How to Make Your Memories Digital

They are disrupting the greeting card industry and the events industry with a really innovative way to preserve cards, messages and memories forever. Of course, my favorite in the cloud, where you can search it, access it and travel the world but still have your memories. His partner and crab, she is a full time mom for new are spending her days raising her two beautiful children. Her background is in marketing and client services. And over the past few years, she's been applying all of these skills to helping get their business off the ground, really focusing on getting feedback from all the beta customers to enhance the website and the future launch of abrasion. J and Jeff Cohen, welcome to the show. Hi, y'all santal I'm back for another episode of business unveiled. I'm so excited for our guests today. Because I've known them for a I feel like a really long time, they've been working on this amazing, amazing project that just sits very near and dear to my heart because you guys know that like, I'm not the biggest fan of paper. And when I get a birthday card or a Christmas card, or like cards for special occasions, which I actually like, love them. But the problem is like, I never want to throw them away. And then I travel a lot and I move a lot. And I it's like when you go from place to place, you have all this shit. Like the cute big hatboxes from TJ Maxx. And so and then you can't sort this stuff, right? So it's just not efficient to go back and like look at these things. And so when I met this couple through another company tech company that I work with faithfully, I'm like, oh my god, I love this idea. And I love what you guys are doing, because this makes it so much easier for people to really store their memories, like in the cloud. And so if there's a fire, if there's a flood, which we've been through both, it doesn't matter, because all of your memories, special memories will be saved and backed up, backed up somewhere. So we're going to talk a little tech on you today. And just it's a different modern way of thinking when you're doing something special for someone for any type of vacation. So welcome to the show, Jeff. It's today. How are y'all? Hi,
thank you for having us. Yeah,
I'm super excited. Before we jump off and start talking about the platform and all that. I want you guys to take us back and let us know just a little bit about your journey. I know it but everyone listening watching is not going to know it because I want them to know. Like, where did this idea come from? And how did you get the ball rolling of even like saying, Okay, we're gonna start this amazing platform. So there has to be a story, right?
Yeah, it's definitely a unique story. And people are always a little wondering if that's really how it all started. But yeah, so this idea actually came about from our own wedding night when we were opening up all of our cards and reading all of the messages from our family and friends. You know, a light bulb kind of just went off and obviously we've gotten cards before and we've given cards before but you know for an event is special as a wedding. I just thought to myself there it'd be really special if there was a way to just digitally preserve this without having to keep all these cards in a shoe box somewhere or a drawer. So I know he cards have been around for a while so I you know I was doing some research but you know One thing I noticed they all had in common was that they're all just email delivery, which means they're all just kind of scattered throughout your inbox. There's not really any kind of like, organized, structured way to go back and look at them all. So I thought to myself, there has to be a market for this. And I'll let Shay fell on the next part of the story, which is when I told her about it, which was when we landed at our honeymoon.
We Yeah, so this was I guess, you know, ball rolling and is had luckily kept it to himself because I was, you know, just wanting to go you know, I could just, you know, going back I wish I could be like a fly on the wall to see because I saw you know, every car that we would open here we, you know, right, the PERT you're not right, you know, Excel spreadsheet, Mr. Spreadsheet over here, type in the person's name. I've been what they gave, you know, so we had it all documented, right? So I'm just like, looking at him like, alright, what are we going to Bora Bora, like, whatever, like not even just like finishing up my packet. So we land in LA, we have a layover. And we it was funny. My sister's best friend who was one of my bridesmaids. We dropped her off at her apartment in Santa Monica. So we're just all chit chatted, she flew with us on the first leg of our honeymoon. It's like my favorite part. That's funny. It's like the bat. It's like, it's my favorite. And so Kate. And you know, Jeff and I were at in and out are like Patti. I could see Jeff's like, kinda like in thought, I'm like, whatever, not thinking about it. We dropped her off. I'll never forget where we're at the first stoplight. And he's like, I have a business idea. And I'm like, married? Yeah. To go on our honeymoon, like I told him, I said, so the best part of the story. And I should have maybe said this beginning in his vows, he said that he was going to turn on is out of office and not look at emails for two weeks, which is like on sales. I don't use your mouse. Now, he was like, I will not look at my computer for two weeks. And I was kind of like, skeptical. There's no way he can do that, you know, not look at his computer, make a sales call like, so as soon as we land. Or as soon as we're about to get Santoni brings up business. I was like, What about the valves? And he's like, okay, just like, I think you told me the idea. Yeah,
get it out there.
