The Birth of A Group Gifting Startup
By Jonathan Beekman Nov. 2, 2011
A lot of people I've talked to are really interested in how Groupit came to be. As humans, I think we're really fascinated by the art of the start - going from nothing to something seemingly overnight.
While Groupit's transition was certainly anything but overnight, there are several moments I can point to as inspiration for Groupit.com. In truth, I've always been a big gift giver. Not that I give big gifts, mind you, but rather that I like giving gifts a lot. I'm also a natural organizer, so I like to think that group gifting is right in my wheelhouse. I was in the middle of launching the first version of the site when my friend Alex's birthday rolled around. It was really the power of seeing group gifting in action that convinced me that the world needed a better way to gift.
Alex is a good friend of mine from school and is an incredible guy. For his 30th birthday, I wanted to do something more than give him a book or a gift card. When we pitched the idea to our friends on Facebook, the response was overwhelming. We were buying Alex an iPad.
Now, I've done group gifts before and often, the offline process of communicating with everyone, keeping everyone on the same page, collecting the cash, tracking people down who don't pay (you know who you are), making up the difference, buying the gift, making sure everyone signs the card... well... it can be overwhelming. I've been there, done that. While the results are awesome, all the hassle and hard work to get there is rarely something I look forward to.
So we built a simple tool called Groupit to help with this process. We wanted to retain the personal touch but wanted to streamline all the thankless organizing and management tasks that drained our energy. We spent a number of weeks building something fairly simple and unleashed it on our friends asking for contributions to help us buy Alex a great gift. The response surprised us.
Before we knew it, we had over $800 in contributions in less than 48 hours. Groupit was a hit! And best of all, it helped us buy Alex something for his 30th that he's still using today!
We pulled everyone together for the big moment and it was awesome seeing Alex's face when he opened his gift. See the video here: http://bit.ly/sbBUP0. I knew then and there that this kind of experience should be easier for everyone. I want all of you to have the same, easy, awesome gift giving experience we had with Alex.
We're working tirelessly on Groupit to make that vision a reality. We always love talking to people using Groupit. Many of our awesome ideas come from you. So if you use Groupit and can think of an even easier way of doing group gifting, please email me at jon@groupit.com. I'd love to hear from you!
Cheers,
Jon
