Grad Profiles highlight the personal and professional stories of Founder Institute Graduates from across the globe.
This profile on GatherGreen, a Graduate of the Los Angeles Founder Institute, was written by Emma Tzeng. Co-Founded by Eduardo Sciammarell , GatherGreen is a "green Groupon", helping consumers quench their thirst for ethical, green products through discounted "daily deal" offers.
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It’s no secret that environmentalism is seriously in style. It is under this very premise that products manufactured under sustainable, eco-friendly, socially-conscious standards sell at higher price points: people are willing to dole out more money in exchange for a peaceful conscience.
Clearly, today’s consumers want to leverage their purchasing power to instigate positive change in society.
In a sweeping gesture of goodwill, Los Angeles-based startup GatherGreen has set out to quench consumers’ thirsts for ethical, green products with its daily deals offers.
Essentially, GatherGreen functions as a “green Groupon,” as the company calls itself. Just as Groupon works with local businesses to provide limited-time offers, GatherGreen offers products and services at 50 to 90 percent off the full price to deal-hunting consumers.
The market for flash-sales sites is still brimming with opportunity. A projection from BIA/Kelsey predicts that the total daily deal market can expect to generate $4.2 billion in revenue by 2015, representing a 36.7 percent compound annual growth rate starting from 2010.
What sets GatherGreen apart from the other daily deal sites, however, is that it only conducts business deals with sustainable, ethical organizations. Thus, users can rest assured that all purchases through the GatherGreen service have been screened for unethical practices and hand-selected because of the corresponding company’s devotion to environmentally-friendly practices.
As GatherGreen writes in its company mission statement, “We are part of a much larger worldwide movement for social and environmental change. Our mission is to help transform ours from a culture of consumption to a culture of sustainability.”
But GatherGreen does much more than simply talk about and sell green products: the three-person startup lives out its values on a regular basis. According to the official website, the GatherGreen office prides itself on reusing and recycling everyday items, bans plastic packaging, encourages paperless transactions, and participates in TerraPass’s Carbon Balanced Business program, which measures, reduces, and offsets businesses’ carbon footprints.
Founded in May 2010 by entrepreneur and user experience designer Eduardo Sciammarella, GatherGreen was birthed from a desire to harness consumers’ purchasing power to encourage sustainable business practices. Since then, the company has published 400 daily deals and plans to expand to two more cities this summer.
GatherGreen users can sign up for daily email notifications free of charge on the website. Anyone can purchase a deal; however, each deal requires a minimum number of purchases in order to activate the discount. In this way, everyone wins: consumers save money, green merchants generate awareness and business, and GatherGreen gets a cut of the merchants’ profits for each deal.
In an effort to inspire more philanthropic giving, GatherGreen also features a Daily Action on its website. The Daily Action consists of a brief explanation of a notable non-profit and calls users to action with a “Give” button, which links directly to the corresponding organization’s donation page.
Regardless of whether or not the green movement is a fading trend, there is no doubt that GatherGreen is making strides in molding a healthier, more sustainable future by encouraging meaningful, socially-conscious spending habits and business practices. That truth alone is worth buying into.
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