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Lessons In
Leadership
MANAGEMENT
OCTOBER 2015 •
PPB
• 71
An Oasis Of Ideas
PROMOTIONS
75
ROUP GIFTING
IS a great way
to give friends
and co-workers—even family
members—meaningful, cher-
ished gifts that otherwise
might break a single giver’s
budget. But coordinating the
fundraising, shopping and
delivery can be a tedious and
sometimes convoluted
process. That’s why Arry Yu
and Christie Gettler founded
the retail group-gifting web-
site GiftStarter.
Through GiftStarter, Gift
Champions (that’s GiftStarter
talk for the person who
selects a gift) launch a cam-
paign on the site and invite
contributors to purchase a
“piece” of the retail product.
Contributors can include pho-
tos and messages with their
donations, which are sent
along with the gift to the
recipient. While individual
gifts are not customizable,
GiftStarter creates a hand-
crafted card from contribu-
tors’ messages and sends it
along with the gift to the
recipient.
PPB
spoke with Yu about
the inspiration for the compa-
ny’s model, and she also
shared advice for taking the
first step in launching an
innovative product or service.
PPB
What was the driving
inspiration for GiftStarter?
Yu
The driving inspiration for
GiftStarter comes from con-
necting the market move-
ments from the past decade:
the rise of social media,
crowdfunding, environmental
and social awareness, and the
ubiquitous use of digital com-
merce across the globe.
Social commerce has
been a moving target for sev-
eral years, and it may still
seem like an ambiguous, uni-
corn-like concept to many.
Countless approaches and
schools of thought have
emerged, yet not one exam-
ple stands out as transform-
ing commerce or filling any
meaningful gaps. GiftStarter
is bringing a fresh approach
to the experience of giving,
receiving and fulfilling amaz-
ing gifts online, where the
digital interactions are with
real people delivering joy
instead of just transacting in
shopping carts.
PPB
How is GiftStarter dif-
ferent from other group
purchasing experiences?
Yu
Most services and sites
that support group purchases
focus on part of the end-to-
end group purchasing experi-
ence; in other words, they will
aggregate the funds or
money from various people
into one big fund to deliver a
monetary “gift” to a recipi-
ent, similar to crowdfunding.
GiftStarter takes it all the
way to the very end of the
gifting experience, from
aggregating the funds from
people, to actually ensuring
the product is purchased and
shipped, to providing a
meaningful group card and
giving the recipient an easy
way to say “thank you” to
everyone who pitched in.
PPB
What avenues did you
take to secure funding and
other resources?
Yu
We won Seattle ReDesign,
a Startup Weekend
hackathon, so we decided to
take advantage of everything
the prizes afforded us to vali-
date the business. We met
Five Minutes With
Arry Yu
CEO and Co-Founder of GiftStarter
Small Changes, Big Impact
PRODUCT RESPONSIBILITY
79
83
TOP
Yu got her start consult-
ing with brands like Microsoft
and L’Oreal
BOTTOM
Co-
founder Gettler has worked
with Panasonic and Motorola.
G
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