Editor's Note: (This post begins the first in a recurring series of bootstrapper profiles on bootstrapme.com. If you have a bootstrap entrepreneur you believe we should profile, please get in touch)

When Cara O'Callaghan, Santa Barbara, CA, founded www.preggersnproud.com, she was looking for a way to announce her impending motherhood to the world.

When she saw actress Kate Hudson wearing one of her new designer maternity T-shirts, she knew she had arrived.

"Back then there were no maternity slogan T-shirts," recalled O'Callaghan, who started her company in July 2003 while three months pregnant with her son Zaeden, now 2.

"I was playing with the idea of announcing it in a fashionable way," she explained.

Starting with an investment of just $4,000, a "dinosaur e-commerce site" with a simple PayPal account and four prototypes created by her Graphic designer husband, O'Callaghan set out to exploit a niche in the new mommy market.

The former speech writer for the president of the University of California, Santa Barbara, was also looking for a home business that would allow her to be a stay-at-home mother for her son.

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