MyPunchblog

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 was written by Matt Douglas, Founder & CEO. Follow him on Twitter @mattdouglas

I’m very excited to announce that MyPunchbowl has acquired I’m In! — a site for local vendors. With the acquisition of I’m in! MyPunchbowl has entered the local party planning market. Our new local vendor portal enables our users to find vendors for their parties and events. To check it out, visit our new local vendors portal.

We’ll be sending out a press release in the morning, but TechCrunch broke the story this evening.

Here is the official announcement: 

Punchbowl Software, Inc., developers of the start to finish party planning site MyPunchbowl.com, today announced the acquisition of I’m In! (imin.com), through a transaction with GroupGo LLC. I’m In! previously operated as a site for group travel and local trip ideas. Financial terms of the agreement were not disclosed.

Using assets of I’m In!, MyPunchbowl today launches a comprehensive local vendor portal for the party planning market. The new MyPunchbowl local vendor portal includes over one million vendors that are suitable for parties and events. Vendor categories include Artists, Attire, Bakeries, Balloons, Bands, Caterers, Churches & Synagogues, DJs, Entertainers, Event Planners, Event Staffing & Services, Florists, Musicians, Photographers, Rentals & Equipment, Transportation, and Venues & Locations.

“Our new local vendor portal enables small businesses to connect directly with consumers who are actively planning events,” said Matt Douglas, CEO, Punchbowl Software. “The acquisition of I’m in! has accelerated our entry into the local party planning market.”

The local vendor portal also includes the ability to search for party venues and locations. As hosts plan events on MyPunchbowl, they can now search for a venue for their party in the new venue finder. Hosts enter their location and choose from twelve venue categories including birthday party venues for kids & adults, restaurants, and baby shower venues. After a venue is selected, hosts can populate the location and address directly onto their online invitation.

MyPunchbowl also now offers featured listings for venues. Featured locations receive priority placement on the venue finder. Retail venues and chains that service the party planning market can contact MyPunchbowl to get a featured listing.

Visit the MyPunchbowl local vendor portal to search vendors for your next event.

This post written by Stephanie Fader, Marketing & PR Manager

Yesterday was a pretty good day here at MyPunchbowl. In addition to the great article in Fortune Small Business, MyPunchbowl was also selected as an Official Honoree for the “Services & Applications” category in the 13th Annual Webby Awards!

The Webby Awards is the Internet’s most respected symbol of success. The Official Honoree distinction is awarded to the top 15% of all work entered that exhibits remarkable achievement. The 13th Annual Webby Awards received over 9,000 entries from all 50 states and over 60 countries worldwide across more than 125 categories. That’s a lot of competition! 

Winners are chosen by the International Academy of Digital Arts & Sciences, a global organization whose members incluce David Bowie, Harvey Weinstein, Arianna Huffington, Matt Groening, Internet inventor Vinton Cerf, Twitter co-founder Biz Stone, Virgin Group Chairman Richard Branson, and R/GA Chairman and CEO Bob Greenberg.

MyPunchbowl was honored by the Webby’s last year as 2008 Official Nominee in the “Events” category and as an Official Honoree in the “Best Practices” category.

Needless to say, we are thrilled to be honored by the Webbys again this year!

This post was written by Matt Douglas, Founder & CEO. Follow Matt Douglas on Twitter

Once in a while, I take a moment to step back and really appreciate how far I’ve come. This blog post is one of those moments.

This afternoon, Fortune Small Business released their April issue. MyPunchbowl and yours truly play a prominent role in the cover story entitled “The Venture Game: What investors want.” Fortune is published online through a partnership with CNN.com. It’s quite humbling to see your own name lead off a major story on CNN.

The story leads off with a trip down memory lane — the early days of MyPunchbowl. “Matt Douglas had just embarked on a down-to-the-studs renovation of his home in Natick, Mass. when he and a colleague, Sean Conta, quit their jobs to launch MyPunchbowl.com, an event-planning Web site. “My wife and I were living in one 12-by-8-foot room, along with the refrigerator, stove and two cats,” Douglas recalls. “Sean would come over around 8:30 every morning. Then we’d sit at our two little desks with construction noise in the background.”

It’s all true. It’s hard to describe what those days were like — but that year was full of sacrifice and hard work. Those were the days when no one would return my phone calls, and this company was only a figment of my imagination. How far it’s all come.

In addition to the main story, my advice is featured in one of the “10 steps to catch VC cash.” Those of you who have followed this blog for a long time will remember the blog posts which covers this advice in more depth: “Don’t write a business plan.” Wow, that’s from July of 2007!