Like, let it out. Tell me the idea. And I said, Talk to me at the end. Like I just want to be jumping into the ocean. Like I don't want to hear it. Like I got my cheat. I brought a raft with me a cheeseburger raft from Maine. I'm like traveling with it to Bora Bora. I don't want to hear business like I just want to be floating on a cheeseburger in the ocean. Or, you know, I just don't. So yeah, so that's,
um, yeah, so we put a pause on it. Yeah, what anyway, more
when we got back. He was you know, what, uh, yeah. Researching, trying to see see if you know, this idea kind of was out there. And what was it? Let's see, we got back end of September. And Columbus Day weekend, I found out I was pregnant. Oh. Okay. So we were doing a lot of different research. A lot of business like, Oh, it doesn't exist. And I was all like, Oh, my God, what type of baby man? We were on different pages. Um, but ya know, he, you know, a lot of we started, you know, just with the initial idea was just, you know, weddings and saving, you know, the cards. And, you know, I felt like, when we came back from our honeymoon, we're depositing you know, the checks into the bank, and he's at Chase, you know, with like, 50 checks, and, you know, like, they only take what, like, 20 at a time or something. Whatever it is, and you're just like, you know, it's just like, I don't even know where my check. I might not even have a chatbot I don't care we did.
Some people were still,
it's what is it for? I don't look back and we'll be like, what was this paper? Yeah, yeah. My online big game. I'm like, oh, there's that Amazon.
Yeah, that's that's kind of how the journey so I started
working in the city. So we were we're still living in New York City. Actually. We're living in New York City. Yeah. And then in November. Yeah, our lease ended November 1. We moved to Stanford. I'm from Connecticut. And that's where we All right now we're in Monroe. Um, but yeah, we started, we moved to Stanford. And that's where Jeff joined the what the
entrepreneurial society is San Rios a bunch of like entrepreneurial networking groups, that was kind of like where we first started making connections. And, you know, as you know, being in the industry, like the, the networking is just like a domino effect, like we met you from a connection of a connection or a connection. So like, leads to somebody else. And like, it just keeps growing. It's, it's great.
How did you even? Because, I mean, you do you've been growing this for a couple years? And so how did you leave? How did both of you like leave your previous roles? And then you're like, Okay, we're gonna be a startup, like, how does somebody even go about that?
Yeah, I mean, it was definitely a big decision, we were both still working full time. And then Shay left her full time position when our first son Ben was born. And I'm still working full time, but we, you know, I work remotely. So I'm able to help Shay with this. And of course, now we have two kids. So it's been a lot to juggle. But I remember when we had the conversation of we were going to go forward with this, like, right after we found out that you were pregnant, and we said, you know, this is like going to be a big, you know, first of all financial investment, it's going to take up a lot of time, like we have a child coming, like is this the right time to do this, but then, you know, life's only gonna get busier, right? I remember looking back, like, it's funny, we thought life was busy back then, like, so like, if we, if we pushed it off, like, I just know, that we would have just kept making that excuse, and that never would have started. So I'm glad we did it when we did, because now we're, you know, three years into it, and, you know, as a whole journey up to where we are now. But um, I'm glad we did it.
