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Highlights
Patient Growth and Product-First: How &Open’s Founder Built a Global Gifting Platform
Most startup stories follow a familiar playbook: raise capital, grow fast, expand quickly. But in a recent episode of Category Visionaries, &Open CEO Jonathan Legge shared a different path – one of intentional restraint and deep customer understanding that turned a small e-commerce operation into a platform now shipping over a million gifts annually for clients like Airbnb, Spotify, and Atlassian.
The journey started with a simple insight. While running a boutique e-commerce business, Jonathan noticed that “over like 33% of our revenue was coming from corporate requests.” But the real catalyst came from an unlikely source – being Airbnb hosts themselves. They witnessed firsthand how corporate gifting often went wrong, even for innovative companies.
“We experienced their gifting firsthand. They tried to gift a guest of ours. We saw how generous they were trying to be with their gifting, but we also just saw how epically wrong it went,” Jonathan explains. “Nobody knew they were sending a gift. In particular, the guest, who was the intended recipient, had no idea they were going to get a gift. And then they also had no idea that they’d even tried to gift. And Airbnb had no idea that the gift had failed.”
This observation led to a bold move – reaching out to Airbnb directly. The response? “We really appreciate that, but you guys are way too small. You’re operating out of your garden shed.” But persistence paid off. After securing a meeting, Airbnb invited them to participate in an RFP against eleven US retailers.
What followed was a crucial decision that would shape &Open’s future. Rather than rush to scale or immediately seek funding, they spent two years serving only Airbnb. “For two years they were our only client because we were just learning so fast and really didn’t have the capacity to take on anything else,” Jonathan recalls.
This patient approach was intentional. “We were self funded, and we remained self funded for three years,” Jonathan explains. “I wanted us to stay self funded because I wanted us to really understand what we’re doing and to have the foundations in a really strong place before we took in outside capital.”
This foundation-first mentality proved critical when tackling the complexities of global gifting. Starting from Ireland forced them to master cross-border logistics early: “Through a lot of hard lessons and being forced to do so from a tiny island on the edge of the Atlantic.” This early challenge became a competitive advantage as they scaled internationally.
Their approach to gifting itself also broke from convention. Rather than focusing purely on logistics or product selection, they reimagined the entire experience. “Maybe you should give the person who’s going to get the gift a modicum of choice,” Jonathan explains. “Don’t give them a voucher to Amazon prime where they can choose anything from batteries to a box set of West Wing. But give them something that’s curated enough that it shows the thought you’ve put into it and as a business, that it represents your brand.”
This philosophy has shaped their product development. Working with Spotify during the pandemic, they created contextual gifting experiences. As Jonathan describes: “The messaging was like, we don’t even know if you wear pants anymore because all we’ve seen is your head for the last year. But if you do wear pants, we found the best possible pair of pants.” Recipients could choose between the pants, a Headspace subscription, or donating to Black Girls Code.
Looking ahead, Jonathan sees &Open building more than just a gifting platform. “The question we’ve been talking about a lot of recent is like, how do you scale thoughtfulness?” The vision is to create a “gifting ecosystem” where senders, recipients, and vendors form an interconnected network that makes thoughtful gifting as seamless as booking a ride.
For founders building category-defining companies, Jonathan’s experience offers a powerful counterpoint to the “grow at all costs” narrative. Sometimes, the path to scaling globally starts with serving one customer extraordinarily well.
Actionable
Takeaways
Look for Opportunities to Improve Flawed Experiences:
Jonathan and his team identified the potential to transform corporate gifting by experiencing firsthand how a well-intentioned company like Airbnb was falling short in its execution. By digging deeper into the root causes of these shortcomings, they were able to design a solution that addressed the underlying issues. Founders should actively seek out flawed experiences in their target markets and use those insights to drive innovation.
Curate Offerings to Balance Novelty and Reliability:
&Open's gift marketplace features a mix of trendy direct-to-consumer brands, timeless classics, and unique local finds, ensuring that there's something to suit every taste and occasion. By carefully balancing novelty and reliability in their curation, the company can keep its offerings fresh and exciting while still meeting the needs of a broad range of customers. Founders should consider how they can strike a similar balance in their own product or service portfolios.
Embrace Constraints as a Catalyst for Creativity:
Being based in Ireland forced &Open to confront the challenges of cross-border logistics and regulatory compliance from day one. Rather than seeing these constraints as a hindrance, the team leveraged them to build robust processes and partnerships that have become a key differentiator as the company has expanded globally. Founders should reframe the constraints they face as opportunities to develop creative solutions that can serve as long-term advantages.
Prioritize Foundations Before Pursuing Growth:
Despite the temptation to capitalize on early traction and scale rapidly, Jonathan chose to keep &Open self-funded for three years to ensure that the company had a solid operational foundation and a clear understanding of its business model before taking on external capital. By prioritizing fundamentals over growth in the early stages, founders can set themselves up for more sustainable success in the long run.
Design for Emotional Impact, Not Just Functional Utility:
At its core, &Open's platform is designed to create joyful, emotionally resonant experiences for gift recipients. By focusing on how each interaction makes the end-user feel, rather than just optimizing for efficiency or transaction volume, the company is able to build deeper, more meaningful connections between its clients and their stakeholders. Founders should consider how they can infuse their own offerings with a sense of emotional impact and human connection.
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