It always takes longer to 'cut in' than paint the wall

Making GiftRound a reality

If you’ve read my first blog post ‘Was It The Paint Fumes?’ you’ll have seen how my idea grew to make group gifts and collections easy and efficient. Now come with me while I take you through the steps I took to get GiftRound up and running.  

Looking back, how on earth did I do it? All through 2017 I juggled working as a freelance outdoor pursuits instructor; running my other business, Motion Coaching as well as learning to launch a tech start up.

The quest

I’m not going to gloss over it, the summer of 2017 was a hard slog and, at times, felt somewhat relentless. I was cross-pollinating the various aspects of my work, for example, I listened to audio books whilst canoeing and I read business books in my tent. Most of us go to the great outdoors to get away from it all and I’m one of the biggest advocates you can imagine for doing just that, but even I was guilty of popping up a wee hill just to try and get some phone signal to send or receive a few emails every now and then.

The Advisory Board

I have been incredibly fortunate to have picked up some solid supporters along the way who bring a wealth of strength and wisdom with the formation of an unofficial Advisory Board. The Advisory Board is now a group of five who bring HR; marketing; tech start-up skills and valuable experience in gaining investment, which will be part of our journey beyond Minimal Viable Product (MVP) and BETA testing.

And I’m always learning

Throughout my career so far, especially through Motion Coaching, I have had the privilege of working with some incredibly bright and fun graduates and senior leaders. From working with these people, I have discovered the leadership quality I admire the most is integrity, which I hope I also bring into everything I do going forward. Another key quality I aspire to is being interested, rather than being interesting, I’d much rather listen and learn than talk about myself.

Whilst I have been the driving force to get GiftRound to where it is today, I am learning the crucial skill of delegating. I have a brilliant team around me who I know I can rely on to help get this business over the line. They are experts in their field and all I need to know is enough to be able to keep up with the conversation; the rest I can leave in their capable and safe hands. I never want to stop learning.

The biggest challenge so far has been the money, or should I say, the lack of. I’ve not yet taken any money out of the business so all my time, travel, subscriptions etc. has had to be funded by my other work and I have to admit, it’s really tight. All the Friends and Family investment has been ring-fenced for the tech development and production of the MVP.

I owe enormous gratitude to my patient and incredibly supportive wife.  It’s been an incredible journey so far; one that I have repeatedly questioned why I started.  However, I’ve met some amazing people and have learned so much.  I’m very close to having something that I can show people and say, “Look! Here it is and you can use it and it works.”   It will be an AMAZING feeling!

And the future of GiftRound?

We want to work with a select few, quality gift providers to give our customers a range of options.  We have already brought on board some big, well-known brands, but following the Minimum Viable Product stage, we’d really like to work with some smaller local gift providers too. If you would like to be considered as one of our gift providers, do please get in touch [link]as we’d love to hear from you.

GiftRound offers a solution by providing a service that will encourage and facilitate more people to create group collections with ease and efficiency. We are providing a platform for companies to show how much they value their employees and that they want to celebrate together and show that they care. We have a vision to provide a service for individuals and companies to shape how they use it.

But don’t just take our word for it. Sign up now www.giftround.co.uk to try it for yourself. And we’d love to hear what you think. Will you let us know?