Building Givz: From Investment Banking to Purpose-Driven SaaS

Leading a double life can spark unexpected innovation. In a recent episode of Category Visionaries, Andrew Forman revealed how straddling the worlds of investment banking and nonprofits led to creating Givz, a platform revolutionizing how brands approach discounts and charitable giving.

The Banker with a Mission “I’m a bit of enigma to some people,” