Interview With Allove.Me’s Franjo Jurković – Love Is Made For Sharing
Editor’s note: Since writing this article, Allove.me started to be used by a new .MEr. We look forward to seeing just what they will accomplish! However, you can read our story about a similar .MEr here.
Today, we bring you interview with Franjo Jurković, the founder of Allove.me. Born and raised in Zagreb, he earned a degree in Telecommunications Engineering at the Faculty of Transport and Traffic Sciences.
What gave you the idea for allove.me?
Although this will probably sound a bit cheesy, the idea came from my own experience – my girlfriend is to blame for allove.me! We were apart, and I wanted to send her flowers so she knows I’m thinking about her. She was situated in the part of the country where apparently no delivery was available, so I started to search for a digital version of a bouquet. Anything half decent. And in the waste expanses of the Internet I just couldn’t find what I was looking for. Something original, yet traditional, emotional but not cheesy, simple but interesting … you get the picture. Nothing. So, unfortunately, she didn’t get her flowers that time, but I got the idea instead!
How did you gather your team for allove.me?
Allove.me grew naturally, without any specific plan in mind. Step by step, with every new task and every goal we wanted to achieve, new people were joining to our crew. First the team comprised just me, the florist, photographer and designer, than it grew by a programmer, a copywriter joined us, as well as drawing artists and our video producer, all of whom now create the foundation of Allove.Me. They all work as an outside force, and we pride ourselves in being very flexible in terms of working conditions. We take it easy and enjoy what we do, trying to make it better every day.
What makes allove.me stand out from the competition?
Our goal is to offer more personalized experience than any other ecard website. Allove.Me cards are original, made by ourselves from scratch. We collaborate with florists for the most beautiful flower arrangements, with photographers to get the best possible flower shots and we try to design each and every card to be original and unique.
Also, Allove.Me offers a few models of designer picture frames to make your personal or family photos even better. Most of all, we are proud of our Drawn to you! personalized caricatures made by our very own artist Norman Toshiyuki. Caricatures are made according to the pictures you send, everything is done online and they make simple yet perfect wedding/birthday/everyday gifts! For now you can get them in digital format, so you can print them or send them via email, but soon we plan to make paper originals available as well.
So far, how are the users responding to Allove.Me?
Every beginning is hard, said someone, and that someone was correct. Yet, we cannot be unsatisfied since we already have our first 100 members and the number of people logging on allove.me continuously grows. However, it would be great to be able to speed up the process, especially marketing-wise, since our advertising budget is somewhat limited. We are working with what we have, trying to boost our presence with less pricey tools which, as you can imagine, means A LOT of sent newsletters and emails. That’s why we are thankful for every given chance to promote our fun lovin’ business! Now is also the moment where we stop to talk about ourselves and thank the good people of domain.ME, for noticing us and giving us this space on your (awesome) blog. Thank you, domain.ME!
Are there any plans for expanding the Allove.Me business?
Oh, yes, we’re full of plans! Of course, turning them into reality will depend on our financial resources, but we will take it as we did until now: step by step. We plan to make some changes on the interface of the allove.me site, to make it even more functional (and lovable too). We plan to upgrade the current calendar feature and make it even more practical. New e-cards are being designed as we type, and that will continue throughout year. And as the cherry on top, the Allove.Me mobile app for Android is on its way! We have some other, top secret stuff that we can’t talk about at the moment, so let’s stop here. You will know everything when the time comes.
That’s all, folks! Greetings from Allove.Me team and remember, love is made for sharing – share it with us!
