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Giftling at SydStart
Giftling is a solution that allows people to contribute money towards gifts that recipients really want rather than receiving unwanted items. It addresses the problems of gift givers who struggle to find gifts and stay within budgets, and receivers who end up with unwanted presents. Giftling enables contributors to fund gift pages for higher value items. In its first year, Giftling had over 1,000 visits to its site, created 10 gift pages with 6 being fully funded, and made a $195 profit through service fees and affiliate sales. The presenter outlines Giftling's team and provides details on following the company online.
Giftling at SydStart
- 1. Presenter: Rebecca Paget Unwantedgifts, a thing of the past
- 2. Gift Buyers 1. Findingtime to go shopping 2. Not knowing what to buy 3. Individual budget for gift Gift Receivers 1. Unwanted gifts Problem
- 3. Market Opportunity Source: CommbankReport, 2012 Spending on Gifts (Christmas, Australia)
- 4. Solution Giftling solves theproblem - Contribute in seconds. - Rest assured you bought the right thing – the thing they really wanted! - Higher value items through friend-funding!
- 5.
- 6. Traction • 1352 Visitsto the site (763 Unique) • 70 Users (Gift Page Creators and Contributors) • 10 Gift Pages created • 6 Fully funded Gift Pages (Key Metric) • $195 Profit ($30 service fees + $165 affiliate) • 2 Customer focus groups held • 90 Facebook likes (real ones) • 20 Giftling avatars on Facebook!
- 7. Defensive position We’re watchingour competitors Areas we can excel 1. Tailored solution for different market segments 2. More complete service offering
- 8. Mathew Vlandys Role: Developer Stereotype:Geek Cathy-Kim Sewell Role: Creative Stereotype: Creative livewire Steve Morlando Role: Business (Online) Stereotype: “The numbers guy” Rebecca Paget Role: Business (offline) Stereotype: “Networking Eficionado” Team
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Editor's Notes
- #2 What if I told you that in the future, the future created by Giftling, that you might never receive a gift that you didn’t want? Let me tell you why and howGiftlingis creating this future.
- #3 Guess what? The traditionof giving and receiving gifts – gifting – is broken.When we questioned potential customers about the experience of buying gifts, they complained! They had trouble finding time to go shopping. They also got stuck for ideas – not knowing what to buy. The budget for a gift is often just $20 to 50. But the things our friends want cost more than that!This results is unwanted gifts.
- #4 We see this problem, and we see opportunity.In the pie chart, that 7.8 billion is actually just what Australians spend on gifts at Christmas.Spending online is normal now. As shown in the pie chart, approximately 30% of Christmas gifts were purchased online. Looking at online shopping generally, IBIS World estimate annual growth of 11% for the next 5 years. What this means is that in the future, most gifts will be purchased online.As I said though, gifting is broken. Look at the amount we waste on unwanted gifts.
- #5 How will we fix it?Through Gift Pages. Gift Pages are what our website it all about. With user experience in mind, we’ve tried to eliminate all barriers to creating a Gift Page. You can start creating a Gift Page right now, if you want to. You don’t need to create an account and you don’t don’t need to share it, until you are ready to. When you’re ready, share the page so friends can chip in towards the gift, the funds roll in and you get the gift you really want. So, Giftling solves the problem for gift recipients. It solves the problem for gift buyers as well:Youdon’t need to find time to go shopping. It takes just seconds to contribute.You’re not stuck for ideas. The gift can have a higher value.
- #6 But you want to know how we make money. At this stage, we’re focused on two core revenue streams:The first is ServiceFees. We make 50 cents each time someone contributes to someone else’s Gift Page.The second is Affiliate Payments. On most Gift Pages, this revenue stream has the higher value. We’re working on product improvements and partnerships to optimize it.So far, a Gift Pages brings in an average of $39. On these two revenue streams only, we estimate this will increase to an average of $44 in the long run.
- #7 We have been in beta for the past 5 weeks.From the gift pages created, we saw viral and reciprocal effects. People create Gift Pages after contributing to one. They’re also likely to reciprocate: If you chipped in $20 towards my gifts, I’ll put $20 towards yours.The 20 Gifting avatars on Facebook shows that people love the Gifting branding. We bet they’ll create gift pages when the time is right.
- #8 In any competitive sport – like running a startup -- it’s important to keep an eye on what your competitors are doing.We’ve identified two areas where we can excel.One is by evolving Giftling in different directions for different niche markets. There are a lot of different gifting occasions – birthdays, kids birthdays, weddings, farewells, etc. These occasions are different traditions and have different social expectations, and so we believe that marketing messages need to be different too. The branding and features may also vary. There’s an opportunity to excel also by providing additional services. After a Gift Page is funded, we’ll offer to find the cheapest price online, purchase it, have it wrapped and delivered. No one else is doing this yet, and its one of the areas we are exploring for optimizing our revenue streams.
- #9 This is the third or fourth startup I’ve been involved in. The first was when I was an undergraduate and the others were last year. In between, I was at UNSW studying entrepreneurship at a masters level. I also founded the Entrepreneurs Society at UNSW.Let me introduce you to the rest of the Giftling team. Steve is already a successful entrepreneur, having created a sports betting site 10 years ago. He’s excellent with numbers, which helps in his role at Giftling.Mat has worked as a web developer for over 10 years, including for the security firm OzTech. He’s a geek and a complete gun at what he does. CK is the creative one. She has worked as a writer for Readers Digest. And that branding you see - The giftlings – is thanks to her. We’re a strong team and we hope you will follow us. Let’s make unwanted gifts a thing of the past.
- #10 Please come and talk to me after thispresentation. Thanks!