The Founder Lesson That Every CEO Should Hear About Customer Feedback

TRANSCRIPT SUMMARY:

00:00 Introduction

‍03:15 The idea behind Group Together

‍09:40 Building the first MVP

‍17:20 Learning from customer behavior

‍26:15 Early hiring mistakes

‍33:40 The COVID pivot

‍41:20 Product-market fit and explosive growth

‍49:10 Expanding into the United States

‍57:45 Customer service and leadership

01:04:30 Final CEO lessons

‍

FULL TRANSCRIPT:

Julie Tylman (00:00)

Everything that we wanted to do and that had to be stripped back so that you could actually get something out to market. We didn't think that was going to be as big an impediment. We just felt that it was the right thing to do by our customers. And we started getting customer requests. Why can't we collect for a gift? Once that reached a critical mass, we decided, you know, this is something, we can take it to the US. We want people to feel connected because people genuinely.

want them to know that they're important. And it has made me a more patient person and has made me a less judgmental person.

Jeff Holman (00:36)

Welcome back, everybody, to the Breakout CEO podcast. I'm your host, Jeff Holman, with Intellectual Strategies. We're a law firm that works with a bunch of innovative startup scaling companies, and we talk with a bunch of CEOs about things going on in their business. There's a lot of exciting stuff we see behind the scenes, but we can't share that stuff from our clients with you guys. So we reach out and we bring on other interesting, successful CEOs, co-founders who are who are growing their own businesses to share some insights.

So that our audience of scaling CEOs can see some of the behind the s behind the scenes things that are happening in other businesses. We think it helps grow the ecosystem. So really glad to share with you today that we've got Julie Tatleman from Group Together on our on our podcast. And I'm laughing a little bit because I messed up that name when we did the icebreaker segment. If you listen to it already, you know I messed it up and I'm trying to fix it. So I'm trying to repent here, Julie. It's great to have you on the show.

Julie Tylman (01:29)

Good, you did an excellent job.

Jeff Holman (01:32)

thank you. Real time feedback. You know, it has nothing to do with anything other than one time I did a podcast. I was a guest on a show, and and literally I think it took ten minutes to get the intro right. The the guest and I were having a fantastic time while she laughed about, you know, saying words wrong for for I don't know how long. I think it was like engineer, she couldn't say engineer or something like that. So it was again, nothing to do with this episode other than good conversation, I guess. Well, but Julie, I I

We had a good little conversation about the you know, before about some things outside your business. The full episode here, we want to jump into your business and kind of go through the breakout arc where we talk about, you know, what were you building? Where were you getting momentum in the b in the business? Once you gain momentum, things always shift, you know, whatever that is, and and sometimes things break. So we're gonna see what broke in your business or what was maybe about to break.

And that really leads us into talking about the breakout moments, right? What are the what are the things that you and your team do to to fix or to avoid the breakages in the business? And and when done right, those breakout moments lead into breakthroughs and new trajectories for your business. So just want to give you a reminder about that breakout arc and also orient our audience because this is a a little bit of a new concept that that we're trying to use this framework more consistently so they'll hear that and

know that we're gonna try to walk through those things when we talk together here. So Julie, you're with Group Together though. You and your co-founder started this and I I was on your website and I I actually love the concept. I'm not gonna try to explain I'll let you explain it so I don't mess it up, say it the wrong way and then and then you have to fix it anyways. But but I love the concept because it feels like it's really a a simple solution to bring people together. you know I walked into

Where was it? I was I was visiting a company ten years ago or something. In fact, it was it was Blender Bottle. If you're familiar with them, the they make the these little shaker bottles, right? They're made here in Utah. I walked in there, this is what your website reminded me of. And on the table while I was waiting to meet with their CEO, the they had like two or three books that were almost like year end, what do you call them out of high school, you get your yearbook, right?

You're like year in yearbooks. And and that's not what you guys do. But as I flipped through this, they had pictures of all the people and the events that they've done over the last year. And and when I looked at your website, I thought it just reminded me of that because I thought this is really about bringing people together. This is a a a solution about how how maybe people in a company, maybe people in a, you know, social group, maybe families stay connected in a way. Did I get that right?

Julie Tylman (04:22)

You absolutely did. how it originally started out was my co founder and I, we both have twins, and we were both on the birthday circuit for the kids. So going to multiple birthday parties every single weekend. And, you know, you put time and effort into finding that gift, wrapping that gift, and then having your child present the gift in a nice way.

and then there's inevitably the wrapping paper comes off and the child, being a child, turns around and says, I hate this or I've already got this or this is a stupid gift.

Jeff Holman (05:00)

Mom, they gave me another one.

Julie Tylman (05:02)

Yeah,

exactly. And so you just think, why? You know, so a whole year of that is quite frustrating and really expensive. And you think like you're throwing money out the window. So in discussing it, we realized that it wasn't just us, you know, it was other parents were frustrated as well. And so that's how group together started is that what if we got all the group of parents to chip in ten dollars?

There's 20 of us. And so we can give the child a $200 gift, right? Much better than all the little plastic toys that you could possibly give, and much less junk around the house. So as we discussed it more, we realized that there were several different sides to it, right? That you'll you can put in less money. but we didn't want it to seem like a money grab, like it was transactional, like, hey, if you're coming to my birthday party, give me $10. Right, right.

So we made a very nice invitation to invite parents to chip in. We made sure that when you were contributing, it didn't feel like a money grab that you'd signed a group card, you could put in a photo of your child. And then at the end, we also wanted to make the recipient experience just as nice as receiving the gift. So that we call it a magic moment where you you as the person giving the gift feel good about giving it.

And the person receiving it has the card envelope, opens, the card comes out, you page through the card, the gift unwraps, and it's all a digital experience. And so we wanted it was it was very intentional how we built it so that the whole process felt very nice. and that's that's how group together was born, from that idea and those frustrations around giving a gift.

