MyPunchblog

This post written by Stephanie Fader, Marketing & PR Manager

Spring starts tomorrow so it’s only fitting that this week MyPunchbowl launched our Spring Birthday Bonanza Sweepstakes! Through the sweepstakes you can enter to win a free MyPunchbowl Premium membership upgrade good for the entire year. And we’re not giving away just one - we’re giving away one Premium membership every day for 30 days!

MyPunchbowl Premium gives you access to more invitation designs, priority tech support, advertising-free eCards and invitations, and more. It’s great for planning those upcoming spring birthdays that will be here before you know it.

If you’re a current MyPunchbowl user and you’ve thought about upgrading, now’s your chance to get it for free. In fact, you have 30 chances to get it for free. Enter as many days as you’d like!

If you already have a MyPunchbowl Premium account, tell your friends about this contest and let them know what they’re missing.

Also, if you have not yet signed up for a free MyPunchbowl account, now is the perfect time to sign up. Get access to all of our award-winning features as well as hundreds of designs, a huge selection of party supplies, and much more.

Enter the Spring Birthday Bonanza Sweepstakes through Twitter or Facebook now through April 16, 2010. If you enter through Twitter, you get additional entries for every follower who enters through your link!

Good luck and happy spring!

This post written by Stephanie Fader, Marketing & PR Manager

Now that we are halfway through the month of March, the days are getting longer and spring is just around the corner. What a perfect time for the start of National Spring Fever Week! How are you celebrating spring? It’s a great time to do some spring cleaning or plan a weekend getaway!

Today is also the start of National Wildlife Week and American Chocolate Week. We love chocolate at Punchbowl and really like the idea of hosting an iron chef party where the main ingredient is chocolate!

This week also includes two events that surely signify spring is almost here…St. Patrick’s Day and the start of March Madness! Whether you’re hosting an informal St. Patty’s Day dinner or are heading to the bars to celebrate and watch college hoops, we have everything you need to get started. Start planning your party!

This week’s other reasons to celebrate include:

• March 15: National Pears Helene Day
• March 16: National Artichoke Hearts Day
• March 17: St. Patrick’s Day
• March 18: Oatmeal Cookie Day
• March 19: National Chocolate Caramel Day
• March 20: Snowman Burning Day
• March 21: National French Bread Day

Want to be the first to know about our Reasons to Celebrate? You can now sign up to receive a daily email with the day’s Reasons to Celebrate! Just sign in to your MyPunchbowl account, go to the “Settings” tab, and check the box to receive the “Daily Reasons to Celebrate updates” under “Emails from MyPunchbowl.”

Have a great week!

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.

This post written by Stephanie Fader, Marketing & PR Manager

As you’ve probably noticed by now, there is a fun, quirky reason to celebrate for every day of the year. Sometimes there’s even more than one! There are a few ways you can learn about upcoming Reasons to Celebrate:

• Visit MyPunchbowl Reasons to Celebrate daily to learn the day’s celebration (then share it with friends via Twitter, Facebook and email).
• Become a fan of MyPunchbowl on Facebook to participate in active discussions about each day’s Reason to Celebrate (below).
• Add a widget to your blog to share the Reasons to Celebrate with your readers.
• Subscribe to our blog where we will give you a weekly update of upcoming holidays so you can plan ahead for the necessary celebrations (ie make sure you have a healthy supply of cheese doodles or schedule a margarita night with the girls)!

As we enter the month of March, there are a few monthly celebrations to share. March is National Peanut Month, National Craft Month, and International Ideas Month. Can you think of any ways to combine all three? Have any ideas for crafts made out of peanut butter?

This week also marks Celebrate Your Name Week and National Cheerleading Week.

This week’s daily celebrations cover a range of topics:

• March 1: National Peanut Butter Lover’s Day
• March 2: National Banana Creme Pie Day
• March 3: National Anthem Day
• March 4: Learn What Your Name Means Day
• March 5: National Cheese Doodle Day
• March 6: National White Chocolate Cheescake Day
• March 7: Academy Awards

What are you looking forward to this week? How do you plan to celebrate? Let us know!

