ActiveGift.Me From Ukraine Will Change The Way You Pick Gifts
If you need to organize a gift giving for someones birthday, but you’re not totally sure what you should get them, the best way to find it out would be to ask them, right? But then the magic and the surprise is gone, so you’ll have to figure something else out. Or you can use ActiveGift.Me.
ActiveGift.Me is a complete gift-organizing system; it will gather your friends, organize cost-sharing, help you with gift ideas and using a smart mechanism it will find out what you should buy for your friend! We talked to their co-founder about how ActiveGift.Me works and how is it disrupting gift-giving space.
Can you tell us about the launch and how ActiveGift.me is disrupting online gift-giving space?
It was a long story of understanding a problem, waiting for the right moment, learning in incubator, searching for CTO and team creation… Well, I think every company goes through something like that.
I think the main thing is to find a real problem and then fight it. In our case there are two problems: first is uncertainty that your gift will be 100% desired by your girlfriend, mother, friend. The problem is real, you can not be sure I’d like exactly that sweater with a camel as a birthday gift (maybe I’d like to receive a special handcrafted picture from Paris?).
Second — is that I’m forced to pretend to like a gift you gave to me. Just try to think about gifts your friends gave you before. Or just google “pretend to like gift” and click couple of links to forums or polls.
And we are solving both problems in an elegant way. Without wish lists, gift certificates and other crappy things.
All you have to do as a Giver is to (1) create your gift ideas list, (2) anonymously send it to your girlfriend or whoever you’re planning to give something, (3) see results of “Like” or “Dislike” clicks on every gift idea.
Believe me, if you see that your GF Liked something in your ANONYMOUS list (it means that she doesn’t know that it came from you), you’ll be happy to buy something she liked. Because it means your gift will be desired. Voila! 🙂
About disrupting — it’s in our core concept. I mean, we changed a point of view on a problem.
Now people are trying to force their friends write wish lists. Or just giving them “just anything”. Or gift certificates (they looks like “I’ll give you these money because I don’t want to think what would you really like to receive”).
We suggest givers a tool for anonymous validation of their ideas before buying a gift. I’m sure they’ve never seen something like that before.
What is your biggest advantage over competition?
We have a different point of view and solving our user’s problem in an ACTIVE manner. Our solution is just differs from others. It’s not a question of money (costs etc.), it’s a question of ideology. All we need is to show people another way to solve their problem and wait when they will try to “Think different” 🙂
What can your competitors do that you cannot?
Some of them already started moving forward. So they were able to do mistakes that we can’t do in order of moving in right direction with a maximum speed 😉
Why did you choose to run on .ME domain? Do you feel the URL itself highlights the personal side of your business?
We thought about a verb potential of such name. I hope expression “ActiveGift me” could be commonly used as “Google me” or “Facebook me”.
Would you tell us a bit more about ActiveGift.me team?
Our founding team is me and Max Krylov.
I have a BD and Marketing background (Vimpelcom, Groupon). I mainly worked for telecom and FMCG companies. Some years ago I took part in regional launches of Beeline brand in Ukraine. Later I worked on building partner relationships at Groupon.
My friend and business partner Max has 11 years experience of software development. Before ActiveGift, he participated in three IT-startups and successfully managed global outsourcing and freelance teams (web and mobile software development).
Since you come from Ukraine, it would be great to tell us more about local startup scene.
There are lot of great companies were founded by Ukrainian founders. Some of them are already moved to the Valley. New incubators and accelerators are appearing (we participated GrowthUP — www.growthup.com and EastLabs — www.eastlabs.co). And there are lot of events where people are getting to know each other and building new partnerships.
But it’s a good trend only in Kiev and Kharkov. Other major cities are not so well-developed in the startup sense.
So, Ukrainian entrepreneurs are always trying to see in the direction of Kiev and then — Europe and the Valley.
What keeps you awake at night?
My new ideas. Some of them are about ActiveGift, but others are about our following Big Things. So, stay tuned and I’ll keep you informed! 😉
So, the next time you get the task of picking out gifts, remember to check out ActiveGift.Me. Built by a small, but enthusiastic team who just wants to revolutionize the way we pick gifts out. Giving them is, still, the best feeling in the world.
