Raise your hand if, on the birthday of a friend or relative, you don't have the faintest idea of what to give them and above all how to collect the money, if it is a collective gift. The famous "collection", and also the choice of gift, is now online with Growish, the newborn Italian startup which, starting from the Pinterest-style wish list model, has thought of combining the two phases: expressing a wish, and making it come true with a simple click.
Collecting money easily online, thanks to an electronic money platform, and without even having to find someone who sacrifices himself to physically go and get the coveted gift. Think of everything Growish, which does not collect the money (it would be financial intermediation) but has it collected by the users themselves: just register on the site, open a collection and invite relatives and friends (even viralizing via Facebook or email) to compete for the final jackpot, which can be a specific gift, one of the 100 gift cards offered by one of Growish's 25 business partners, or a simple sum of money to give to the birthday boy who will spend it as he sees fit.
"He can also open the collection - explains Claudio Cubito, creator and CEO of the startup - by indicating the gift of his dreams and inviting his acquaintances to raise the necessary money". After all, it was his dream, that of the 47-year-old from Legnano with a life spent in the chemical industry and a passion for hard rock: "I have friends and relatives scattered throughout Italy who, not knowing how to get organized and in order to make no mistakes, ended up going on the classic tie or shirt. My dream, on the other hand, was a kite surf board".
It was enough to say it growish. com, if it existed, and they would have known about it. But the platform can also work as simple fundraising, in case no one has any preferences to indicate, or it can make use of several important partners such as Amazon, Coin, Privalia, Upim, Alitalia, Chicco, Trony, just to name the major ones, which offer their gift cards. "In the case of a gift card - explains Cubito - they send you the voucher via email, to be used or spent as agreed, otherwise in the case of the purchase of a specific product desired by the promoter of the collection, the gift arrives directly at home".
Precisely for this reason, Growish, which already has 50 collections open a week after its launch, focuses heavily on agreements with e-commerce operators (starting with the already existing Emozione3 packages), who are integrating the "Pay with Growish”. “And before the summer, we will also be launching a Mastercard to be used to spend the money raised”. Yes, because at the end of the operation the recipient of the collection can also decide to change the gift and/or keep the money. It is also on this type of situation, as well as on the commissions agreed with the various partners (which reach double-digit percentages), that Growish builds its business model: "The cost for those who pay money is always zero - explains Cubito - , the profit for us comes from commissions with partner companies, while we only apply 4% to those who prefer to collect the money”.
And how big can the profit margin be? “Having other similar startups in Europe as a benchmark, we count on reaching at least 100 collections a year in the first few years, which means an estimate of 20 million euros in total money collected and therefore a profit for us of more or less 1,5 million . But in five years the goal is 10 million profits, if we think that currently a Swedish company with a similar business model already sells 1 million gift cards a year”.
Growish is currently part of the startup incubator Digital Magics (listed on the stock exchange and majority shareholder of the company created by Cubito), which after having supported the first phase, will launch an Investor Day through the Digital Magics Angel Network by the summer: “Growish – declares Edmondo Sparano, partner of DM – is gathering a strong consensus and interest from the 'Digital Magics Angel Network': private investors, institutional funds and industrial partners who collaborate with us and who are evaluating the potential of this startup to enter the group payment of Growish in their services”.