Yeah, like at the beginning, just like looking back on it now. Like, I remember, I would go to my doctor's appointments, and then I would be like walking back to work. And I was like, stop at like a Starbucks. And like, we had never, neither one of us have built a website have never, like done anything, you know, like this. And I remember Jeff would be like, What is your vision for this page? And I'm like, my wife, like, I like what do you mean? Like, I'm like, I just want to hear like the heartbeat. I'm like, you know, like, my mind's like, you know, in two different places. So I'm like, trying to draw out like, what and like, from, I wish we could see like, I mean, we do have some pictures of like, what the website first looked like, you know, it was so different than what it looks like now. And I just remember, like me, just drawing the Starbucks. And I'm like, maybe it'll look like this. But like, I've got, like, artistic and definitely can't draw to save my life. And I would show up, like, What is the vision? And it's so funny, because we would go meet like, we would be with it. We got it. One of our advisors, Christine from the Connecticut business, what
is it? All business development. So yeah,
and we would like meet up with her, we would bring fin you know, and he was probably five months, four months, five months. And like whoever anybody we would meet up with, we would bring Shaq to our dog. He's seven, but there's at the time was five. Um, you know, he's small. So it was our puppy and our little baby who Jack's also our baby, but they'd always be like, I can't believe you're starting a business with a baby. Like, it's so much and I was like, at the time, I was like, oh, yeah, cuz you know, you're like nursing and then you're trying to do website stuff, and you're nursing. And now this year, so now the Finns turn to now I'm like, really getting what people meant, like, I can't believe you're starting. This is the baby. Because when you have a baby, like, that's easy, like, oh my god, babies are like, they just you put them down. They sit there, you're just like, okay, they lie down. Toddlers are like a different animal every like every week. total chaos. So having a business with a toddler is just like I don't even have the time on like, I brush my teeth today.
Well, we what we've done and you're you're on our email newsletter list. So you see this at the bottom of our newsletter, we have an update from our toddler officer fan and the chief baby officer, Lucy's that's,
it's so cute. It's so cute. Do you think if there's like one thing, if you all could go back and tell yourself one thing, like when you started? Would that one thing be? Oh, we should wait a year or would it be something totally Different if you could go back and do something different.
No, if anything, I wish we would have started it sooner. If we waited even longer, we would have just been like it's too crazy right now we gotta wait another year, like we'd never wanted.
I was gonna say if I could go back to me, like when Finn was five months old, I would say, take a moment every day to be like, these are relaxing days, you're stressed. But that's no, no, no. And like, this relish in the car?
Well, I mean, even starting a bit, it's like having a child. It is and it never shuts off. It never takes discipline to like, shut it off and and figure it out. So let's get jump in a little bit and talk about like the function like, for anyone listening or watching. He loves greeting cards. But they like the idea of an online option. And I'm not talking about y'all like take a picture and then put your stuff like I used to do in Evernote. I mean, I was taking pictures of my cards and storing them in an Evernote back in like, I think 2010 or 11. But the reason is because my computer crashed right before I graduated college, and I lost everything. And I was so devastated. And then a week later, my car's broken into my planner, like my perfect little planner that had my monogram that my parents had gotten me. And it was like four years old, and I had like, had everything I needed to do on it. And it was stolen, my purse was stolen and Kara purse, my wallet, but none of that I care about my planer because I didn't know what to do the next day. And that those back to back just put me into this like depression of like, I can never ever feel this way again, how can I make sure this never happens again. And at that time, it was called a floppy drive. floppy drive. And well, multiple floppy drives actually had like a whole kit and they were like color coded with labels on them. And then
floppy drives these
have people that my nieces are like, what is that and I'm like just Google it. Um, but it's just like, it's almost like a something bad has to happen to you to have this horrible feeling of emptiness of never wanting to experience that again. And so I that's where I set off, I'm like, I'm going to become a, I didn't know, I was going to become a like as much of a tech geek and an apple geek as I am. But any new technology that came out, I was always learning. And then I got into EMR electronic medical records. And seeing all of this at a very, very young age really showed me what the future was going to look like for everything. And until you see it, it's hard to explain it. So talk us through what is the user experience, if anybody is listening or watching and they have a birthday, or an anniversary, or a wedding or a baby showers something, any type of event or just special occasion? What would they do? Yeah, he Bryson
Well, I was just gonna say we just had a our, our baptism, right? So we just had a baptism for the kids. And if you want to just walk, you know, we could, you know, use that as an example. So you're so let's say, you know, you Angela's invited, so maybe like,
