In this series, WeWork’s director of digital community selects a WeWork member to get to know better, sharing her fun findings with the rest of the community.
When WeWork members Pooja Desai-Singh and Sourav Dey created Glifft, the idea was to make gift-giving effortless and more fun for everyone. I talked to the first-time founders and friends about the most memorable gifts they’ve ever received, eliminating the information overload headache that comes with online shopping, and their favorite San Francisco Bay Area finds.
So what is GLIFFT, and what inspired you to create it?
Desai-Singh: About a year ago, Sourav’s wife was online looking for a gift, and she was spending hours, was very annoyed, and thought that there must be a service out there that could help her because it was a pain in the butt! And Sourav thought that he could do this. So he brought me on, and in January 2016 we started. In February 2016, we launched our first product. Why we thought the timing was right for this product—looking at the world where it is today, we saw this elimination of the middleman in many different fields—and the problem with that is the overwhelming amount of choice that’s created.
Dey: When my wife talked to me about her idea, my background in AI, working at Nest and Google—working in artificial intelligence and machine learning products—I realized that this could be a perfect application for machine learning. I thought “Why not me?” I needed help with marketing, so I pitched to Pooja—she didn’t need much convincing before jumping on board! So we left our jobs and really started in earnest in January.
What’s the most fun gift you’ve ever received and why?
Dey: I’m a big fan of Aziz Ansari, and my wife got me tickets to go to his book-signing event. Totally unexpected and really fun. It was the thoughtfulness of it all—fulfilling my man crush! The other great gift I’ve been given was a trip, and my wife set this up. Many years back, we went to a place called the Channel Islands, off the coast of Los Angeles. She’s not as into outdoorsy stuff as I am, but the fact that she was willing to organize a camping trip for me, learning about these things, was so incredibly thoughtful.
What problems do you hope to solve for reticent gift-givers around the world?
Desai-Singh: We want to make gifting better using data science. And that’s where Sourav’s background comes in. And for reticent gift-givers, before we even got started, in the six months when we were doing this on the side, we talked to a lot of customers, asking about their own experiences with gift-giving. The problem that we found was that it could be very time-consuming and very stressful. People want to be good gift-givers, and they feel that they either don’t have time to do it, or there are too many options out there. We want to make gift-giving fun again.
Dey: Right now, we have our curation, giving you some choices delivered to you. And this way, somebody is doing the work for you. And we’re developing a Tinder-for-gift-giving type app, so we can give you an infinite selection of gifts in a price point for someone. So it becomes more like a game, and you almost have a butler working for you, serving up options on a tray.
What are some of your favorite San Francisco Bay Area finds?
Desai-Singh: It’s funny because we’ve actually curated some things from the Bay Area for our catalogue. I love giving things from Heath Ceramics, a local ceramics company used in a lot of different local SF restaurants. They are microwave and dishwasher-safe, and they’re made locally in San Francisco, which makes them more special than your average gift. And there’s a great chocolate shop in the Mission called Dandelion Chocolate, created by two ex-Googlers.
Dey: I’m a big coffee geek. Pooja hates coffee, so we agree to disagree, but I dig all the micro-beaneries in San Francisco. My personal favorite is called Sightglass Coffee—I’ve given beans from there to my dad, for example. I sent him a whole packet of all the different beans that they have. And anybody who comes to San Francisco, I have to take them to Sightglass Coffee, so they can see what real coffee is like. Also, I’m big into experiences, so some of my favorite places are little unique SF places to go—there’s some weird stuff in the city. Since it’s so hilly here, there are giant slides, three or four stories, that you can slide down. There’s one in Bernal Heights—you can take the stairs, or you can take the slide! That’s a unique place I like to take people in the city.
Photos: Sarah Gerber