And then trying to make, as you said earlier, everyone feel good about giving one great gift, whether you're doing it as, you know, for a kid's birthday, whether you're doing it for parents' anniversary, or whether you're doing it at the office.

Jeff Holman (07:06)

I love that. And and and you've got a bunch of different examples of cards and it and on your site. The ones that caught my attention were the ones where you I've kind of pictured it as it's the like everyone in the office says, Hey, happy birthday to somebody or you know, or we appreciate you as, you know, you for fulfilling a role in the office and I didn't picture it as a as a kid's birthday thing so much, but maybe that was just my c I have my youngest is sixteen. I haven't

been facilitating birthdays for a little while. So my mind went straight to, you know, I love the ones that have a picture of everybody from the office or wherever. And they and they basically are saying, We appreciate you. Like we're glad you're on the team. Happy birthday or great accomplishment or whatever it was. And and it just seems like a really I I I I actually envisioned using this for my team and saying, we should celebrate birthdays better than we do. And maybe this is one way we can do that.

Julie Tylman (08:01)

Well we'll we'll back practical solutions. Back to the premise of your show, that's where we ended up after after our breakout moment.

Jeff Holman (08:11)

sounds like we're gonna am I jumping ahead?

Julie Tylman (08:13)

You are. I could give you the I could give you the result, but

Jeff Holman (08:17)

That's a little foreshadowing. That's okay. I I love that. Well, so tell me tell me, as you're building this, how how long has it been that you that you've been building with your with your co

Julie Tylman (08:26)

We're in our eleventh year.

Jeff Holman (08:28)

Eleventh year, okay. So you're just about ready to become an overnight success.

Julie Tylman (08:32)

Exactly. That's exactly where we are. We're poised for that.

Jeff Holman (08:36)

And and where are are you guys because you're traveling, you mentioned that earlier, you're traveling away from home right now, you're in Austin and are you guys located together? How did you find each other? Was it were you in the

Julie Tylman (08:47)

We're

we're both in Sydney. We were both in Sydney. Our kids went to the same school.

Jeff Holman (08:52)

Okay. But but you've you've grown now to the point where you have are expanded into the US. How did the growth start in Sydney? Just a quick note about our guests. I host the Breakout CEO podcast to share behind the scenes insights from scaling businesses. As an attorney, I see the real challenges leaders face long before success becomes public. But clients' stories have to stay confidential. So we invite guest CEOs to share their own moments.

Of struggle and success. I'm so grateful to our guests and my team at Intellectual Strategies for making this show possible. Now, let's get back to the show.

Julie Tylman (09:32)

The growth started with the with the same group of parents, right? So we introduced the idea of group together to our parent group. And then of course, you know, and I'm sure it's the same here, though I didn't raise kids in the US, but that some parents have kids in one school and another school. And so it just it, you know, word of mouth is how group together spread. So it spread in and amongst the parent group.

And so it didn't just stay for birthday gifts because it can be used for so many things, but then it went on for you could thank your coach at the end of the season and you could thank your teacher at the end of the year. And that so there were a lot of different occasions that parents could use it for, in addition to using it in in the office. But really where it grew is it grew out of our parent group in Sydney and then spread. And so to this day.

that state New South Wales is the biggest user within Australia.

Jeff Holman (10:34)

That's fantastic. Was was the growth pretty pretty organic then? It sounds like it just word of mouth and it spread. it was it did that make it fast or slow, or how did the growth feel to to you guys as you're you know, as you're doing the development and seeing it spread out? Did it feel fast? Did it feel slow?

Julie Tylman (10:54)

Well, having not started another business, if you know, it it felt like like it was, which isn't a really a great answer, but it it didn't feel like a rocket ship, you know, if if that's what you mean, but it did grow the way we thought it was going to grow. So in in terms of the gif the group together itself, when someone organizes a group gift, they invite all the rest of the parents. And so that's how the rest of the parents find out about group together. So it's not just one to one.

And so that's that sort of virality is how it grew. we always felt that we'd be able to convince other people that saw how easy it was to set up another one. so in that in that sense, that's how it grows. But we also found that there are certain types of people. There are people that are organizers and there are people that just, you know, are contributors and they just want to sign or they just want to chip in.

they're not really the organizer type. So our one of the things that we had to go out and find is the organizers. And so get out the word to all of the organizers, and that's how so probably I would say it wasn't a rock rocket ship, but it still grew through Word.

Jeff Holman (12:10)

mouth. Yeah. Look at I mean 'cause you've got that kind of that network effect of of just self-reinforcing growth. I I'm picturing here in the US, I'm picturing, you know, teacher appreciation at the end of the year. Like it it'd be very easy and people are probably doing this, but probably need to do more of it, right? The teacher the teacher gets a car at the end.

Julie Tylman (12:30)

We need to get the word out.

Jeff Holman (12:32)

Yeah. And I'm thinking of, you know, my kids have been on tennis and cheer and soccer and

wrestling like teams, athletic teams and every athletic team there's there's like a couple moments I won't I don't want to call it tension, but a couple moments in the year where you're like, okay, we need parent assignments and and everyone's like, you know, you got one or two people who are who want to run everything and the rest are like, I'll support, but don't put me too much in charge. So you got that tension of kind of parent assignments at the beginning of the year and at the end of the year, you know, you're you're like, okay, we we need to

We need to come together and just do something to show we appreciate our coaches and and this I like I'm actually curious why I haven't seen this in i in the past with my with my kids teams and coaches because this is such a an elegant, simple solution to really do what we're trying to do anyways through Group Me and through Slack and through all these whatever platform the teams have adopted.

Like this is this is an elegant solution, I think.

Julie Tylman (13:40)

Thank you very much. Well, we think so too. And it's just, you know, it's just a huge market, right? So getting the word out is it's not that it's difficult, it's just very expensive, right? So it it's a matter of like where do you put your resources? But yes, that's exactly how it was originally set up for exact that, you know, to thank the wrestling coach. in Australia, anyway, a lot of the coaches are volunteers, they don't get paid.

