This post written by Stephanie Fader, Marketing & PR Manager
Punchbowl was recently the focus of a great article in the Boston Herald by Jennifer Heldt Powell. Here it is in case you missed it!
“Launching web company one lonely party”
Looking at the current success of the party planning site, MyPunchbowl, it seems that Matt Douglas is living the entrepreneurial dream.
Millions of visitors are dropping by the site to plan parties, it has big-name partners like Oriental Trading Co. and Vistaprint and the company, Punchbowl Software Inc., has been through two rounds of venture capital.
In retrospect, the success almost seems fated. The idea sprang from Douglas’ fondness for throwing a party on Groundhog Day. At the time, he was helping develop software programs to solve work-flow issues. It occurred to him that planning a party could be boiled down to a work-flow system.
Additionally, American’s spend $11 billion on party supplies every year. Douglas figured there had to be a way to combine the party planning and the supply buying.
That’s where things got difficult—gut-wrenching, sleepless nights, am-I-ruining-my-future difficult.
For a long time, Douglas didn’t tell anyone about his idea because he felt it was demoralizing to face questions he didn’t know the answers to yet. When he started talking about it to the software engineers and venture capitalists he would need to make it work, he found out just how big the hurdles he faced were.
“The whole start-up ecosystem is built for repeat entrepreneurs,” he explained. “If you haven’t done it before, it’s hard to be taken seriously.”
After a few months, Douglas decided he was going to have to give up his day job to have any hope of launching the company. Unable to attract funding, he started spending his own money.
“It is a hard, hard thing to do watching that money go out of your bank account when you don’t know if this will be successful,” he said.
At one point, a so-called expert told Douglas straight out that it was a bad idea that would never fly. Douglas was devastated, at first.
“I had to pick myself up and keep going,” he said. “You have to have somewhere deep inside an ability to brush it off and continue believing in the idea and yourself. And, you have to find people who will pick you up.”
For Douglas, that was his wife, Jessica, and Sean Conta, whom he brought on as a partner to help launch the business. When they couldn’t afford to hire a software engineer, they turned to a designer to create mock-up pages of the site. That helped them attract an engineer who would work for cheap.
As soon as they had something workable, they sent it out to users. It was a far cry from what they wanted, but it was at least a start.
The site was officially launched in 2007 with just party planning. Eventually, party supply partners were added, allowing users to buy what they need through MyPunchbowl. Later, ads were added and users were given the option of buying a membership that allows access without them. Now, there’s an eCard feature and a tool to help settle on a party date.
The company now has 11 employees and a few job openings.
After all he’s been through, Groundhog Day is still important to Douglas. This year, MyPunchbowl partnered with the Punxsutawney Groundhog Club to offer eCards on its site. It’s also a company holiday.
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