Kyle
Elliot Darvick CEO & Co-Founder of Unbucket (photo: businessrockstars)
Sure everyone has a bucket list of must see places they want to go before they die, or amazing things they want to do before they die. You know the kind, skydiving, Mt. Rushmore, run a marathon, truly epic things. What about when you need a list of things to do that may get thrown to the wayside in the hustle and bustle of everyday life. That’s where Unbucket comes in.
Unbucket allows you to make your own unbucket lists, or do them with one friend, or many. The types of lists you can make are infinite. Unbucket suggests things like, recipes you want to try, places to dine in your city, movies to watch, things to do on vacation.
I’ve already signed up for Unbucket using the beta code nibletz and created a few lists of my own. I’ve made a list of things to do with my daughter when I’m home on the weekend, and movies that I want to watch when I’m traveling. Hopefully this list making via Unbucket will come in handy.
We got a chance to talk with Elliot Darvick, co-founder of Unbucket. Check out the interview below:
What is Unbucket?
Unbucket is a platform that enables the planning of future experiences through collaborative lists. Our goal is to use online technology to enhance your life offline with those you care about most. Unbucket lists can be based in a general context (e.g. “Books we should read”), a geographic context (e.g. “Restaurants to eat in Los Angeles”), or a personal context (e.g. “Things we should accomplish this year together”). With each item checked off a list, users bring richness and meaning to their lives.
In layman’s terms, how does it work?
Take the example of two sisters that live in the same city. One sister signs on to Unbucket and creates a list by simply typing a list title and hitting ‘create.’ From there she can invite the other sister, choose an image that best represents the list, and finally, choose a list privacy setting (public, friends only, totally private). Now both sisters can add items to the list whenever a new idea comes into their heads, like “Spend an evening cooking a new recipe.” All items can have notes attached to them, so with the example of, “Spend an evening cooking a new recipe”, the sisters could easily attach a video of the Sussman Brothers doing a cooking demo on Vimeo, post a URL from Recipe.com, or attach a photo of their meal after it’s completed. As new items are added to the list, alerts get sent out – welcomed reminders of the life moments these two sisters will share in the future.
Who are the founders and what are their backgrounds?
The Unbucket team currently consists of two co-founders, Brian Berman and myself. Brian and I grew up only a few miles apart in the suburbs of Detroit and became friends while attending Washington University in St. Louis. We began collaborating when I moved to Los Angeles in 2010.
Brian has a deep programming background and has been coding for the past fifteen years for various enterprises, including in his capacity as VP Operations and Business Strategy for Spotlight Media Solutions. Brian also has strong pertinent legal expertise, having graduated from UCLA Law School with a focus on intellectual property law and having worked for several years as an attorney in Greenberg Glusker’s nationally-ranked Strategic Wealth Group practicing complex estate planning and tax law.
I have over eight years of marketing and media experience, including two years with a top-tier consumer website, Autobytel, and two and a half years working for a digital agency with multiple Fortune 500 clients including Universal Pictures, State Farm, and Disney. I’ve been building websites and content destinations since I was in high school.
In terms of division of labor, Brian handles all programming (front-end, back-end and mobile web), server/database management, legal matters and finance matters. I handle all UX/UI design, marketing, business development, content and user outreach. We contribute equally to the development of the product and business model.
Where are you based?
Los Angeles – north of the 10, east of the 405, with a bit of our respective hearts still planted firmly on Woodward Avenue.
What’s the startup scene/culture like where you’re based?
We’re incredibly fortunate to be based in Los Angeles. While it feels like startup culture is literally blossoming around us at an unprecedented rate, Los Angeles has decades of history producing entrepreneurially-driven technological innovation across a wide-variety of industries and the current landscape reflects this. In a thirty-mile radius you have teams putting rockets in space (SpaceX), electric vehicles on our streets (Fisker Automotive), more media on our screens than any other city in the world (EA, Universal, the list goes on), and hundreds of web technology startups changing the way we shop (BeachMint), the way we game (GetBonkers), and the way we relate to each other (shout out MySpace for paving the way). The breadth of intellectual capital in this city is mind-blowing and it’s an absolute privilege to be a part of it.
How did you come up with the idea for Unbucket?
It started as a Mother’s Day gift. I gave my mom a list of things we could do together in our respective cities (she lives in Detroit) over the course of the year. It was a simple idea but really powerful: a social object that transformed how we related to each other. Instead of just catching up, we could talk about list items we planned on experiencing, albeit apart, but in spirit together. I realized this gift of a list was something I wanted to easily enable everyone to create with those they cared about most.
How did you come up with the name?
It’s meant to evoke the concept of a bucket list, but the polar opposite. Un-bucket. We think the whole notion of a bucket list is morbid. Why fixate on death when we’re so very alive and breathing? An Unbucket list is made up of all the things we want to do today, with others. Not by ourselves at some theoretical point in the future tied to our physical demise.
What problem does Unbucket solve?
We often let our future intentions to do something in the future dissipate with time (due to forgetfulness, lack of organization, etc.) and so those intended experiences fail to materialize. To quote a recent Unbucket user, “My boyfriend and I constantly come up with random things we want to do — from travel, to food we want to make, to shows we want to see. We probably forget 75% of them.” The end result is a less fulfilling, more routine life. We’re building Unbucket as a mechanism to capture these intentions and convert them into action.
What’s your secret sauce?
We’re really proud of the human partnership behind Unbucket. Not only did Brian and I grow up in the same city and attend the same college, but we have similar families too with a common history. Because of this, we have a strong set of shared values that have contributed to a rock solid foundation. Beyond the interpersonal aspect of our partnership, we have highly complementary skill sets that have allowed us to keep cash burn low and tackle most everything ourselves. Throw anything at us and I’m convinced between the two of us we’ll kill it.
What’s one dilemma you’ve encountered in the startup process?
Knowing when to stick to your original vision and when to shift based on the feedback of your audience. I’m not talking about major pivots, but product choices that have philosophical roots. Originally I felt very strongly that Unbucket should only support lists between two people. Over time I came around to the fact that we’d be excluding too many people that could find just as much value in Unbucket by using it in small groups. Speaking to lots of people before we started developing Unbucket saved us a great deal of time redeveloping the platform later on.
What’s one challenge you’ve overcome in the startup process?
I’ll share a personal challenge. I’ve been known to draw conclusions in the absence of information sometimes quicker than I should. You’re constantly waiting to hear back from people when you’re building a company: journalists, potential investors, candidates for hire – worrying that they’re disinterested just because you don’t hear back in a time that seems reasonable is counterproductive. Better just to be even-keeled and persistent.
What’s the first thing you would do with a one million dollar investment?
We’d hire more developers, starting with someone who lives and breathes creating mobile experiences. I’d hire a full-time designer too. We’re working out of our respective home offices right now, so securing a central place for us to work and collaborate would be high on the list as well. I’d also buy a Macbook Pro to get my co-founder to stop harassing me about my PC (he is an Apple fanatic). Actually just kidding, I’m sticking with my PC.
What’s next for Unbucket?
We’ve got a long list of product innovations we’ll be rolling out on a weekly basis. That’s where the majority of our focus is. We have a working prototype of a mobile web app we’ve built and I’m looking forward to placing that in the hands of our user base soon. In terms of major milestones, we’re aiming to exit from our private beta in late fall.
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