And so there is really that like, you know, you're you're thanking a fellow parent for taking time out of their schedule every single week for that season. and you want to thank them. Yeah.

Jeff Holman (14:18)

And and I just I have to plug because my s my son did one year of wrestling last year. I don't know if he's gonna do it again. It is a tough sport, but he he he had a lot of fun. And those coaches there that a lot of them were volunteers and they just absolutely I mean, they were super influential on him for the, you know, six months that he was doing the program and and we watched from the sidelines as parents and were like, you know, the the attention that they gave to him during his match.

was one on one or even two on one sometimes. And then after the match they sit down. Like it it really is impressive. And I've done some coaching, but but watching these guys coach and and the passion they have for it, you really do want to say thank you at the end. And so again, that's that's why I look at this and I say, This is the easier way to say thank you than what we've been trying to do all along. So I don't want to dwell on that. But

Julie Tylman (15:09)

Otherwise you have to knit together so many different things. Like as you said, it's just like your payment app and Slack or WhatsApp and all those different things and someone gets left off and someone didn't pay. And so that's all put together on group together.

Jeff Holman (15:24)

Well, distribution, we we may have to talk about distribution and or at least getting the word out, the marketing side of it, because that sounds like that might be one of the one of the issues. But I do have two other questions because when if if this is eleven years old and you started building it, that would have been twenty fifteen ish, you weren't vibe coding this. You like you guys had to this was a serious effort to get this this built. What how did that feel? Like, what did you run into when you're like, we have this idea.

Let's go let's go build it and you're like, wait a second, what what does it actually take to build it? 'Cause it's your first company that you've done, right? And so building building this platform was also new.

Julie Tylman (16:02)

Yeah, it was and and also for my co-founder. And so you know, basically you go to your own network to find out has anybody else done this? What does it cost? You know, can we do this? And, you know, we still we still have a photo of the two of us on her living room floor with little post-it notes trying to wireframe out what we wanted it to do and all those things, and then finding, I think we went through at the very beginning, it took us a long time to get to market. but

We went through a couple of different designers and we went through a couple of different developers until we found a team, two people at the time, that could actually build it for us. And I think that was our very first lesson in how people can exaggerate what they know and what they're able to do. and how difficult it is to sort of

Probe and find out like what you're paying, what you're gonna get for what you're paying for. but in the end, our team who is offshore, but he has been with us, you know, after we went through those first two initial steps, he's been with us from the very beginning. So he he was a fantastic find. They're based in Pakistan, his entire team. and they've been with us the entire time. They've been fantastic.

Jeff Holman (17:26)

that's awesome. So good to so good to have reliable team members for sure. What what does your team look like right now? you know, the core team, the expanded team. What what do you look like at this moment?

Julie Tylman (17:37)

So we have we have a core team in Sydney, a core team now that's building in Austin, which is our US base, and then our development team is in Pakistan. And we have lots of con well, sort of part-time because we haven't needed them full-time, but we're gradually putting them on full time. That covers design, content, legal accounting.

Customer service. So yeah. So so it's growing. The we have, I think full time equivalents, we have about twenty people.

Jeff Holman (18:15)

Okay, fantastic. And what a what a blessing it is in in today's age where you can go find these part time people, you can find them from wherever, communicate with them, you know, synchronously, asynchronously. You can get you can get everything from the most expert, you know, people down the down to the, you know, people who are training and it's what a we we just have such a I don't know, a diversity and depth of of talent to access that it's it's pretty amazing.

So when you guys were building this, you went got your team, you you started building this. Did the build after finding, you know, after cycling through a couple a couple people who didn't didn't work out as well, what was the first build and the launch that goes smoothly for you guys?

Julie Tylman (19:00)

I wouldn't say it went smoothly. but that's also where we learnt about what an MVP is, right? So that the thought of everything that we wanted to do and that had to be stripped back so that you could actually get something out to market. And that that to us was a huge learning experience. But I think that the product that we put out was stable.

and worked the way we wanted it to work. So it didn't have everything. It didn't have all the bells and whistles. but the core product was there and was stable. So that was good. Now, of course, you know, things will go wrong. but I think that pretty much for every build we've put out since then, I can say that I'm proud of all of those things. They they never contain everything I want, but that's part of the process.

Jeff Holman (19:54)

Well, how did you how did you guys know to take an VP approach? I mean, that's a lot of people don't don't do that. They come and they throw it all in. They're like, I I I I can think of some people that I I've talked with. many of them I don't work with because their businesses never work out because they're always building the perfect product and never launching it. But y you know, how did you guys how did you guys know to do that? Was it your developer who said, Hey, listen, you don't want to build this whole thing? Or did do you have other mentors, you know, that you had access to, or did you just know, hey, let's

Let's the let's build what we can build and launch what we can launch and then go from there. Cause not everybody does that, right? So I'm really curious.

Julie Tylman (20:31)

So when we first started, I think we thought we could get everything into it. and then it was our developer who basically said, you know, the timeline and and and part of working with the developer is that they want they want to deliver everything for you. and so it was just teasing out like, well, from a time standpoint, like how long is that gonna take? You know, how long is that gonna take? And so

From that is where we discovered, okay, if we want, if we want to launch this this year, these are the things that we're gonna have to say get put to the side. And these are the things that are most important for our customers. And being a customer at the time made it much easier to make those decisions.

Jeff Holman (21:20)

When you launched w how long was it and what was the process to to get to the point where you felt like, Okay, this is, you know, this is working. Maybe you know, maybe not totally stable, we're still working out bugs, but ha did it did it just kind of move into, you know, okay, we're just slowly growing or or what did that first I don't know, is that a is that a year, is that two years, is that six months? What did that look like for you?

Julie Tylman (21:46)

18 months from the time that they s we started designing it to the time it was actually released. And we released it into our end-of-year teacher thank you season, which is at which is in November, December. So we knew that it had to go out that day. Like we did not want to lose that season because that to us was the biggest place where or the place where we could make the biggest splash.

