Goody is a way to send personal and business gifts as easily as a text message. The company’s business gifting platform powers employee engagement, client appreciation, and sales prospecting gifts at over 45,000 leading companies. Pulse 2.0 interviewed Goody’s CEO Katy Carrigan to learn more about the company.
Katy Carrigan’s Background
Carrigan has been Goody’s CEO since 2022. “Initially, I joined the company as our first sales hire and built out our sales team,” said Carrigan. “Then I moved into a Chief Revenue Officer role. Then, after about a year and a half at the company, I was appointed as Goody’s new CEO. (Our co-founder and former CEO Ed transitioned to leading our board of directors.) Prior to Goody, I was a sales leader at Dropbox. I’m a very proud alumna of Williams College, where I studied history.”
Formation Of Goody
How did the idea for Goody come together? Carrigan shared:
“Goody’s origin story is fascinating. We launched in December, 2020, at the height of the pandemic, when people were afraid to handle their holiday gifts in the conventional way. The original idea for the company was fully B2C: A mobile-centric gifting app that let people swap gifts for alternatives and send gifts with only a phone number or email. Another big differentiator was simply the quality of gift brands we were able to curate, like Levain Bakery cookies or Brightland olive oil.”
“Within a few quarters, though, we noticed that our most valuable customers tended to have work emails. Then we realized that our gifting flow and curation was perfect for corporate gifting use cases, not just consumer usage. It turns out that professionals also want to send lovely gifts to staff and clients, without having to know someone’s shipping address. From there, we’ve leaned into building a platform and feature set to make corporate gifting effortless and joyful.”
Core Products
What are the company’s core products and features? Carrigan explained:
“Goody’s business gifting platform is free to use and very powerful. You can send one gift or 10,000. What sets Goody apart is that you don’t need to know someone’s shipping address or gift preferences to delight them. You can just send a digital notification to their phone or email, and then let them choose any gift they’d like from a curated collection.”
“Over the years, we’ve also added advanced features for businesses. For example, you can integrate your HR platform and automatically send gifts when it’s an employee’s birthday or work anniversary. Or if you’re a sales rep, you can require someone to book on your Calendly in order to accept your gift.”
Favorite Memory
What has been your favorite memory working for the company so far? Carrigan reflected:
“My favorite memory has to be the holiday season in 2023. The holidays are always thrilling here because our business grows explosively. We see returning customers just pouring in, new customers signing up in droves. It’s a startup cliche, but in December, Goody really does feel like a rocket ship. This last season, in particular, we had so much growth that even people in non-sales roles had to hop on the phone to help give sales demos or answer questions on our website chat.”
Challenges Faced
What challenges has Carrigan faced in this sector of work? Carrigan acknowledged:
“As a growing company, every day presents a new challenge, from updating processes to better handle scale to raising brand awareness in the market. Although Goody is growing rapidly, we still own just a tiny share of the total corporate gifting market. Which is shockingly large: more than $242 billion per year. Can you imagine how many billions of that are spent on gifts which people don’t even like?”
“In some ways the biggest bottleneck is convincing people that corporate gifts don’t need to be ‘corporate.’ They can be cool brands, gifts you’d send to a personal friend, and above all, gifts that the recipient can pick themselves!”
Evolution Of Goody’s Technology
How has Goody’s technology evolved since launching? Carrigan noted:
“Goody’s platform is constantly evolving. We launch new features every month, sometimes every week. In particular, we’ve added features that help some of our core customer personas (such as sales reps, admins, and HR professionals) integrate gifting into their jobs. We launched features our customers were asking for, like alcohol delivery, international shipping, on-demand branded swag, budgeting, and much more.”
“We even launched an API that lets companies integrate our gift collection into their website or app, and earn money from sales.”
Significant Milestones
What have been some of the company’s most significant milestones? Carrigan cited:
1.) 2020: Goody is launched
2.) 2021: Much of our core team is hired. We launch our business gifting platform. We raise a seed round, a Series A, and an add-on round later in the year.
3.) 2022: We launch our more advanced software plans, Goody Pro and Goody for Teams. I take over as CEO and our co-founder Ed Lando becomes chairman of the board.
4.) 2023: We surpass 35,000 businesses using Goody. Goody launches its API for developers.
Customer Success Stories
After asking Carrigan about customer success stories, she highlighted:
“Over the years, we’ve had lots and lots of customer success stories. My favorite thing is when I demo Goody to people in Admin and HR roles – on whom a lot of the burden of organizing team gifts often falls. Sometimes people are almost astonished during demos, when they realize that something that used to take all week could be done in about five minutes. We have amazing customer retention and loyalty once we get people to send that first gift.”
Funding
After asking Carrigan about the company’s funding information, she revealed:
“In 2021, investors were so impressed by our core product, founding team, and growth that we raised a seed round, a Series A, and an add-on round all in the same year.”
Total Addressable Market
What total addressable market (TAM) size is the company pursuing? Carrigan assessed:
“Corporate gifting is a $242 billion per year market, and Goody wants every dollar of that!”
Differentiation From The Competition
What differentiates the company from its competition? Carrigan affirmed:
“Goody’s biggest competitor is the ‘old’ way of corporate gifting. That is, choosing an impersonal gift someone may not love, organizing a huge spreadsheet of addresses (and/or t-shirt sizes), and shipping things out manually. Goody’s flow completely eliminates that effort. You just need a list of names and emails.”
“Even more importantly, Goody lets recipients choose or swap a gift at the price point you set – so you don’t need to worry about them not loving a specific gift you’ve chosen.”
“There are other corporate gifting platforms on the market. What differentiates Goody, above all, is the quality of our gifts. They are never tacky or generic. We curate exciting brands that you’d be thrilled to see under your Christmas tree at home. Trendy labels like MALIN + GOETZ, JBL, Supergoop!, and Fly By Jing.”
“Unlike many of the incumbent gifting platforms out there, Goody is also free to use. You don’t need an annual contract to start gifting with us.”
Future Company Goals
What are some of the company’s future company goals? Carrigan pointed out:
“Like many other startups at our stage, we’re focused on efficient growth. We plan to more than double our gift volume this year, but want to do so in a relatively headcount-flat way.”
“In addition, I’m excited to see our gifting API continue to develop. We’ve had companies use this API to sell gifts within their app or website; they can earn revenue from each sale. It’s an exciting new business line for us – and there’s nothing else like it on the market.”
Additional Thoughts
Any other topics to discuss? Carrigan concluded:
“I’d love to invite your readers to give Goody a try. When you sign up, we’ll drop $20 in your account so you can send your first gift free. Give it a spin, and send a surprise gift to someone you work with. Make somebody’s day!”