yeah, so whenever you're having an event, basically, you would create a page for that event with all the details. And that page would get sent to all the people on your guest lists, all the friends and family that are that are being invited. And there's an option on the page do you want to send your card and message to to the person who's being celebrated that way, you don't have to bring your card with you to mail anything, you don't have to email anything. And how this kind of differs from you know, the traditional e cards route is that it's just stored it all in one place. So now on the day of the event, so on the day of the baptism, we can go in and see all the cards that we got from our family and friends that attended all you know, in one online portal that we can go back and see forevermore, especially when you pointed out that our kids can then you know, go save. So you think about all the events that they're going to have coming up, you know, all their birthday parties, graduations, things like that. They can now have all those cards saved for them. So it's really about digitally preserving the memories and it's more about like a group activity, not just a single person sending a but really everybody who's connected to that family going to that event, can all send it through the same place. But then, and then, and then upload photos from the event as well. So instead of, you know, having everybody text them all to the person or share on social media and then have to collect them all, there is an option on the page to upload photos. So that's, you know, where you could save all the memories in that regard. And then to your point about, you know, how you used to save all of your cards on your Evernote, you can also upload any physical cards to the event as well, because you're always going to have, you know, grandma, or whoever sent you a physical card. And you might want to save that too. So we have an option to upload those or even offer as a concierge service. If you want us to upload them for you.
I just I think it's it's so cool. Because it's like, kind of a one stop shop or it's like you get the card, you can get the message. Can they send a gift? Or
cash gifts? Yeah, so you can send your wife or give me a cash gift, which with weddings and other events is pretty common? Um, there's an option to send baptisms. Yeah, there's an option to do that with it. Eventually, we plan to work with like registries, where that can kind of be part of it, too. Right now, it's just cash gifts. So yeah, that can all be done in the same transaction.
And then can be can all the guest, like, let's say, there's 50 of us, and you know, all 50 of us send a card, can they all see each other's stuff? Or it's just the the person that is being celebrated? How, what's the delivery? And like, what's that experience? Like, if I'm the receiver, what happens?
Yeah, so it's private to the, to the receiver of the recipient of the event, but they're open to sharing it if they want to, like have people take a look at everything that's up to them. But really, it's in their own password protected accounts. And that we have a product called a member ebook that they want to order afterwards that combines all the cards and photos, you can like, match up each guests photo with their card, and we can create an eBook out of that. And that's just a URL link that you can share with anybody you want them to see it.
That's awesome. I just I think of like, you know, my grandparents, my great grandparents, and, you know, obviously, technology, it wasn't anywhere where it is today. But it's like, my mom has kept everything, like everything. And it's kind of annoying, but it's cute, at like very specific times where she'll like pull things out of over. Like, we each kid has a big chest with a shit in there. But it's just memories, you know, and it's neat for her to like, pull those out. But I just think like, today's kids like yalls kids, and like the younger kids, because we're starting things off and technology, they'll be able to sort and like put their fingertips on things so much quicker. Then someone you know, like me, where we have to, like go dig up family tree stuff, because there's not even pictures, much less video, much less electronic cards or like something someone wrote you. So it's just, it's really neat, that we're setting our, our future up to just have thing memories, like, accessible, you know,
I totally agree. I was just at my mom's house. Was it yesterday? Oh, my God, the day is just yesterday, um, and she had this old photo album out. And it's photos of her mom and me, you know, me as a baby. And it was from 1988. And we're like, laughing because, you know, there's so many pictures of like, blurry or they're like, out, you know, they're super far away, or they're super close up. And I said to my mom, I said, because, you know, we've been in the generation of we also you know, I've taken you know, the the disposables, right, like, of course, and I said to my mom, I said, How funny is it? Like, can you imagine like, because I said, like, there was this one picture of me and it was it was like, really cute. It looked just like Lucy, right? My that's my daughter. And, but it was blurry. And my mom was like, if only like, you know, there was a more, you know, clear photo, but I said, How would you know, you know, you you took the photo and then you wait, you wait a week, and then you see the picture and you're like, oh dar like it's totally secret. And I could not imagine and I you know, being growing up in the diagnoses are important. I remember taking the pictures, but like now with the iPhone and like my photos affine it's like there's 100 times a day, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, and then I look at them and I'm like, 500 and the same thing. Photos Jasmine sent to me all the time. And it's like, I just think I was just saying that it's so crazy that you would take photos, and you have no idea how they're they look. And then you're like, what? Yeah, I go. I
don't like the saying, Oh my gosh.