And so you know, if you think of it, if you think of a car, you know, like getting ready, we were throwing out this, that, and the other thing just to get it in shape so we could launch it into that to that time period. But it was, you know, when it was launched, it went as smoothly as we could have hoped.

Jeff Holman (22:38)

that's good. You just you just created an image for me in my mind. And I I don't know if an airplane or a boat, you said car, but I'm thinking airplane and boat when they're they're like, We're gonna sink and they're they're like shoving everything off the boat

Julie Tylman (22:49)

No, we don't need this, don't need that, absolutely.

Jeff Holman (22:52)

that the the chaos the the urgency of that usually when you see see those scenes in the movies is probably symptomatic of the urgency and the chaos that happens w in a startup too. So that's I love that I love that visual now.

Julie Tylman (23:06)

Exactly.

Jeff Holman (23:07)

So well so okay, so you guys launched, you got you got this developed in 18 months. You launched at the you know the the end of end of school year season. Things went as expected. That's pretty easy.

Was this did you guys plan on this being kind of a cyclical business then if you're hit trying to hit like teacher end of year stuff? Or did you say, Okay, that's our that's our first first target market, but after that we'll hit these other things? What was your growth plan from from launch day forward?

Julie Tylman (23:40)

So I think, well, our our growth plan was that it would just infiltrate that sort of parent group, right? So it wasn't schools per se, but it was what what parents needed it for. And so from teacher, it would grow into during the year, kids' birthday gifts, right? and grow into, you know, maybe the teacher was having a birthday and and some parents want to give the teacher a birthday gift, and then it would go into.

you know, the end of the summer sports season, the end of the winter sports season. So it would grow that way. because there's lots of different uses for it as well. Like the school could use it for fundraising. You know, all all of those different things is where we felt the growth path would take us.

Jeff Holman (24:26)

Yeah, that makes sense. So you probably planned for some of those and said, Well, we can probably go here, here, and here, but we'll also wait and see what what parents do with it. Maybe parents will bring something else to mind that we haven't thought of and probably were open to all of that. at what point in that in that kind of growth period, that initial growth period, did did you did you was there a moment where you said things have been going well, but maybe something's a little bit off or like

We're not quite growing where we want to, or I thought this was gonna happen and it didn't like like what were what were some of the surprises that you had in the first few years of of growing this?

Julie Tylman (25:06)

I think some of the surprises were that as you alluded to, parents used it in a slightly different way than we expected, which is that we thought we thought it was the perfect vehicle for kids' birthday gifts, right? The entire way we had set it up. And we even had made it very easy for a parent, if they wanted to, to donate a portion of the collection to charity.

So that you could that there was also that piece of it that made the whole experience very nice. And one of the road bumps that we came up against was that it's fine if you're in this sort of situation where a class parent, again, that type of person that organizes things,

Jeff Holman (25:53)

The organizer, yes.

Julie Tylman (25:55)

right? The organizer decides to set it up for all the children in the class. All right. But if the parent has to set it up.

then there's a bit of an etiquette issue, right? That some parents felt like it was, it's but I'm asking you to give me money and I don't like that, right? Like I d I don't want to say, I don't want you to feel like you have to give me something to come to my child's birthday. And we didn't think that was gonna be as big an impediment. and so that was just something that that we needed to work through. So that was that was definitely a bump in the road that we we hadn't expected when we built the

When when we built the website.

Jeff Holman (26:36)

Did that mean that you were having a harder time getting some people to adopt than you thought than you thought you would? Because you thought you you maybe we you'd have more of the organizers or more of the the initiators coming in and and building on the platform and it wasn't as many people initiating. So I I guess another way to put that, did the transactions and the activity did it kind of sit within the same groups for a while without expanding out?

Julie Tylman (27:00)

Exactly. So, you know, you have you have those organizer types and they see what I like to think is the beauty of it, right? Which is that there's there's one gift that the child or the person, let's just say the recipient loves, right? There's less even from for from an environment environmental standpoint, there's a lot less trash and and you know, waste that goes with it as well. You can give a portion to charity.

So to us that it was just a great ecosystem. but yes, so the parents that we expected to that always said they loved it, but just were hesitant to set it up themselves. So our workaround to that was that idea of the class parent, finding the class parent, the per the person that was gonna set it up for everyone else.

Jeff Holman (27:50)

W did that did that shift the way that you marketed this then? Where you I mean, did you set this up with what were you thinking ideal customer profiles and who do we go after and how do we reach them? I is that a and that shifted from maybe one profile to a very much more specific profile of the organizer? Is that is that what you're saying?

Julie Tylman (28:10)

Yeah, so that that rather than everyone embracing it, that you'd ha you had to find that organizer type.

Jeff Holman (28:19)

Okay. Okay. That makes sense. and and when you found those people, what what did that what did the usage look like early on? Was it, you know, one organizer would use this a few times a month, a couple of times a year? What was the kind of average use?

Julie Tylman (28:37)

Yeah, we always felt that the the usage would be it's not sort of an app that you would download and use all the time, right? Like that's why we didn't want to do an app, 'cause 'cause we thought that if you used it for like you had two children, you know, you have maybe two teachers gifts, couple coach gifts, and birthdays in the year. And that for us is, you know, the perfect use case. Okay. Right. So that that's what we were going for.

Jeff Holman (29:05)

Okay. And do the organizers b the people who have this organizing approach to life, do they end up using it more than that? Are they kind of like power users for you guys?

Julie Tylman (29:16)

Now they are. Now they are because they can see the use of it across different parts of their life. Right. So there's the personal side, family, and then kids, the school, and then they can also use it at work.

