Tony Alexander of SimpleRegistry
Meet Tony Alexander, founder of
SimpleRegistry, a new kind of online gift registry.
How did you come up the idea for your business?
My partners and I had a previous startup called Traveler’s Joy that was (and is) a honeymoon registry service. SimpleRegistry is a much larger extension of that idea into the broader wedding registry marketplace. In addition, SimpleRegistry adds a baby registry, fundraising, and custom event registration to help capture a customer through various life events instead of “one and done” type of use.
What resources here did you take advantage of and how did they help?
Through my work over the past nine years and mentoring businesses in the area at places like The Brandery, I was able to build a great network of like-minded people. When it came time to launch SimpleRegistry and we decided to go after outside investment, it was relatively easy to get in front of the right local folks. Luckily, it worked out as CincyTech and others have already invested in our seed round.
What would you do differently if you started your business again?
I can’t really think of anything when it comes to SimpleRegistry. It’s pretty new. We have plenty of time to make lots of mistakes! When it comes to my previous startup, I would have tried to start networking more at an earlier stage. With Traveler’s Joy (started in 2004), I kind of put my head down for a few years getting it up and running and didn’t put myself out there and make many new friends in the entrepreneurial community during that time.
What’s next for you and your company?
We’re using our initial investment to ramp up our marketing and development budgets. We’re still testing some things out but have seen great growth every month. We hope to have 10,000 registries created this year and really look to expand that in 2013.