It's crazy because they are saying,
like, Finn's gonna look at me like, I don't even know how to show him. I have like, 40,000 pictures and he's too and
those what, you know, photo technology is gonna look like 1015 years from now. It's probably like, what we're going through now is probably gonna be like, Oh, that's how you think it's gonna be even more advanced. Yeah.
Yeah, I always say to Jeff, I feel like Finn's kind of like our iteration guinea pig, you know, because I feel like he had his well yeah, to zoom, of course, for his first birthday. And so he has his first birthday. What is yeah, the second in there. And the baptism. So by the time like, he's 18, Helen had, you know, his communion, he'll have his graduation, he'll have those big milestone birthdays, when you're a kid to a kid, it's every birthday. But you know, like, 510, you know, and it's, it'll be so cool for him to look back when he's, you know, going off to college. And it's like, Oh, my God, great man, and auntie and so and so all these beautiful messages, people say, you know, and it just sweet to look back, you know, like, even Yeah, it's just nice.
And also to, you know, I always found the time management productivity in it. But I think, because, I mean, clearly, I'm in planning, but also to, if a family members getting married, or if a family member passes away, and we have a celebration life, like everyone looks at me, so put the videos and the pictures together. And then it's like, going on a freakin treasure hunt. That takes me so much every time. And I'm like, and then there's a part where I just give up and I'm like, Alright, I'm going to work with what I've got. And like, we're going to finish this because I'm going to give myself a timeline. And then I'm like OCD about some of this stuff. But what it does is all it, it forces you to organize your stuff. So that when your kids are that age, like I did that with SmugMug, which was an app a long time ago to manage photos, because we get between 30 and 50,000 a month, from like all the events and weddings we were doing. And so it's like, if you don't put them in folders, and if you don't organize them, if you don't like heart, your favorite, it's just like you're drowning in weeks. And it's a hard thing if someone suddenly passes and you're not expecting it. And then you have to sit there as a child or family. You know, I've sat there going through stuff, and it's like, hard to relive those memories and like looking for things when like, you don't want to be really doing that. Just like it's so much better just to organize your stuff on the front end. And just like a new baby or a baptism, but you know, like a wedding, you're starting your life together. And so how about start with your shit organized? So you can?
Yeah, I mean, one of our advisors pointed this out not too long ago. And it's like not to sound morbid, but you know, eventually people pass away and like, such a perfect way to commemorate them at the funerals, or as you have all of their big events and photos and messages from their family and friends all in one place. And you know, that's something that you can, of course, share with everyone at the service.
Yeah, yeah. And it's like, it's all there at the fingertips too. So like, there's, there's some great things that came out of pandemic QR codes, people know how to use them now, everywhere you go, a restaurant, whatever. And it's very effective for tracking and marketing. And so it's like, you know, if you have a QR code at the celebration of life, or whatever, whatever, you know, people walk in, and they can like, get all this. It's just, it's great that it's like at our fingertips to be able to offer these things. So so if somebody was interested in doing it, like, Tell us, where would we go? What would we do? How would we get started? How long does it take from like, beginning to end kind of thing? All the good stuff.