Jeff Holman (29:32)

I'm gonna I'm gonna suggest this as we're talking. I I keep going back. I mean this is this is the thing that as you're describing it, I think it kinda sells itself in a way, right? we're talking about well, we're talking about the use case scenarios and I literally am sitting here n trying not to be distracted because I'm saying, I I need to I need to I need to put this out to the tennis group for next year's, you know, high school boys' tennis team because this is like this is absolutely what we should be using for that. So

it it just seems like a like a natural fit. as opposed to, you know, the kind of typical Venmo carousel that we kind of, you know, the merry go round we get onto and we're like, Who's gonna collect this and how are we gonna do that? And who's gonna remember to give you know, get a card? I think yeah a lot of years we have we have people collect the Venmo but nobody grabs a card and so we show up and we're like, Hey, you know, we really appreciate you. We were we were gonna get you a card, but we didn't think about it. So we let us just send you this Venmo and

You know, I don't know, there's

Julie Tylman (30:31)

Yeah. And and then it doesn't seem as special, right? Like even though you your heart's in the right place, right, it doesn't it hasn't gelled the way the quite w the way that you want. And so everybody walks away kind of like, okay, you know, let's try again next year. But you know, that's again, you know, that that's why we coordinate the whole thing so that it feels special for everybody.

Jeff Holman (30:53)

Yeah. And I love it because I I've always as as an individual I've said to myself, well, I don't I don't love you know, I don't love gift cards. You you you're like, Hey, here's the same gift card I've given you, you know, to you know, mother in law or parents or brother, like whoever. Here's the same the same gift card I've given you to the same store for the same amount for the last fifteen years. Yeah. I really I really wanna tell you Merry Christmas, you know, the exact same way I've done for so long.

So when you have the card that goes with it and everybody gets to contribute if they want to, put their names on it, put their thoughts on it, it it just it adds a a dimension to the gift card ecosystem that's not present and and meaningfully not present, if that makes sense. Yeah.

Julie Tylman (31:38)

I mean, what one of the things that we did recently and in using AI, and we call it our magic message writer, is that we audit different cards throughout the year to see what people are putting on them, what they write. And and it was one of those things where it's like, you know what? I think people need a little bit of help, right? It's so it it's like.

You want I d I don't want AI to write the card for you, but I want I I want you to be able to say more than thanks for the great year. Right. Yes. And so we created a magic message writer, which is you put in the person's name, their relationship to you, the tone of the message, and then we ask you to write what you want to say. And then we use that to sort of expand it.

a little bit and you can even say, you know, if you have if you know the person well and you have an ongo what we found is some people have ongoing jokes with their coworkers. And so some are huge Star Wars fans. And so it'll be in a character from Star Wars. Or they love nursery rhymes. So you can write it like a nursery rhyme. And so we we have this magic message writer that you can put it in and then you can say, no like shorten it, make it longer, make it funnier.

that sort of thing. So it gives you a little bit more I would say meaning and then you can edit it to your own personal style. So it so rather than just saying thanks for a great year, it'll come out with a little bit more oomph.

Jeff Holman (33:21)

I I love that. I mean I I can't I can't think of how many times I've sat down to write a write something, you know, write something in a birthday card or holiday card and I'm like, Okay, what am I gonna say here? And and it's is many writers block. Like I don't know why it happens, right? In fact there are probably times that I've just avoided giving a card because I'm like I don't like I don't know and I'm an attorney, I like use words all day long. So I oughta be I oughta be it oughta be easy for me. But you know, I I I want what I say to be meaningful and

Sometimes if the if the task feels too too I don't know, too burdensome.

Julie Tylman (33:55)

It it is. It's funny. It's just like it's just three sentences. Why can't I write three sentences?

Jeff Holman (34:00)

Exactly. So what but what a what an awesome like that's a great deal. So you guys you you guys are you're actually I don't know what made you come up with with the magic message writer? Because i you guys seem like you're really in tune with how your how your customers want to use these this tool for them, you know, for themselves. Like to come up with a magic message writer,

Yeah, it reminds me, like l literally maybe in two thousand four, I was doing mostly patent work and we had I a company, I c I I guess I can say it because it doesn't matter because it's public, but IBM was doing a bunch of patents around it essentially what we see today with AI, right? They were doing patents around writing email responses with specific tones and things like that. similar the technology never existed really until lately.

And so y that I don't know why I bring that up other than they were trying to do it. You guys actually implemented it though in a in a very a simple way to to solve a simple problem in your business. And again, it comes back I I I'm gonna use the word elegant again just because like that seems to fit so well with the the rest of the the service or product that you're offering to people. So

Are you just really good at this about listening to your customers or anticipating what they need?

Julie Tylman (35:32)

I think it's just cause we love our customers. You know, it's just we really like the idea of what we're doing. and I I c I can't remember what it was, but it's about a year ago. And I was listening to something, and it was someone who had, you know, started a charity and, you know, had changed the lives of, you know, hundreds of thousands of people and

And I thought, my God, why why haven't I done anything like that? Like, where is my, you know, changing someone's life? And pretty much the next day, our marketing manager sent, because sometimes we get thank you notes. I don't know why, but they make it through to our email boxes. And someone had sent a thank you note. And it was about this woman who had, she was a teacher and her class had grouped together.

To give her a gift. And it was the first time that she was able to host her family for Christmas dinner. Cause she used the money to buy the equivalent of an a an H E B grocery card. And so she could buy the groceries because she could never afford to have them before. And she she just said, like, I I can't thank you enough. I mean, you've you've not only made my year, but like I I just feel like I for the first time I've I've

You know, made my family proud. And I still get worked up thinking about that note. And I was like, you know what? We did. We changed her life. We made her life better. And it's it's that that we want our customers to feel. Right. So getting a note that says, Thanks so very much doesn't mean so much as when if you can just elaborate on that a little bit. And so, you know, that's that's where

That's where all this impetus comes from. It's because we want people to feel connected because people genuinely want them to know that they're important. and so we just want to facilitate facilitate that.

