The following is a transcript from Meredith Leyva's Spotlight Interview on Wednesday, September 20th:

Paul Gude: We're honored to have Meredith "The CinC" Leyva from CinCHouse.com here with us today. Meredith, welcome!

The CinC (Meredith): Thanks, Paul! Glad to be here, literally and figuratively. It's an honor

Paul Gude: Your community has grown so successful in it's specific area of specialization. Can you descirbe it for our readers?

The CinC (Meredith): CinCHouse.com is military jargon for 'Commander in Chief of the House", i.e. a military wife. Our site is designed for military wives, girlfriends and women in uniform, and we receive up to 900,000 unique visitors per month.

Additionally, we have a charitable side called Operation Homefront that leverages support from the civillian community to provide emergency assitance to military families and wounded warriors

Our goal is essentially to create a renaissance in the military family communty by bringing it online, where it is convenient to everyone.

Paul Gude: My wife's family is a military family, and that caused a lot of unique issues. Dad was often out of the state, sometimes out of the country.

You would meet people, and then you'd move halfway around the world.

The CinC (Meredith): Exactly. CinCHouse is there to unite families, make new friends, and help you with information on how to do crazy things like relocate your family to Crete.

The good news about military folks is that we're extremely friendly because we have to be - we don't have time to snub people.

This is why we provide free web hosting and discussion forums for spouse clubs and family support groups. Again, trying to connect busy women online where it is conveninet to everyone.

Paul Gude: That's something I learned while on your site. A lot of people don't realize that in a large portion of the military families out there, mom *has* to run the show, no matter how many other things she has on her plate outside of her home life.

The CinC (Meredith): No wilting daisies - that's for sure. But there's a lesson in that. Everyone thinks military wives are the stereotypical homemakers just following their man around. In fact, the vast majority are college ediucated professionals, which is why they have trouble getting together in person and why they are so active on the web. The lesson here is to know your market -- intimately.

It helps to be a military wife myself in order to understand the market, but a 'focus group of 1' is not enough to truly understand your market. You have to do your research.

Paul Gude: Right! And one of the main ideas is that in almost all cases there's no such thing as "spare time."

The CinC (Meredith): Indeed! We often find women in crisis about relocating their family or dealing with deployment get on the forum very late at night, after the kids have gone to bed and the bills are paid.

So we use our forums as a round-the-clock tool to keep the discussion going among very busy women

I also think strong moderators are very important on a popuar discussion forums. We are constantly shocked at how bullying some people can be. CinCHouse's forums are known to be relatively peaceful (but certainly not always) because we kick people out if they get nasty - period.

We are also beginning to use the forums for 'chats' with experts. We have found that appointment-style chats don't work for our busy visitors, but they CAN look and particupate in an ongoing discussion forum even if our expert only checks in once per week.

Paul Gude: It seems like you're always expanding your horizons! That begs the question, how did the community start?

The CinC (Meredith): The community started in 1999 when I was a solo wife trying to get control over my family's lives. Our command was threatening to deploy my husband and relocate us, so I jimmied up a little web site for my friends and I to chat while at work. Within 4 months, we had 40,000 UVs and I realized I wasn't the only one with major concerns.

Paul Gude: So, when did you make the change to the Groupee login system?

The CinC (Meredith): I think we switched in 2000 or 2001. I did pretty extensive research and the reviews were clear that Groupee was the most reliable and expandable system. That has certainly been very true for us.

It helps that we host on your servers instead of trying to run it ourselves. That has made a world of difference. I would rather focus on content than systems because that is our core competency.

Paul Gude: I think the one thing I noticed right off the bat about CinCHouse is that it truly is an example about how finding a need no one seems to be addressing and doing something about it *works*.

The CinC (Meredith): Absolutely. You just feel it in your gut. A lot of the service meber-oriented sites have tried to do what we do, but they can't. They aren't 'girlie' enough. I mean, when have men ever truly known what women want? ;-)

Paul Gude: I find that I can generally understand things if my wife makes me look at her (instead of the TV, the baby, a book, etc.) and speaks very slowly. It also helps if she makes me repeat it.

The only problem is, I often forget what we were talking about a few minutes later.

The CinC (Meredith): The guy 'gene.' My husband has it, too.

It's funny -- and it goes back to knowing your market intimately, but my husband was absolutely shocked when I mentioned that I don't identify myself as a 'military wife." And most wives don't. Here I am: a leader of military wives and I don't even refer to myself as one.

But we are independent women with our own careers are dreams, we just happen to be married to barrel-chested freedom fighters.

This is a key reason our site is pink and not red, white, blue and cami.

Paul Gude: That's the issue, really, is that you're Meredith, you're married to your husband, and your husband is in the military.

The CinC (Meredith): Exactly. You gotta know your market

Paul Gude: I understand you have another engagement you have to get to, so very quickly, I heard that you recently were asked to help out with some sort of September 11th memorial?

The CinC (Meredith): Yes! We just completed our highly successful Freedom Walks commemorating September 11. We were specifically asked by the Department of Defense to organize these in 15 major locations because we have the logistical ability to handle these things. We're very proud!

Paul Gude: Thanks for taking the time to answer our questions, and for all the work you and CinCHouse.com do for the military and their families!

The CinC (Meredith): Thanks, Paul