The website is E Bration. Calm so EB ra T io n.com. If you're a new customer, there'll be a sign up link or get started now link that you could put in your name, email password, and then once you get in, there'll be an area to create an event and it will, you know, direct you with what seals have to be put in. And then essentially, you have a few different ways to share it, you can either we also do invitations, that's another thing we do. So if you're, you know, looking to send out, you know, it's just online invitations. So if you're open to digital invitations, you could send that out through us, which will, of course, include the link to the page. If you're doing invites separately, we have another way to email out or even text out the link to people, we now have a texting feature for that. Or for people with, with wedding websites and registries, this is something you can put right on your wedding website. We've had plenty of wedding customers just put it right on their page on the daughters. Hola. So when guests are going to their page, they see you know that they're collecting cards and monetary gifts if they are open to that progression,
which is also if you're a planner listening, and you plan weddings, you plan events, baptisms, bar mitzvahs, parties, anything, this is something that, again, because I love technology, naturally, if we plan or design anything, you're gonna follow our process, which is realist in the cloud, very organized. And so this, what I learned about this, I'm like, Oh, my God, we have to add this to our couples Web. Because we every couple gets a website, they all want it some some are password protected, some are not. Yeah, and exactly what you just said, like on the registry tab. It's like, oh, leave an E card. And then it takes people through the experience. And then they're like, Oh, well, this was kind of neat. Like, how do I use that for for something else, you know, that they may be doing in the future with a child or family member or something like that. So it's just it naturally for me, as a tech geek, I'm like, Oh, my God, we have to do this. And so from a cost perspective, talk us through, what does that look like as far as the cost?
Yeah, so right now, we're not charging anything to use the platform itself. So it's free to sign up and create an event, it would cost the user if they're going to use our invitations. So those are anywhere between 20 and $30, which is pretty standard for online invitations. Similar for thank you cards, we do online, thank you cards, too. So there's similar costs there. And then we have that memory book that you can order at the end of the event, which combines all the cards and messages and photos, and that's around $75. So those are the products and services that people can buy. And then your guests who sent cards through the site, it's $2 per card to send the card through the site. So that's kind of all the different pricing metrics.
But if I think about it, like if I have to go get a card, I have to drive to the store, I have to read through a bunch of freaking cards that I don't have time for. And then like look for something that's pretty and then stand in line and then check out it's like, I don't I haven't done that in a very long time. But most like my mother's generate. Now I'm on my mother cards for everything because she loves cards, like that's something that she loves, and like you do it for the people like that, but come on, like in 30 years, 20 years, 10 years, like, these kids are not going to be like, Mama take me to go pick out a card for a birthday. But like it just doesn't anymore. You know,
I know I that's
yeah, I mean, like this is definitely aimed at like the host of the event, but it's very beneficial to the guests too. So you don't have to, like you said make that stop at CVS and get a card especially for wedding cards. Now we're like $10 It's crazy to buy a wedding card. Yeah,
I also just other give, you know, a Starbucks gift card. I'd rather buy you $10 worth of americanos than you know, other $10 Starbucks gift card, then get it in a $10 card. You're gonna
have the stress of getting cash or cheque to put in the card. We had a wedding over the summer it was hysterical at the ceremony started at four o'clock, and I'm not even kidding you between four and five. We had like 10 people send their card and gift three ration and also like forgotten to bring it to the wedding. And they're like, oh, yeah, I could just send them here. Let me know, people who forgot or are late to getting it's just yeah, a lot easier.
Yeah, I mean, even if, as a guest coming in, if if you forgot to just order anything. It's like you can scan the QR code and like do it right there. So it's just the time savings and the convenience of it is so much. It's just such a better option in my mind. Like it just makes sense. And then I love the fact that people can share their photos. Because oftentimes, and for some reason, probably because of this podcast and other YouTube videos that I do people come up to me and they're like, can you fix my phone? Can you fix this? And I'm like, well, you're out of space. So that's why people can AirDrop photos to you right now, and the internet really bad here, or you're not on the same Wi Fi. Like, there's just too many things. And I'm like, I'm in the middle of running an event, not a math class. So I'm like, you know, a different time. But if you give them a link, then that removes all that stress of like, trying to text pictures and AirDrop pictures. Because it it when you text pictures, and especially videos back and forth to people, it takes up your space, like it eats up your space. I computer
until a friend told me she Oh, my face gets paid almost like oh my god, I had no idea.
