Interview with Scott Hurff of Groupvine
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“Groupvine”:http://www.thegroupvine.com is what you do. It is a mirror reflection of active, passionate communities online. We’re focusing on the education community first.
Scott is a midwesterner at heart and was born in Chicago but he loves his hometown of Dublin, Ohio, the Ohio State Buckeyes, his alma mater Wake Forest. He is currently adapting to Boston living. He builds useful, cool new things and tries to read too many books at once while hanging out with cool people and nice girls. |
Did your experience as a leader of some specific group inspire you to develop Groupvine?
Yes! Groupvine was a direct result of a personal frustration I had in that campus groups had no infrastructure to support their day-to-day management and member interaction activities. Being a campus leader can be really taxing, especially when you’re involved with more than one group. I was running my College Republican chapter and was also a member of Alpha Kappa Psi, Mortar Board, worked at a student-run Web dev company and had been a newspaper editor, so all of these things combined to make me spontaneously combust a few times.
How have you decided upon which unique features will best support your member groups?
By nothing else than talking to our current customers! I’ve spoken with at least 100 current and potential customers and just listened. And by just listening, you get a look into worlds that you never would have imagined or even thought about.
How do you fund Groupvine? What is your business model?
It’s been self-funded so far, and I’m currently an Entrepreneur-in-Residence at Kodiak Venture Partners in Boston, a fantastic and well-led firm that has taken a risk on me and wants to learn more about the evolving consumer Web.
The business model, at its most basic level, revolves around subscriptions and transaction fees from dues, payments, donations and more. It can be paid in a number of different ways, depending on what type of organization wants to use it and how.
Bonus: What kinds of groups are you currently involved with?
Web Innovator’s Group in Boston (great events and people), and Community Next, the greatest conference ever created.
Copyright © 2007 by Sonia Aggarwal