A high-profile article like this involves many people and takes many months. On January 14th, Lucy McQuilken (our investment manager from Intel Capital) emailed me with an introduction to a writer from Fortune. A few days later, I had an in-depth conversation with Sharon from Fortune. After a number of follow-up calls and an editorial review, I was asked to do a photo shoot for the article. The photo shoot took place on February 26th (that experience is another blog post in itself!) — and the article was published today, April 15th. Start to finish: 3 months. Not bad for an article with this kind of expsosure.

There is a long list of people to thank for this article. First — thanks to the PR team at Intel Capital for uncovering this opportunity and bringing it to Lucy McQuilken. Lucy: thanks for bringing the opportunity to Punchbowl, and for enduring my attempts at humor during the four hour photo shoot. Thanks to Spencer Heyfron for a fanastic and fun photo shoot. And most importantly: thank you to Sharon Kahn at Fortune for her attention to detail and accuracy. Sharon: this is a fantastic article and it’s been a pleasure to get to know you.

I sat on the couch this evening and showed my wife the article on CNN. Her smile said it all. She remembers the six months we lived in the 12×8 room, and she knows that I’m about the farthest thing from an “overnight success” that you can imagine. Today is a day I feel really proud of how far I’ve come.

Read the articles:  The Venture Game: What investors want and my startup advice: 10 steps to catch VC cash.

This post written by Stephanie Fader, Marketing & PR Manager

As you know from Matt’s post yesterday, we just launched MyPunchbowl Birthday Reminders — an easy and dependable way to keep track of the birthdays that matter the most.

We got some great press coverage about MyPunchbowl Birthday Reminders and I thought I’d share some of it with you.

Terrence Russell from VentureBeat writes:

 ”Although I’ve seen my share of reminder/event tools, what makes the Birthday Reminder service interesting is its call to action. Whereas Facebook and MySpace mostly leverage birth dates for gift giving/micro-transactions within their sites, the Birthday Reminder service folds seamlessly into MyPunchbowl’s activity driven focus by referring users to its party planning application and free eCards. From there, it kind of makes sense to transform static birthday reminders into…well, actual birthday parties.”

Josh Lowensohn from CNET’s Webware writes:

“Where the system holds real value is that it’s deeply tied into MyPunchbowl’s other services. For instance, if it’s someone you were never intending to get a gift or a real card for, you can simply use MyPunchbowl’s eCard service and send it to them using the information you’ve already gathered. By contrast, you can also turn around and begin planning a party right away using the built-in tools.”

So what do you think? Have you tried MyPunchbowl Birthday Reminders yet? Create your own birthday reminder list for free at http://www.mypunchbowl.com/birthday-reminders.

It’s a perfect fall day here in Boston — overcast morning skies and a little bit chilly. It’s a great day to stay inside and read the Boston Globe from cover to cover. If you do read the Boston Globe today, I hope you won’t miss a great article by Scott Kirsner titled “Even in Difficult Times Entrepreneurs will Emerge” about how pockets of the Boston entrepreneurial community are weathering the storm. Punchbowl Software is mentioned as the example of a Web 2.0/Digital media company that is thriving even in this economic downturn.

Here’s the mention:

Web 2.0/Digital media - There’s no “pillar” company here yet, but rather lots of start-ups hoping their websites and Facebook applications will catch fire. Earlier this month, Punchbowl Software, which operates a website that aims to improve the way people plan parties, raised $2.1 million in funding; the company has just seven full-time employees, with an eighth starting soon.

One of the more amusing things for me about the article is that we are mentioned just before Bose Corporation. After four years working at Bose, it’s nice to be mentioned ahead of them!

My thanks to Scott Kirsner for including us in his Sunday Innovation Economy article. If you are in Boston and don’t read Scott’s blog yet — don’t waste another minute. It’s the blog for the innovation economy in Boston.

———

Planning a Halloween party? MyPunchbowl has everything you need for Halloween party planning and Halloween online invitations.

Had a nice surprise in my inbox this morning: ABC-TV in Phoenix, AZ (KNXV) covered MyPunchbowl in their “Smart Shopper” section.

Here’s what they had to say about MyPunchbowl:

“If you want to take planning that party to the next level, try http://www.mypunchbowl.com…. it allows you to send a “save the date” message to your partygoers, locate a party store near you, and share your party photos and videos.”

Thanks to Daphne and ABC-TV in Phoenix for covering MyPunchbowl.