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They say “necessity is the mother of invention,” but sometimes the creative spark only needs one bad experience to set an idea ablaze. For Eshed Doni, founder and CEO of GiftCrowd, an unpleasant ordeal helped him launch a now-thriving company after attempting to organize a group gift for his son’s teacher, drove him to develop an online platform and re-envision the entire process of classroom gifting.

GiftCrowd streamlines group gifts for teachers

One of Doni’s greatest entrepreneurial strengths is his creativity. He prides himself on his ability to tackle age-old problems and find innovative solutions.

“If you don’t know already, organizing teacher gifts is incredibly frustrating, complicated, and time-consuming,” Doni remarks. “I learned this the hard way when I volunteered to be in charge of the holiday gift for my son’s teacher. I thought a few emails would get the job done, but that couldn’t have been further from the truth!”

Doni devoted days to calling unresponsive parents, crafting polite email reminders, and toting stacks of small bills to make change. After all that, he faced the challenge of deciding what to purchase.

“I finally settled on buying a gift card from the nearby pharmacy,” recalls Doni. “Almost immediately after I checked out, another parent from my son’s class came with cash in hand.”

Doni knew a simpler process would help millions of parents like him every time teacher appreciation week, the end of the school year, and the holidays rolled around. When he could not find a simple and free way to streamline group gifts, he decided to construct one.

Designing a better way to give teachers gifts

Doni’s first step in simplifying group gifting was to verify that a sizable population also struggled with the same problem. “With no trouble, I found plenty of people eager to share their frustration,” he recalls. “Everyone I spoke with agreed that the group gifting process was difficult and irritating. Their feedback was so unanimous that it was evident that the market potential was huge.”

Doni challenged himself to innovate group gifting in a way no one else had attempted. “As an entrepreneur, don’t let the fact that other people have tried to address your problem discourage you,” he advises. “Even when you are at a complete loss for a better solution, don’t let yourself simply give up. There may be an existing answer out there, but you can still be the one to tackle the problem more effectively.”

Doni assembled a team of experts and kept the big picture front and center. “I wanted them to remember that we were contributing to a larger cause,” he explains. “When I design technology, I do it to make the world a better place. Giving and receiving gifts has been part of the human experience since the dawn of time — we express our feelings by giving people tokens of our esteem. A digital platform to make the gifting process more enjoyable could ultimately encourage more people to exchange gifts and create more opportunities for emotional connections.”

When creating a digital platform to make group gifting easier, Doni gave his imagination free rein. “I always begin with a thorough understanding of the issue,” he says. “Next, I think about whether or not to expand the solution by solving other common problems. For example, at one point in the design process, we considered adding the ability to collect class dues. When our interviews taught us that these responsibilities differ greatly from one school to the next, we continued solving only the one problem of group gifting.”

Using GiftCrowd to make gifting fun again

Doni’s team developed a cutting-edge group gifting platform that revolutionizes how people send and receive gifts. In seconds, anyone can quickly and easily honor a teacher, coach, co-worker, friend, or family member by creating a free account on GiftCrowd. After filling out a simple online form and setting a deadline for the gift’s delivery, the platform does the rest.

GiftCrowd sends emails to invite other participants, accepts contributions through everyone’s payment method of choice, and creates a custom card to accompany the gift by collecting thoughtful messages from everyone involved. Best of all, gift recipients are guaranteed to find a gift they will truly treasure. They can redeem their gift from over 450 well-known brands such as Amazon, Target, Nordstrom, Crate & Barrel, Walmart, Visa, Lowe’s, Celebrity Cruises, and Delta Airlines.

In a world growing more complicated by the day, Doni is proud that technology keeps some of the most important things simple. “We’re using new tech to put the old joy back in group gifting,” he remarks. “Expressing gratitude and love through gifts should never be an awkward and arduous process. It should be as natural as breathing. As Winston Churchill said, ‘We make a living by what we get. We make a life by what we give.’”

Published by: Aly Cinco