In the spring of 2009, Tara Mandy and Elina Furman unknowingly launched two different websites with the same mission—to provide web content to moms with young children in a newsletter format. Though competitors, they not only developed a deep level of respect for each other’s work, but also found they shared a lot in common—including navigating through motherhood with young kids in the city. Their friendship eventually led to a business partnership and the launch of The Cribsies, the well-received awards series for the mom industry (brilliance born in a shared cab ride!).

Before collaborating on The Cribsies, Mandy came to the momosphere through her March 2009 launch of Stroller Traffic. Prior to, she spent 10 years as an editor at “New York” magazine and felt that new moms needed an outlet where they could get all the information that was most important to them, including new trends and breaking parenting news, without having to search for it. With that in mind, she created an email newsletter for moms with kids under the age of three, which gets sent out once a week nationally and twice a week in New York City.

While Mandy was busy launching Stroller Traffic, Furman and her sister Leah had been working together to launch a similar service, A-List Mom, which went live shortly after. Using her new media and publishing experience as an editorial director for WomensDay.com and Seventeen.com, as well as her background in writing books, Furman and her sister were able to create a site where style-savvy moms could sign up to receive the latest parenting products and services delivered straight to their inbox. It grew from just 200 subscribers to 15,000, and garnered coveted rankings in publications such as “InStyle” magazine, which named A-List Mom 2010’s “Best of the Web—Kids.”

While many people may never have agreed to sit down with a competitor, Furman and Mandy say it felt natural to join forces and collaborate on the Cribsie Awards. “We basically came together and said, ‘Let’s do what we already do, which is select what we think are the best products, but let’s take it another step further by allowing moms to use their voices in each category to select the best of the best,” says Mandy.

Over 4,000 brands were nominated, and Mandy, Furman and the editorial board were left to sift through them and come up with criteria for choosing finalists. The nominations helped shape the awards themselves, along with the six categories: nursery, mealtime, play, gear, fashion and web. All in all, 350 finalists were selected based on criteria of functionality, style and design, innovation and popularity. And while popularity was factored in, Mandy and Furman took care not to select only mainstream brands, making sure to include a few start-up companies that had interesting sources of inspiration. In the final stages of the process, the public got to vote again to pick winners. With ten awards in each category, there were a total of 60 winners, ranging from “Chicest Diaper Bag That Doesn’t Look Like A Diaper Bag” (winners included Petunia Pickle Bottom, Stork Sak and more) to “Best Distraction When You Need to Shower” (winners included seats and swings like the Evenflo ExerSaucer, Baby Bjorn Babysitter Balance and others).

Although only in its first year, The 2011 Cribsies were met with such success that Furman and Mandy are already working on next year’s awards—and they say there are many new initiatives underway to make it even bigger. But with so much going on in both their individual and joint businesses, how exactly do they balance business and mommy life?

“At the end of every day I feel like there were shortcomings on both the mom side and the business side, but I’m not willing to give up my attempt to do both as full-time as I can,” Mandy says. “There are sacrifices, but I wouldn’t have it any other way.”

To view this year’s full list of Cribsie Awards, visit cribsieawards.com.

Photo: Tara Mandy (with children Greta, 4, and Henry, 7 months) and Elina Furman (with son Julian, 3). Photo by Jennifer Spellman (jellybeanpics.com).