Nick Chmura came up with the idea for his startup because he was fed up with getting nutcrackers for Christmas.
“For my first fifteen Christmases I got 35 nutcrackers,” he tells us. “These people loved me and wanted to get me something but they didn’t know what to get me. I know they love me, and I’m grateful for that, but what was I supposed to do with thirty-five nutcrackers?”
He founded BetterBoo — essentially a “Pinterest for gifts,” he says — in August 2011 because he wanted people to be smarter about gift giving. He originally caught the attention of investors with a YouTube video, where he had crafted his pitch for a startup competition.