This post written by Stephanie Fader, Marketing & PR Manager

We’re hiring! Punchbowl is looking for a few new people to join our fun and casual start-up culture. We’d really appreciate if you could spread the word about these positions - we’ve had great success hiring through word of mouth. Thanks in advance for spreading the word!

Positions open in our Framingham, MA office:

Senior Product Manager
The Senior Product Manager will be responsible for analysis of customer needs and market trends as well as identification of new areas for product development. A key aspect of this position is to monitor progress of products through the product development life cycle. This position works closely with engineering and marketing teams to execute new products and programs.

Experienced Ruby on Rails Developer
We are seeking to add another accomplished Rails developer to our growing team. The ideal candidate is extremely talented in Ruby on Rails and has been using Rails extensively in consumer-facing web applications for more than a year. Expert knowledge of Javascript, HTML, and CSS and previous TDD experience is also required.

Product Specialist
The Product Specialist position is a hybrid role of QA and technical support. We’re looking for an excellent, web savvy communicator who enjoys problem-solving and is eager to learn. This role will provide high quality support to Punchbowl users as well as product testing. Product testing or quality assurance experience is ideal, but not required.

Office Manager
We’re looking for a part-time Office Manager who has raw intelligence, a superior memory for details, and a great sense of humor. The ideal candidate will be available from 11am-2pm every day of the week. This position reports to the CEO. Read the job posting on Craiglist. 

Inside Sales
The Inside Sales position will be responsible for generating and maintaining new business relationships. The ideal candidate is passionate, assertive, and driven to reach and exceed their goals. Previous experience in sales is required.

Marketing & PR Intern
The Marketing & PR intern will be exposed to a variety of marketing and public relations activities, including email marketing, advertising, social media marketing, press outreach, and content development. This is a great opportunity for a marketing or pr major, though it is not a requirement. We’re looking for a college student with a car as we’re not located near public transportation.

For more information about these positions and for information about how to apply, visit our Careers page.

Thanks again for your help!

This post written by Stephanie Fader, Marketing & PR Manager

This week (Feb 7-14, 2010) is Congenital Heart Defect Awareness Week. To help raise funding and awareness for this important issue, Punchbowl has partnered with The Children’s Heart Foundation to create a campaign called “Spread the Love.” During the month of February, Punchbowl will make a donation to The Children’s Heart Foundation for every recipient of a MyPunchbowl eCard.

Congenital heart disease is considered to be the most common birth defect, and is a leading cause of birth-defect related deaths worldwide. The goal of The Children’s Heart Foundation is to bring health, hope and happiness to children impacted by congenital heart defects.

There are millions of families affected by congenital heart disease. This one story really touched me, but there are many others like it:

Cora Mae McCormick was born on November 30, 2009. Cora’s mom, Kristine, had a normal pregnancy, labor, and delivery. When Cora was born she displayed no signs of a bad heart. She brought her parents overwhelming joy and happiness from the moment she came into their lives.

On December 6, Cora died in her mother’s arms suddenly and unexpectedly. She was only five days old. Her parents rushed her to the hospital after she stopped breathing, but doctors could not revive her.

The preliminary report says that Cora was born with a congenital heart defect. Kristine is sharing her story to raise awareness about CHD, to make sure other babies get screened, and to raise money for CHD research.

One way to help raise awareness and funding is to participate in “Spread the Love.” Send free Valentine’s Day eCards to your friends and family and a donation will be made to The Children’s Heart Foundation for each valid, unique email address on your list. The more you send to, the more money we donate!

For more information about the Spread the Love campaign and to send a free eCard, visit: http://www.mypunchbowl.com/spread-the-love

This post was written by Matt Douglas, Founder & CEO, @mattdouglas

Well, it’s Groundhog Day (again), and this year is a special one for the Punchbowlers. As usual, Groundhog Day is a company holiday — so we all get the day off. But this year we organized a volunteer day (for the record, completely optional for employees and guilt-free). In the afternoon this Groundhog Day, we’ll be painting a few rooms at a local homeless shelter. We’ve been calling it “Phil’s Philanthropy Day” after the venerable Punxsutawney Phil. After waking up early to watch the grand prognostication, I can’t think of any better way to spend the afternoon.

