How do you become a startup founder? There are many paths, but often founders grow up at other startups. GroupMe co-founders Jared Hecht and Steve Martocci are still pretty young. Both graduated from college only a few years ago, but both also did stints at other startups before creating group-messaging phenom GroupMe at last year’s Disrupt Hackathon and subsequently raising $10.6 million. (Disclosure: host Chris Dixon is an investor in GroupMe through Founder Collective).
In the Founder Stories video above, Hecht and Martocci talk about their previous experience. Hecht was the biz dev manager at Tumblr. Martocci was lead software engineer at Gilt, and before that founded an email marketing image company called Sympact Technologies. There is nothing like learning on the job to prepare you for startup life. Their friends who opted for higher-paying salaries on Wall Street and elsewhere in New York City now want to copy them and start their own companies.
In the video below, Hecht and Martocci explain what GroupMe is for people who haven’t tried it yet. (It’s a group text messaging app that works over SMS or in-app). “We built this originally to go to a music festival,” says Martocci.
You can also check out other previous episodes of Founder Stories or subscribe in iTunes.
Jared is the Co-Founder of GroupMe, a group messaging service that lets you stay in touch with groups of people via mobile phones and the web. In August 2011, GroupMe was acquired by Skype, which was subsequently acquired by Microsoft in October 2011. Previously, Jared led Business Development at Tumblr where he focused on international expansion and strategic partnerships. Before Tumblr, Jared received his BA in Political Science from Columbia University in 2009 where he served...
Steve is the Co-Founder of GroupMe, a group messaging service that lets you stay in touch with groups of people via mobile phones and the web. In August 2011, GroupMe was acquired by Skype, which was subsequently acquired by Microsoft in October 2011. Previously, Steve was a Lead Software Engineer at Gilt Groupe. Before joining Gilt, Steve founded Sympact Technologies, a startup focused on developing dynamic images for real-time email marketing, and Bandwith.us, a friends and family ticketing platform...
GroupMe is a group messaging service that lets you stay in touch with groups of people via mobile phones and the web. The service allows you to effortlessly group text with the people in your life that are important to you. It’s totally free and works on every phone. GroupMe is based in New York and was founded in May 2010 at the TechCrunch Disrupt Hackathon. In August 2011, GroupMe was acquired by Skype, which was subsequently acquired by Microsoft...
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