Written in Partnership With Amir Bakian
Raise your hand if you have experienced running around at the eleventh hour, panicking, scouring the store for a gift for someone special. Maybe you put it off, not because you didn’t care, but because you have no idea what to get that special person. Or maybe you shopped for weeks only to come up empty-handed. You even asked them what they would like, and they told you, ‘Nothing.’ And, of course, you settle for gifting something that gets returned, donated, or worse, added to a landfill.
Most of us would raise our hands and knowingly shake our heads! Fortunately, with GyftHint, those experiences are behind us. The founders at GyftHint have created a disruptive gifting marketplace that anyone with any smartphone can use to remove all those stresses and more, making gift-giving and gift-receiving once again what they should be: SPECIAL and JOYFUL.
The inspiration
The inspiration for this genius platform came from Co-founder and CEO Eddy Jette’s own experiences with his family. “I have a very large family who constantly calls me, asking me what I want for my birthday. What do you want for Father’s Day? What do you want for Christmas? And my response always was, ‘Don’t get me anything, I’m all set.’”
We can all relate. Eddy explains, “I always thought it was very presumptuous to send people a list of things I would want ahead of time.” By responding, ‘Don’t get me anything, that actually made their life more difficult. I didn’t realize they were reaching out for help. And over the years, they spend money, whether it’s a gift card I won’t use or a sweater that doesn’t fit me. And it just was very repetitive.” He laughs and adds, “And the sweaters are stacking up in my closet.
The lightbulb clicked on full force one day when he was shopping, and he realized there was a cool item he would actually like to receive as a gift, but he wondered how to capture it and share it. Eddy then remembered a simpler time when he was young. His parents would give him and his sister the Sears Christmas Catalog. “I circled the GI Joe, my sister circled the easy bake oven, and Santa Claus would bring gifts. And that’s how simple life was.”
He also started to wonder if he was as successful at gift-giving as he believed. “I often wished there was a way for my daughter or my wife to capture items they would like when they saw them, and I could shop for them without them knowing and without stress. I just wanted to click it and buy it.”
The creation of GyftHint
After a great deal of research, he realized that what he wanted didn’t exist, so Eddy teamed up with GyftHInt’s Co-founder CPO/COO Raj Saxena. Utilizing Raj’s background in operations and product at Amazon, Raj and Eddy built the game-changing gifting marketplace. Raj explains, “I’m focused on designing an amazing experience for our users and our merchants and delivering it through efficient, flawless operations.” He explains, “It is an amazing opportunity that we have in front of us to redefine and reimagine the gifting experience for gifters, giftees, and merchants.”
GyftHint is much more than a gift-giving app, registry, or wishlist. It is a unified platform that allows gifters and giftees to explore and purchase the perfect gifts from major retailers to local artisans effortlessly within a single destination.
Gifters gain access to a curated selection of personalized gift options tailored by their special someone through “HINTS,” which are securely shared with friends and family through invitations to access their personal store.
Giftors and giftees aren’t the only ones who benefit from GyftHint. With GyftHint, every merchant, whether it’s shoe brands, apparel or camera stores, can take advantage of the $2.2 trillion gifting market. By partnering with GyftHint, where size, style, and fit are all curated by the Giftee, even the most complex items become part of an effortless and special gifting experience. Merchants also get the advantage of accessing each Giftee’s built-in network of friends and family to promote sales and new products with zero customer acquisition costs.
The team at GyftHint is special, too
Gyfthint’s co-founders have assembled a special, top-notch team to maximize its potential, including CCO Bill Kahn, whose customer-facing roles as Director of Customer Success at Salesforce and VP at Centrical is helping them experience fast and early growth. “The whole culture at GyftHint is a gift, too,” Bill shares. “I think the unique element is a learning and growth mindset that we use to grow this business into a rocket ship.”
Beth Moriarty is another key addition to the GyftHint team. As an advisor for GyftHint, she uses her extensive background in retail technologies with companies like Demandware (now Salesforce Commerce Cloud) to help them with their go-to marketing strategy.
Rounding out the top-notch leadership team is Brent Wilkinson, a serial entrepreneur and C-level executive with multiple exits, who is acting as GyftHint’s strategic growth advisor.
Eddy shares that his key to success with GyftHint is knowing his weaknesses and filling in the gaps with world-class people. “I can’t do it all. I’ve been lucky to attract people like Raj, Bill, Beth, and Brent.” Eddy explains, “Not only are they smart. They are really good humans, too.”
GyftHint is special. It is one of those products that everyone is going to say, “Why didn’t I come up with this idea?” It’s brilliant because it solves a problem everyone has experienced and once again makes gift-giving and receiving special and joyful. The potential for consumers and retailers is enormous, and the team operating at GyftHint is special and top-notch, too. If I were a gambler or an investor, I’d go all in. One thing is for sure: I’m going to download it right now.
Download the GyftHint app yourself and Be a Gifting Hero™ this holiday season and every gift-giving occasion.