with special needs to make friends based on age, diagnosis, interests and geographic location. Making Authentic Friendships, MAF, are also my brother’s initials. My brother Michael is 21 years old and has autism and ADHD. He is very lonely and feels abnormal due to his lack of friends. That is why I started this.

Getting to where I am now has definitely been much more challenging than I ever imagined. When I started this, I was very naive about what it would take to get it up and running. I believe this was actually a blessing, because if I wasn’t naive I would have been much more intimidated. The best thing I ever did was put all of my early efforts into building a social media following and a brand around my idea and business. Not only did this allow me to get feedback from real, potential users and test the concept, it opened a lot of doors for me. Many opportunities started coming to me such as features on podcasts, speaking opportunities, articles etc. Then networking does its magic and someone connects you to someone who connects you to someone and all of a sudden, my network was big. Two of the biggest opportunities I have received through social media to date are, speaking on a panel at Bloomberg HQ in NYC and being on television on Cheddar on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange.

At first. I thought my biggest challenge was money, I needed a lot of it to make this happen and had none as a student in college. Then I realized there are so many ways to raise money these days and I took advantage of a lot of them. I then realized that you have to have the mindset that money is a renewable resource (it is). There is plenty of it out there and you can have access to it. Turns out the actual biggest challenge was really myself. Whenever we as humans do something new and unknown, we are own biggest critics. It was hard for me being so young, to be taken seriously and that often made me feel interior. That is just something I believe all entrepreneurs go through and you grow out of it. I started going into things with the mindset of I’m here because I deserve to be here, just as much as the people around me”.

My biggest motivation though all this was that it was so personal, you can’t start a business on the basis of something you’re not passionate about, I truly believe that. It was easy for me to be motivated because it is personal. The success of this is personal. I am trying to help my own blood so that is the best way to stay motivated. To anyone else, I would say just find something that sets your soul on fire. This is also what gets me through my difficult times. Also, I have built up such a following that if I give up, I’m letting a lot of people down, a lot of people who have faith in me and what I’m doing. That definitely gets me through the difficult times.

I have a lot of visions for how I can move forward with the company and it’s so interesting because when I started I had a vision for where I would be now, and I am there but differently than I thought, so I try not to get too caught up cause things are constantly changing. Right now, I am focusing on getting national attention in order to grow my database. I really want to be on the Ellen show and write to her every day. I want to develop the actual app, both iOS and android versions. Then I want to extend to special needs parents being able to connect to other special needs parents. Additionally, I want to look into selling a blank slate of the app off to organizations, schools and nonprofits to use internally.

In ten years I want to have sold my company and be retired with a husband and kids, being able to focus on raising my kids. The company I hope to be thriving and changing lives.

I hope people take a few things away from this article. I hope they get that first and foremost we are only given one life, we need to do something meaningful with that life. Now, someone might feel that becoming an accountant is their calling, or a doctor or a factory worker, or you might want to start a business, a blog, a podcast, DO IT. Stop being scared and do it, your future self will be so happy you took the leap of faith to follow what sets your soul on fire. So many people are unhappy with their jobs and lives, don’t be one of them, follow your dreams. If I can do it, you can, trust me. Secondly, don’t give up when you fail. Failure is part of the process, it’s inevitable and something you can learn from. When you fail don’t be fast to give up, pivot!"

Follow this link to get started on the app! http://www.makingauthenticfriendships.com/