Yeah, one of my computer's was out of space the other day. And so you know, go up to the apple and you go to storage. And then it will organize like your biggest documents. And then some of its like old I'm like, Oh, I can delete that and get rid of the trash to free up space. And so my number one was email, which I don't even do email, like it's on my machine. But there was 50 gigs of information sitting in our email. And so I'm like, I'm Amanda to clean some things up. And she goes, No, that's not our company email, that's your personal email, if I never check it, I don't check it like I suck at it. And so I'm like, well, then I'm just gonna go through and delete everything, or just start a new email like that's in my head, I'm like, I'll just clear it out. Because the likelihood of me needing something in there to go back to it is very slim to none. Like if I haven't touched it in three months, like, I'm probably good, right? So it's just like, and but number two was text messages. Number two. And so I had to go through and it's not me sending stuff out, because I don't really like to do that. I like that's why I like Marco Polo, for texting for video texting, because it's not using my space, it's not taking anything. It lives in the cloud on their server. And so you don't know these problems until you start having space problems. And this was just one example of like, oh my god, I'm sending, you know, too many pictures back and forth. So anyway, it's just technology is amazing. And the way that you all have built it out. And clearly I know too much all because, you know, work with you guys. But I just think that how you have put together like this dashboard of like, all the years where it's like always accessible. And then having everything in one place is going to make it just easier for people moving forward. So did you have like an inspiration? Of like, Okay, we're gonna do all these different things. So let's everyone have like, their own dashboard of like cards, or was that a developer's idea? Well,
yeah, actually, the the lifetime dashboard. You know, like we said, it started out with our wedding, you know, so that was just one course. And then it was through actually working with Marie Rocha, you know, we would be, you know, going back and forth brainstorming, and I forgot, like what she said, but it was like, like, having everything kind of together, you know, we kind of like brand new week, like, came up with this kind of like the lifetime dashboard, because it's like, all of the events should be together, you know, you should be able to click 2021 and see, you know, Finn, second birthday, his baptism, you know, click 2019 or 20/21 birthday. You know, but, you know, chronologically, like you said, the organization has everything, go back, you know, what, you know, will be in the year 2050, he didn't go back and be like, Oh, my God, what, you know, what was my fifth birthday? Or what was my, you know, high school graduation? Or what was this and to be able to go back and click like, I have to do that in my phone all the time. Like, I'll have said something to Jeff. And I'm like, Oh, my God, what, and I'll have to search the text through like, If only it was organized that way where I could be like, All things medical, or like all this or, you know, it, it makes it so much easier just to look back and to see the clear organization of it all.
Yeah. And what was interesting is, you know, we kind of planned on doing that eventually, because we wanted to kind of like just tackle one market at a time focus on weddings, and then we'll build in the rest later. And we were about to launch in like early 2020. We had like all of our like, beta wedding customers lined up and then the pandemic happens, and everybody was postponing their weddings. And we were like, well, like, we have to get like beta feedback before we publicly launch and like, happen with the wedding industry right now. So we're like, well, let's just build out the rest of the site. We get people tested out for you know, birthdays and things that are not as you know, large gathering his wedding. So that's the pandemic kind of, you know, propel that a little bit for us. And now when we launched, we had the whole platform. So it worked out and that way.