Jeff Holman (37:38)

I love that. And grouped together is like it's a g again, it's a seems like a I know it's not simple it running the business, creating the product is not simple, but from a customer perspective, it seems like a simple, easy to adopt type of solution. So you know, I'm hoping people hear this episode and they're like, Yeah, we need to use this too. Why why are we not using this? Well, I wanna I want to talk to a little bit about as you've been building, what's one of the bigger obstacles that you guys ran into?

W were was there anything big? I I know the launch was kind of smooth, it went as expected, growth was growth was pretty smooth. Has it been that way all along, or have you run into anything where you've said, man, I don't know, this might th we had a trajectory, but I don't know if we're gonna get past this one.

Julie Tylman (38:24)

So for us that and and and I've probably made it seem smoother than it was. there's always bumps along the way and will things work. But our biggest challenge came with COVID. And so as described, you know, everything was centered at the time around parents and their kids and their kids being in school and playing sports and saying thank you to their teachers.

so when COVID happened in Australia anyway, it was a very quick closing down. So we had we had raised money from angel investors, and they had had another portfolio company that had offices in the city. And so we had just started working out of the city, feeling very grown up, and you know, the company's really doing well.

And within two weeks, the building had shut down, right? So you couldn't go into the city anymore, everyone had to work from home, and then the schools they didn't close, but you you couldn't go into the school anymore. So all your kids were at home as well. All sport canceled, right? So in that sense, it was all of a sudden came to a screeching halt. and the idea was: okay, what do we do now?

Right. And so that's the moment where we did we did a few things, but the major break was that we decided to focus on the parents, but the parents at work. and again in Australia it was a little bit different, but there were there, you know, there were a lot of layoffs, a lot of people leaving, everybody learning how to use Zoom.

Right. You know, it it just trying to figure out where everyone was. there were no, you know, talking at the water cooler. You couldn't have a birthday cake in the break room. You couldn't, you know, you you didn't have, you know, your office husband or wife to chat to anymore. And so what we decided to do is our product had been built around the card and the gift together. So to sign the card, you chipped in for the gift.

and they were just linked that way just because it had been built that way. and so we we made a decision to actually separate them and so that the group card could exist on its own. Because, you know, we you you could tell in that situation, nobody had spare cash at the time to chip in for anything. and then at the same time, we didn't feel that people were in a position to pay for the card.

So we decided, we made the business decision to actually make the card free and so that anybody could sign it. and but just because it was it was sort of that time and and we thought, you know what, it's it's a digital card. we can we had been funding it ourselves until we had the investor funds. And so we thought, you know what, we can we can still do this. We can do this on the smell of an oily rag.

And allow people to say farewell, or you know, you're important to me, or you're having a baby, or you're you're getting married. And we wanted them to be able to do that. And so from there, yeah, it it w it was a loss of all that revenue that used to be tied into all of the collections. but we just felt that it was the right thing to do by our customers.

Jeff Holman (42:10)

Was that was that a hard conversation to have with your investors? I mean, if you just received investment money, they're like I mean, and of course COVID threw everything into into, you know, chaos. and I'm and I'm a I was a little surprised when you first said, Yeah, COVID because you're a purely digital business, right? And it it's like, COVID had a huge impact on us because our digital business it had been to that point very closely tied to in person.

relationships. And so I can I when you when you state that I can see that. But when you said, hey, we've made the decision that we're gonna essentially stop making money for a little while. we're also gonna build out some new product features. So there's gonna be some expense. How did that conversation go?

Julie Tylman (42:56)

Actually, it went, and and I don't want to paint such a rosy picture of our business, but it went really well with our with our investors because when they originally were interviewing us, right, to see if we wanted or if they were going to give us the money, the one question they asked was: whose side are you on? Are you on the side of the customer or are you on the side of the investor?

And so if you're on the side of the customer, your decisions are going to be based on what's best for the customer. Right. Not necessarily what's best for the investor. And so that's the argument we b went back with was that we're on the side of the customer.

Jeff Holman (43:41)

Was this in the early days of talking with investors?

Julie Tylman (43:46)

We had their money.

Jeff Holman (43:48)

But it seems like it seems like if if like in the moment they say, Whose side are you on? I mean, there's a the it seems like there's a right answer, but I I think some people would double guess themselves and say, Well, this is the investor asking. I I think they're asking if we're on their side, right? And so they want to know that we're loyal to them. But but in the end, the right answer was to be on the side of the customer. So so you must have pretty good investors then.

They're trying to emphasize. Yeah.

Julie Tylman (44:13)

Yeah. But at the same time, I mean, we did have a plan. You know, it wasn't let's just, you know, do nothing. It was like, all right, well, we are in these companies. Not everybody is in dire straits, right? There are a lot of people that are in dire straits, and those are the ones that we want to help, but there are still people that can afford to chip in for a gift. And so we'll have that business that we didn't have before, right? Because we were more in the parent outside the office.

You know, not that we didn't do anything, but that it wasn't focused purely on corporate. And so now we have an entry into this market that we didn't have before. It really suits the, you know, Zoom environment where everyone is distributed and they can't get to the office because they're not allowed to go to the office. and and we're well suited for that. So there will be a portion of those that are gifts and we will capture that and

COVID's not gonna last forever. So we think that this is enough to get us through that time.

Jeff Holman (45:16)

I love the the explanation. I'm curious if if the because you have a finance background, your co founder has a marketing background. Was was this as easy of a conversation between you when you approached it from the the finance perspective and the the marketing perspective? Was it just like, hey, here's how the finances are gonna work, it'll be fine. Here's how the here's how here's how it'll benefit marketing, it'll be fine. Was it was it that simple or or did you guys bring different perspectives to the table?

Julie Tylman (45:43)

I I think that we were all on the same page. How we were gonna make it work,

was a lot more in the air. I think that we we probably painted rosier pictures of of how many people were going to set up collections just to help us get through. But in the end it it did all work out. But I I've got to say there was no there was no sort of disagreement that this was the right path to take.

