Kyle
Do you remember back in the old days when breaking out the nice stationary to write a thank you note was common practice? I certainly remember my hand hurting back in the late 80’s after personalizing and handwriting a thank you card to everyone who had given me a Bar Mitzvah present.
Well now, thanks to technology, thank you cards are much easier.
Amy Marin Carlson spent years in education as a school administrator and a spanish teacher. She also spent some time in her career as a bakery owner. Now, she’s founded Growing Gratitude, a Kansas City based startup that encourages people to get personal and creative by sending short video thank you notes.
Marin Carlson is finding that there are many uses for Growing Gratitude, from traditional gifts, to client thanks. Marin Carlson said she wished that Growing Gratitude would have been around when her husband wanted to thank sponsors for his MS 150 bike ride.
This hard working entrepreneur came up with the idea when her oldest son turned 2. After his birthday party she was wondering just how to thank everyone. Obviously her son was too young to send cards himself and cards from her seemed to impersonal. A video card of sorts would get the point across. She could easily take a quick video of him playing with a new toy or present or wearing that sweater Aunt Greta sent. That kind of video would be worth more than 1000 words.
Marin Carlson went back to work, but two years later when she was at home with her second son she had some time to flesh out the idea that has become Growing Gratitude.
We got a chance to talk with Marin Carlson, check out the interview below.
What is Growing Gratitude?
Growing Gratitude is a Kansas City-based startup which is changing the way we say thanks to one another. It answers this question: how do we teach the importance of gratitude to our kids when thank-you cards feel like a thing of the past to so many people? Growing Gratitude was created so that kids and adults alike would have an easy, personal and authentic way to give thanks – using a smartphone app to shoot, send and design a thank-you video. Think of them as new-fashioned thank-yous.
In layman’s terms, how does it work? (In other words how would you explain it to your grandmother)
Growing Gratitude is a smartphone app. To use it, record a thank-you video on your phone, upload it through the app, and we make it look elegant and lovely and send it in an email to the recipient. My favorite thing about this is that it’s a family affair – kids and parents work on this together, working up to a point of independence when kids are empowered to use the app themselves, passing the responsibility – and values – on when they’re ready. The app also has professional applications; it can be used as an interview follow-up or to thank clients or collaborators. I wished it had been up and running for my husband to use to thank sponsors for his MS 150 bike ride. I already have supporters suggesting uses I hadn’t thought of, so I’m so excited to see the many directions that users choose to take it.
Who are the founders and what are their backgrounds?
I am the founder of Growing Gratitude. I was a school administrator at the middle school level before resigning in June to stay home with my kids. I have a varied professional background, from bakery co-owner to Spanish teacher, but most of my time has been spent in service to public education in one form or another. There are several qualities that I bring from that life to this one: the ability to channel patience when need be (this does not come naturally to me), absolute dedication to whatever it is that I am focused on and knowing better than to take other people’s behavior personally.
Where are you based?
We are based in Kansas City, Missouri.
What’s the startup scene/culture like where you’re based?
I am just starting to network with other entrepreneurs in the Kansas City area, but my perception so far is that they are very approachable. There seems to be a real home-team feeling which motivates KC entrepreneurs to help others out in order to make the startup culture richer for all of us. Kansas City is the chosen launch site for Google Fiber and home to the Kauffman Foundation, so we have quite a bit of infrastructure here that makes this an attractive place to found a startup.
How did you come up with the idea for Growing Gratitude?
I came up with the idea for Growing Gratitude during my son’s second birthday party. I was walking around, tending to guests and wondering how we were going to thank everyone for coming and for the gifts they brought. It’s a strange in-between time when your kids are too young to write themselves. I guess I should have written the cards as a parent, but I didn’t end up getting around to it. In spite of my good intentions, life would intervene. Then I thought, “What am I teaching my kids, that gratitude is only important when you’re not busy, when you have nothing better to do?” I wasn’t okay with that. The idea lived in my head for two years, and it came back up when I was on maternity leave with my second son, contemplating resigning from my job to stay home with my kids. At that point I had the perfect opportunity to flesh out the idea and see what I could make of it. As I worked on the concept and the business plan, it became very clear to me that the applications of this app are far more universal than I had originally thought. It’s for all of us to honor those who have helped make us who we are. Who doesn’t have a thank-you hanging out in the back of their head? Grab your phone and put it out there, pass it on. If we all do it, how powerful could that be?
