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03/26/12 | Uncategorized

Showcasing My Startup At SXSW

Buyvite showcases at Tech Cocktail at SXSW 2012.
By Brandy Wimberly (Founder & CEO, Buyvite)

What an awesome adventure SXSW has been for Buyvite! We were honored to present our company at two great events and the exposure we gained from showcasing our software was unmatched. We’re so grateful to Startup America and Tech Cocktail for the invites and glad that we’re now a little wiser about the whole SXSW experience.

I was definitely not prepared for my first night which consisted of scrambling for parking during a torrential downpour in an unfamiliar city (I drive like a Yankee, apologies to my passenger) to missing a badly needed cocktail hour to presenting a one minute summary of a company that took a year to build to 1000 skeptical strangers. The low-key casual vibe is also so awesome but I was not totally in that head space, coming from the ultra formal pitch events back in our area.

While startups are tossed around like Tic-Tacs at SX, where else can you meet so many amazing people representing so many leading companies? It’s so worth attending SXSW if you’re ready to launch your company, and for us the most important aspect of presenting at these events was the validation we received and the overwhelming response of “I can use this product.”

We loved most of the people we met, saw a lot of friends, made some fantastic contacts, and most importantly connected with people we respect who understood the problem we solve.

It’s a problem most everyone can relate to, fronting the costs of a group transaction, then having to get paid back from friends and family down the road. Buyvite solves this problem. Essentially Buyvite was built to be a group payment, payment option.

Buyvite is a group payment platform that allows multiple people to contribute to a single transaction. Our payment API can be integrated with any e-commerce cart as a payment option, just like a credit card, PayPal or Bill Me Later.

Our patent-pending solution allows an organizer to invite friends and family to a group purchase like event tickets, group gifts and vacations and translates the contributions to a single transaction. We feel we have simplified the entire group purchase life cycle and have built the ideal and most user-friendly group payment solution. We are currently not live to the public yet-but are preparing for launch. We have integration commitments from several top-tier partners that we’ll be announcing very soon.

We’re planning to open up our Series A Round to build our management team, put some muscle behind our customer acquisition and continue to enhance our solution for our partners and site members. You can always reach us at info@buyvite.

We left Austin a little wiser and optimistic about the future of our company. We all agree that one of the coolest things about attending SXSW is the possibility that some of the startups from this year might have a booth next year!

Editor’s note: Got a question for our guest blogger? Leave a message in the comments below.
Brandy Alexander-WimberlyAbout the guest blogger: Brandy Wimberly is Founder and Chief Marketing Officer of Buyvite, a startup focused on the social commerce space. Follow her startup on Twitter at @buyvite.

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