And that’s not all….

This year I’m very excited to report that Punchbowl announced an official partnership with Groundhog.org and the Punxsutawney Groundhog Club. This is a partnership that makes me happy on a number of levels. First, it’s great exposure for Punchbowl, with an audience that matches our target demographic. And second, it’s been a long-standing goal of mine to find an official way to be involved in the Groundhog Day festivities. Here’s a quick snippet from the blog post I wrote on my start-up CEO blog about this partnership announcement:

For 2010, I wanted to do something special for Groundhog Day– so on a whim, I picked up the phone and called the folks who developed Groundhog.org. I told them that I wanted to partner with the Punxsutawney Groundhog Club and create an eCards site. After a little negotiation, we signed an agreement with Groundhog.org to become the exclusive provider of Groundhog Day eCards. This morning, we made the official Groundhog Day press announcement.

And last but not least, my wife and I are planning our 14th annual Groundhog Day party for this coming Saturday. This year’s theme is Disco, and with the combination of disco party supplies, unique party favors, disco costumes, and a 70s play list, we have planned an awesome party. We’re expecting about 30-35 people this year. Of course, we’ve used MyPunchbowl to plan the entire event from start to finish, and it’s been a great experience.

Groundhog Day is all about community, revelry, and celebration of the ordinary. So whether you take a moment to turn your attention to Gobblers Knob or you send someone a free Groundhog Day eCard, please remember the infamous words of the Punxsutawney Groundhog Club:

“There are many important events in life — and Groundhog Day is not one of them.”

Happy Groundhog Day!

This post written by Stephanie Fader, Marketing & PR Manager

Since MyPunchbowl launched Reasons to Celebrate last July, we’ve been sharing these quirky daily holidays with our followers on Facebook and Twitter. Our friends tell their friends about the day’s reason to celebrate — whether it’s National Coffee Day or National Bubble Bath Day — and before you know it we have fifteen people discussing their favorite pies on our Facebook page (seriously, National Pie Day was this past Saturday, January 23).

I wanted to let you know that we just launched a new FREE widget for your blog so that you can keep your readers in the know about the daily reasons to celebrate. With days like National Cupcake Day, Peanut Butter Lover’s Day, and National Go Barefoot Day, there’s an amusing new reason to celebrate every day of the year.

The widget contains unique tidbits about the day’s Reason to Celebrate and gives your readers the ability to look ahead at upcoming holidays. It is also available in two sizes - check it out on our blog to the right.

Add the Reasons to Celebrate widget to your blog and let us know what you think!

The post was written by Matt Douglas, Founder & CEO, @mattdouglas

Today on my start-up CEO blog, I refute the notion that the number of employees in your start-up is somehow related to your success as a company. If you’ve ever wondered about how a start-up measures success, or are curious about start-ups in general, here’s one perspective that will hopefully give you something to think about. Read more >>

This post was written by Matt Douglas, Founder & CEO, @mattdouglas

As many of you know, before my stint as CEO of MyPunchbowl, I spent 4 years at Adobe in charge of a video-editing product called Premiere. So I’m always amused and amazed by what creative people can do with video. Today was no exception, when I received a video Christmas card. First a disclosure: the video card below was created by my Uncle (actually my wife’s uncle, but we’re close). Andy Marlatt is a comedy writer by trade — he’s written for many BBC comedy shows (no, not the Office, but he claims he knows the guys) and he was the creator of the popular humor blog “SatireWire.” He even wrote a book about the dotcom collapse called Economy of Errors. For the past year of so, he’s been writing songs. He put all of his talents together to produce the video Christmas card below.

Andy has graciously allowed me to re-post the video on the MyPunchbowl blog. His only wish is that anyone who enjoys this video makes a donation to charity. As I mentioned, Andy spends a lot of time working with the British. And you may not know this, but MyPunchbowl is partnered with the British Heart Foundation. So, if you like the video below, consider making a donation to the British Heart Foundation. And add your comments to this blog post. I hope you enjoy this video Christmas card as much as I did (please send this link to others!)