How did you come up with the name?
The name Growing Gratitude is inconveniently long. I have to cut it for Twitter, for example, but it expresses it all – the idea that gratitude is an action verb and that it’s continuously evolving. Its impact is exponential, like when you let a plant go to seed and it drops 50x more seeds than you planted to get the first one. It’s a ripple effect. So Growing Gratitude stuck.
What problem does Growing Gratitude solve?
We’re in a strange moment in American society in which technology sometimes outpaces our thinking about how that technology impacts our lives. It’s been so amazing for our family, which is split between the U.S. and Spain, to use Skype to connect and have regular face-to-face conversations – that helps us bridge the distance. On the other hand, texts have taken the place of hand-written letters and even emails. It’s emotional shorthand, and it takes many people, especially older people, aback that Gen X and Y folks think that’s an acceptable form of communicating – and giving thanks. Growing Gratitude is much-needed middle ground: it offers convenience to us tech natives and the personal touch to the recipient. When you make a heartfelt video and share it, it feels like you’ve done something substantial. It has the same feeling of accomplishment as putting a letter in the mail plus the bonus of near-instant delivery and the recipient having something to show off if they choose to do so. There’s a feeling of ceremony in the design of the email; your video gets wrapped up like a gift with design, intention and joy. It’s not a one-size-fits-all e-card approach. It’s personal and authentic.
What’s your secret sauce?
Our secret sauce is playing on people’s hopes and not their guilt. Gratitude enriches the giver and the recipient. It also shifts your attitude for the positive just enough to give it a contagious quality. You pass it on without knowing you’re doing it. It feels good to be recognized for what you’ve done for others, and it makes us want to make someone else feel that way, too. The bonus with Growing Gratitude is that passing it on (making a thank-you video) takes only five minutes, requires no extra equipment besides a phone and the internet, and the video can be viewed again and again. I love the idea of having an arsenal of feel-good videos to access when I need a pick-me-up or am starting to get caught up in negativity. My grandmother kept boxes full of every card she ever received for any occasion. This is the 21st century version of that.
Are you bootstrapped or funded?
We started out bootstrapped, and now we’re in the stage of gaining support and funding on the IndieGoGo crowdfunding platform. This really is a community-centered idea, and it will take a village to put it together. This is the link to the campaign: http://goo.gl/q83bx. It runs until November 18, the Sunday before Thanksgiving. If this idea resonates with you, we do appreciate contributions and sharing the link to the campaign to broaden our support network!
What’s one challenge you’ve overcome in the startup process?
As someone who is new to entrepreneurship, every step has been an amazing and challenging. This process is all about facing fears and embracing tasks that do not sound like much fun – like writing a business plan or making the pitch video for the IndieGoGo campaign – and daring yourself to learn as much as most possible from that experience. My toolbox is expanding daily, which is the benefit of a steep learning curve. One specific challenge was our project not being accepted for the Kickstarter site because it has a website and thus continued maintenance (they only host projects with a finite time frame). But the IndieGoGo team has been so incredibly helpful and responsive, and their platform feels like a great fit for a community-building project like ours.
Who are some of your mentors and business role models?
I admire Andrea Lake and Steve Jobs for their continued insistence that being passionate about what you’re doing and having fun doing it are essential elements to success. I admire Erica Diamond for her trailblazing the mompreneur route. Being a full-time mom and an entrepreneur feels a lot more feasible with examples like her out there. I have also learned so much from Ries’ book about lean startups. It’s incredible how much can be accomplished with few resources and thoughtful planning.
What’s next for Growing Gratitude?
The iOS beta app will be out this month, and everyone who contributes to our IndieGoGo campaign gets access to it. We’ll test and refine the iOS app, gear up for our big launch, then go to work on the Android app and our scaled-up website. We have a lot to learn between now and then, but it will be exciting to get our hands on the analytics from the beta testers. In the meantime, spreading the word about the IndieGoGo campaign and recruiting more gratitude pioneers is our full-time job.
Linkage:
Check out Growing Gratitude here
Check out Growing Gratitude on Indiegogo
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