Yeah, I mean, some great things came out. But you know, I mean, we're not if we're not like being pushed, and if we're not stressed a little bit, and if we're too comfortable, we're not growing. And I mean, it just when things get tough, sometimes great things come out of it. I love the word propel, like, propelled forward. Yeah. So one other big thing that I want to mention to like, again, as a planner, we, I'm kind of like a control freak, when it comes to like, well, everything about planning, but keeping up with RSVPs, and Who the hell's eating what when you give choice before and five choices, and there's vegetarian pescatarian, diabetic, gluten free, I mean, there's just so many effing details, and I don't trust people, we do it all, they come to my freakin office, and we do it. And there's a gold person in True Colors, who does it in the psychology methodology that I love, it's so it's very intentional. And so you all have that. And I know there's other sites that have Rs, VP, tracking capabilities, and also know some planners, don't get involved in all this. But if you ever are going to grow your company, in planning, and you look for platforms that make things easy for you to where you can do multiple things at once. And when somebody needs something, or guests need something like they always come to the planer we potty train them that way. We want we have our information on the website, we tell them to contact us for anything parking, whether gifts, oh my gosh, the funny emails we get about registries and gifts. And yes, we checked the RSVPs. And then you wouldn't like you would be shocked at how many people send their RSVP. They don't put their initials on what they want. And then they don't even fill in their Fe name. So we number we have with us. Yeah, it's like we number the back of all the cards with like this little neon pin, they can't see you put it under light. But anyway. Yeah, but now, there's, you know, the online RSVP tracking where it, it kind of does it for you. And it's more so on the guests than anything. And again, the guests can't move forward until they choose like the choices and then it'll send to us. So just by streamlining that process and putting it back on the guest, it saves the client so much money, and it saves everybody so much time. And then you just click a button, and it exports. And then you know how many chicken how many beef? How many fish? How many pescatarian? How many vegetarian? How many gluten free? How many job Bedich? It's amazing. You're doing the shit? Yeah. So I just want to mention that because as a planner, like, there's so many great things that it's like, not that we, you know, if a client doesn't want it, they don't have to have it, but it's like a value add to a service that you're organizing everything for them. And then later in the years, you know, they're gonna come back and be like, hey, what was that thing for our wedding? Because now we have kids, and you know, we want to do that. So it's just for really any life event. I think it's great. What you guys come up with? Okay, one question, one more question. What's one thing that you do every day, to try to be productive? And I say try, because I know you have two young children. And having like, my sister's kids here recently, I'm like, Oh my God, how and they're not babies. It's crazy. Um, like I would be a drinker or addicted to probably something to to just to get through the day. It's just a lot of stimulation, you know, when you're not used to it. But is there one thing that you do to like, just help you GST? Just one thing from a productivity suit?
I feel like just time management is such an important factor when you know, we're juggling a business. I work full time we have a two kids home. So it's a lot to juggle. So, you know, I always make sure to at least kind of put like together a checklist of like, what has to be done today and like what can be pushed off till tomorrow? And I know you've tried to like organize with the kids. Sometimes we're like, there's some downtime where like, you know, like, this is probably like when you can
but yeah, I love like, I love these whiteboards. There's like a little whiteboard back there. And I I love you know, getting a little Expo marker, you know, and I'll be like the goal for the day that one goal. You know, it's like when there's too many goals. It's you're setting yourself up, you know for failure
Exactly. To your point. When you say you're going to do too Many things, you're setting yourself up for failure. So just or pick a big thing and try to do that one thing each day, like, that's super smart. So people want to check it out. Where should they go?
Yep, so the website is embracing calm era T Iowa. And we're a Bration on Facebook, he underscore operation on Instagram. So follow us there as well.
Awesome. And we'll put all the links on the blog and on social media. Thank you so much for sharing your story. Guys. This was awesome.
I really quick I think you also want to your
webinar, and actually demonstrate like how to use it and show if I mean anybody can get on it. If if you're interested in putting your greeting cards in the cloud, and sending them that way. So be sure to want to put it on social media. And like when it's going to be we'll give you a few weeks heads up. But we do have something coming up so that if you're interested and walking through I know that like some people learn I learned from like watching a video, Amanda learns by like actually doing it, you know, walking through so we all learn differently. So I think it's good to have these info sessions and these info webinars so that if people are interested, then they can actually see it in action and see how easy it is and how much time that it saves. And so we will definitely be letting you guys know when that's gonna be.
Sounds good. Awesome. Thanks so much for having us, Angela.
You're so welcome and everybody that's listening or watching thank you so much for your time. We know how precious it is. And I hope you guys have a great day and be sure to tune in next week to another episode of business unveiled by you. That's it for this week's episode of business unveiled. Now that you have all the tools that you need to conquer the world and GSD get shit done. Would you share this with your friends and fellow business leaders? One thing that would really really help us and help new listeners is for you to rate the show and leave a comment and Apple podcast, Spotify, Stitcher, or wherever you tune in and listen to business unveiled. You can check out the show notes at Angela proffitt.com/podcast and link up with us on social media so you can share your biggest insights. And I want to know your aha moments. Until next week, remember the profitable shifts and structures you're creating in your business. help you be more present in your life. So get out there and GSD