Jeff Holman (46:16)

Yeah, and I'm not digging for disagreements 'cause I it doesn't sound like you guys have disagreements. It sounds like you guys effectively talk through the

Julie Tylman (46:24)

But on big decisions like that, we are on the side of our customer. Right. That's that's that's where we are.

Jeff Holman (46:30)

That's the point of alignment. That that makes sense. I I like I I like that phrase being on the side of your customer. what a what a good takeaway from in addition to the money they gave you, the investors gave you a great phrase to to align around. So that's fantastic. as as you did this, were there constraint I mean, of course there were constraints, but what kind of constraints existed in addition to COVID that like to implement this? Was it it was really just you had the platform, was it pretty simple to roll out then

the other version of the product so that you, you know, you had the one tied to kind of the the collecting money versus the one that would just be the card. W were these just would you call these incremental changes or was there anything that that you ran into trying to implement these new parts of the business that were larger than you thought they'd be?

Julie Tylman (47:22)

I think there were to me anyway, not being the the the engineer that had to do it, it was incremental changes. So so disconnecting the card from the collection. you know, I I from memory anyway, happened relatively quickly. and then we were able to let our our customers through our emails, you know, our our organic database.

let them know that this was now available. and then it it it spread, right? Like it spread all over the world. We used to come in and find that someone in Russia had used it. Right. I I definitely remember that. And then you know someone in South Africa had used it. And so it was just this my God. Yeah like this is everywhere.

Jeff Holman (48:17)

Yeah, that sounds a d like a different growth path than the than the Sydney based local parents group that you started with. So has it been that way? Has it been that way all along? I like it i did that change the way that the that the network effects happened in your business?

Julie Tylman (48:36)

absolutely. Because before it was tied to the Australian dollar, right? So you're collecting money in Australian dollars. And so the gift that you must buy is in Australian dollars, or you can withdraw the money to an Australian bank account, right? So it was very much, right, in that in that world. And so the card so the collection piece was not was not on the board. It was just the card. but the network effect.

Right, spread, right? And so you know, people started using it, a free product, right? Who doesn't want a free card? And so it does it, you know, it got used everywhere, but it got used the most in the US. And I've gotta say that from what we could tell from our data is that the the use really was in

in business, in corporations. So it's not as if parents in Russia were using it for, you know, their kids' end of year teacher gifts, right? They they too were using it or teacher cards that they too were using it for office celebrations.

Jeff Holman (49:45)

Well, I'm I'm super glad you pointed out that there's that currency limitation, right? Like like if you're collecting currency to give us a gift, like you like all of a sudden that gift is being given in the currency and so you can't really use it in other countries. I didn't I hadn't I hadn't really thought about it that way. So there is a a very large constraint there. So opening up the the new offering without being tied to the currency, the gift side of it, that that really did open up the market extensively.

How did you guys get into the US? Did you did you do some initial marketing or or did you just start seeing US orders come in?

Julie Tylman (50:22)

So again, they couldn't collect, but they could use the card. So from purely from their IP addresses, that's where we saw people using it. And by far it was a huge market. And then we started getting customer requests. we can see that in Australia you can collect for a gift. Why can't we collect for a gift? So those sorts of things. And so once that reached a critical mass, we decided, you know, this is something.

and let's see if we can let's see if we can take it to the US.

Jeff Holman (50:55)

That's awesome. How so so how long have you been in the US now or or serving the US market?

Julie Tylman (51:00)

So this is our third year in the US. Okay. Yeah. Okay. And we we originally started out in that same sort of parent market. but it didn't I you know, again, there there are little differences between Australia and the US. And I don't think that we were on top of those. And so it was much easier to move than like, this this requires.

this requires a little bit more finesse and understanding of this market. but we really didn't have anyone here. So we thought, all right, let's just go straight straight into the corporate market because businesses seem to operate the same, whether they're in Australia or the US. And so that's that's where we are now. That's where our our main focus is now in those office celebrations, which is originally what you were thinking about using us. Right. And of course you can use us in your personal life as well. There's no reason you can't.

It's just that our marketing and advertising is going towards the corporate market right now.

Jeff Holman (52:03)

Yeah, I I f I feel like I've just been outed for being for aligning one hundred percent with the profile of the of the U US the US consumer that that you've identified already. Nothing wrong with that, but but I did s I I did actually fall straight into that, didn't I? I'm like, I see your I see this and the application that first came to mind is the one that you guys are are are pursuing here. Correct. I guess there's no surprise on that, right? I I did exactly what you thought I'd do. Very predictable. So

I love it though. What's that?

Julie Tylman (52:37)

That's good for us.

Jeff Holman (52:38)

Yes, you you know what you're doing. You've got it right. where do you see this business going in the next two, three, five years from here?

Julie Tylman (52:48)

So where we'd love to see it going, so the reason that we've set up shop in Austin is that we feel that Austin has that sort of big city, little city vibe. it's similar to Brisbane in Australia, similar to there's a real community feel here that is smaller than a New York or a Chicago or an LA.

where we feel that we can make a bit of a difference. so that's why we've started here and sort of and and we'd love that same sort of grassroots growth to happen. but yeah so that's that's where we're that's where we're focusing right now.

Jeff Holman (53:36)

I love that. And if you were to if you were to look into the future sometime in the next few years, w because you mentioned that powerful story about the teacher receiving the gift, being able to buy her her family Christmas dinner, is there a type of of customer thank you or customer validation report that you'd like to see come in here in the U from the US? Do you have you guys received those already or are you envisioning something you know

it's

Julie Tylman (54:06)

We we've already received them. So we we had over like over both Australia and the US we had over f seventeen thousand thank you notes sent out on the platform. And one of the ones that came through, the other example I normally give is one that came from the US and it's a woman that went on maternity leave and her coworkers had written her a card and her thank you note again came across our desk and started out

Jeff Holman (54:35)

Sorry, I have to interrupt though. You're saying seventeen thousand people have written into your company saying thanks for thanks for providing this platform. So or seventeen thousand people have used the the have sent the cards. I just wanted to get that number right.

