school, he moved to Chicago to attend Northwestern, majoring in music. He played in punk bands and had a wacky side—for a long time, one of his social media profiles featured a shot of him in his underwear. But his true passion was social justice, and Andrew planned to get a master’s degree in public policy.
Getting to The Point
To earn extra money, the grad student placed a Craigslist ad for web-development work, and was hired on at Echo. He caught Eric’s eye by pulling a round-the-clock work stint.
“He took it on himself to rewrite a program in six or eight weeks,” Eric remembers. “He was pretty young and he was sleeping at the office. I just thought he was super-talented.”
Soon after, Andrew departed to return to school. Several months later, though, Andrew reconnected with Eric. Andrew had an idea for a website that would help citizens come together to work on social-action projects. He called it The Point.
On the site, individuals could start campaigns—to raise money for a new park, for instance, or to pressure a corporation to recycle. People would pledge to help by taking action or donating. When a critical mass of people signed on, a “tipping point” was reached whereby the campaign moved forward.
Intrigued, Eric offered Andrew a $1 million investment if he would quit school and begin work on The Point immediately. So in January 2007, Andrew left campus life behind and started building the site.
In the original business plan, three potential revenue models were identified for The Point: advertising; taking a percentage of the money raised in fundraising campaigns; or charging a fee for helping groups of people buy items in bulk at a discount. But the initial goal was simply to build the site, draw big traffic, and focus on the social-change mission. Monetization would come later. In the meanwhile, Andrew kept his burn rate low by hiring just a few developers to work on The Point’s launch.
“We had the ability to iterate and experiment without spending a lot of money,” Andrew says.
He paid rent for a small suite in Echo’s vast offices inside a remodeled former Montgomery Ward warehouse in downtown Chicago. In November 2007, The Point went live, and over the next year drew only a small following. This made it unlikely that either advertising or fundraising commissions would generate substantial revenue.
The initial goal was simply to build the site, draw big traffic, and focus on the social-change mission. Monetization would come later.
To raise more money for The Point, Eric reconnected with his longtime funders at NEA, Harry Weller and Peter Barris, who invested $4.8 million in January 2008. Weller remembered Andrew from InnerWorkings and says he jumped at the chance, even though The Point’s business model was as yet unformed.
“This was a bet on the team,” Weller says. “We knew the idea would transform over time. We really thought highly of Andrew—he was a sort of inspirational, visionary guy paired with two strong operator/entrepreneurs.”
Under increasing pressure to generate revenue, Andrew began investigating the idea of group buying through the Internet. To start, Andrew studied companies that had tried group buying and failed.
“The process of coming up with the idea,” Andrew says, “was a process of eliminating the reasons that the previous attempts at the concept failed.”
One Seattle startup Andrew looked at, Mercata, had raised nearly $90 million before going bust in early 2001. Mercata let consumers band together to bid down prices on goods and services they wanted. Mercata’s “auctions” took too long, though, and customers lost interest. Merchants didn’t want to participate either, as they made less margin. Mercata also focused on selling items such as consumer electronics, for which bigger competitors such as Amazon could offer lower pricing.
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One day during this time, Andrew was inspired after taking an architectural tour
Getting to The Point
To earn extra money, the grad student placed a Craigslist ad for web-development work, and was hired on at Echo. He caught Eric’s eye by pulling a round-the-clock work stint.
“He took it on himself to rewrite a program in six or eight weeks,” Eric remembers. “He was pretty young and he was sleeping at the office. I just thought he was super-talented.”
Soon after, Andrew departed to return to school. Several months later, though, Andrew reconnected with Eric. Andrew had an idea for a website that would help citizens come together to work on social-action projects. He called it The Point.
On the site, individuals could start campaigns—to raise money for a new park, for instance, or to pressure a corporation to recycle. People would pledge to help by taking action or donating. When a critical mass of people signed on, a “tipping point” was reached whereby the campaign moved forward.
Intrigued, Eric offered Andrew a $1 million investment if he would quit school and begin work on The Point immediately. So in January 2007, Andrew left campus life behind and started building the site.
In the original business plan, three potential revenue models were identified for The Point: advertising; taking a percentage of the money raised in fundraising campaigns; or charging a fee for helping groups of people buy items in bulk at a discount. But the initial goal was simply to build the site, draw big traffic, and focus on the social-change mission. Monetization would come later. In the meanwhile, Andrew kept his burn rate low by hiring just a few developers to work on The Point’s launch.
“We had the ability to iterate and experiment without spending a lot of money,” Andrew says.
He paid rent for a small suite in Echo’s vast offices inside a remodeled former Montgomery Ward warehouse in downtown Chicago. In November 2007, The Point went live, and over the next year drew only a small following. This made it unlikely that either advertising or fundraising commissions would generate substantial revenue.
The initial goal was simply to build the site, draw big traffic, and focus on the social-change mission. Monetization would come later.
To raise more money for The Point, Eric reconnected with his longtime funders at NEA, Harry Weller and Peter Barris, who invested $4.8 million in January 2008. Weller remembered Andrew from InnerWorkings and says he jumped at the chance, even though The Point’s business model was as yet unformed.
“This was a bet on the team,” Weller says. “We knew the idea would transform over time. We really thought highly of Andrew—he was a sort of inspirational, visionary guy paired with two strong operator/entrepreneurs.”
Under increasing pressure to generate revenue, Andrew began investigating the idea of group buying through the Internet. To start, Andrew studied companies that had tried group buying and failed.
“The process of coming up with the idea,” Andrew says, “was a process of eliminating the reasons that the previous attempts at the concept failed.”
One Seattle startup Andrew looked at, Mercata, had raised nearly $90 million before going bust in early 2001. Mercata let consumers band together to bid down prices on goods and services they wanted. Mercata’s “auctions” took too long, though, and customers lost interest. Merchants didn’t want to participate either, as they made less margin. Mercata also focused on selling items such as consumer electronics, for which bigger competitors such as Amazon could offer lower pricing.
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One day during this time, Andrew was inspired after taking an architectural tour
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