Julie Tylman (54:51)

Yeah. So so of the people that receive a gift or a card, we have in that remember I tal I talked about the the recipient experience. So it's the envelope opening and the gift unwrapping, that sort of thing. At the end of that, you have the option of sending everyone a thank you note.

Jeff Holman (55:10)

okay.

Julie Tylman (55:11)

Seventeen thousand people chose to use that to send thank you notes back to organizer or the people that have

But

Jeff Holman (55:21)

One more thoughtful feature that I hadn't realized was there.

Julie Tylman (55:24)

Yeah, you know, 'cause they want to say thank you. And so who who do they say it to, right? Yes. and so the this woman had was on maternity leave and she started out with the phrase, you know, you're the one crying, I'm not crying. And went on to say how much it meant like she hadn't realized how much her team appreciated her, right? She she finally felt seen.

And she wanted to let them know that she was crying into her coffee while she was reading her c her group card. And so so those are the things that keep you going, right? It's just like, I love this. This is great.

Jeff Holman (56:04)

Those are powerful experiences. Yeah. And and and to to think, I mean, we all want to be making a difference, right? To sit there and listen to somebody who's got maybe a lot of money, a lot of influence, a lot of, you know, charitable exuberance, whatever you want to call it, doing their thing fantastic. We we all want to contribute. So it's it's it's really fun to see that you guys are not only putting a product out there that's being used and is useful, but you're you're kind of tracking in a way the

the success of the product, but these the these 17,000 people to say, hey, thanks for sending me a card. there's a lot of that's a lot of thank yous out there that that probably w might not have gone out if they had to sit down and, you know, write a separate email or or prepare and mail a card to somebody or to everybody. So I I love that. It's a again, like I said, another thoughtful way that you guys have designed the product. That's really exciting. Well I I love this and I love

You know, one of the things really love about this is being able to hear how businesses are built and how they work. Because as we've talked, you you've kind of helped me see some of the intricacies of the business, right? And I think this is where the innovation really lies. When you when you start to say, we're we're we're a a digital gift card or a digital, you know, thank you card for people, it's like, that makes sense. But when you start saying, Well, the currency is an issue and the, you know, the thank you.

functionality and then we have to split different we have the the you know the gift with the currency or we have the the thank yous and the different business models for the different customer segments. Like it like it all it it helps to convey how how detailed building a business really is, right? It's not as simple as just, I just built a I built this platform and we send cards to people. No, you you've you've built an entire ecosystem to serve, you know, one or two customer segments in a really, really

really, really thorough and thoughtful way. So that's the one thing I love. The other thing I love is just hearing, you know, the kind of the personal experience around building a company. And it sounds like you and your co-founders have not gotten the full experience. You haven't had any y you haven't shared any big fights. Nobody's left, you know, the business. Not saying none of that's happened, but I'm just saying you you've had a good, a good run, it sounds like. Is it is there a way that that

from this, you know, from the experience you've had building this business that you've you know, that you would say, Hm, today I actually do this a little bit differently because of X, Y, Z and the business. Are there ways that the business has impacted you personally?

Julie Tylman (58:45)

The main thing I would say is that I think we would have separated out the card much earlier. Like we would have had it as a separate product, knowing what we know now. I don't know if that's the question you're asking, but like if the going back in time, if I were to change something, that's definitely something I would change.

Jeff Holman (59:06)

Yeah, yeah, no, I and that's a fair answer. The question I was hoping to ask was personally, like w you know, we see these breakout moments in business, right? And and all of a sudden the the business starts to do something different and better because we change certain things. Yeah. But I think sometimes that happens on maybe a more personal internal level too, where we start to say, actually, you the business is different, but I'm also a little different. I look at life differently or I approach

things differently. D do you Julie, as an individual, do you do you is there some is there a way that this has created shift inside of you personally?

Julie Tylman (59:46)

Definitely it has. the easiest way to explain it is that I actually was our customer service representative. And at the best of times, I'm not entirely patient. And so to actually be the person on customer service and not be judgmental and take the time to listen to what they're saying and

Realize what they're going through. It it it's it's not necessarily a humbling experience, but it makes you realize that people are experiencing a lot of different things in their lives. And sometimes they just need someone to listen. And it's a really weird thing to say, being the co-founder, you know, co-CEO of the company, but that being the customer service rep and listening.

to people's issues, which aren't necessarily with our product, but are sometimes with their lives, has has changed me, right? And and it has made me a more patient person. and has made me a less judgmental person.

Jeff Holman (1:01:03)

I love that. It's not I don't know that even ties into the the the trajectory that we've discussed yeah with the business today. But it's it but but what a wonderful what a wonderful outcome for you personally. That's I I love that. Well it Julie, it's been a pleasure having you on the show. I really appreciate you taking the time and patience with me to explain how everything everything in the business has been working. It's it's been a real pleasure having you.

Julie Tylman (1:01:27)

it's been a my absolute pleasure pleasure, Jeff. And yeah, hopefully we got you to use Group Together in the future.

Jeff Holman (1:01:35)

Yeah, I'm gonna I'm gonna go look at the site and send out out to a couple of friends right now. So it really is a platform that I think is is gonna be used. and for our audience who joined us this week on the on the breakout CEO, thanks again for coming on, learning a few insights and getting to know Julie Talman from group together in a little bit more detail. Thanks so much.

Julie Tylman (1:01:56)

Thanks.

Jeff Holman (1:01:58)

Be sure to follow or subscribe on your favorite podcast platform. And if you enjoy the show, a rating or a review goes a long way. Our mission is to promote the stories of breakout CEOs in scaling SaaS, e-commerce, and tech companies, to equip peer CEOs with valuable perspectives and confidence. Thanks again for joining us on this episode of the Breakout CEO. I'm Jeff Holman, and I'll see you next time.

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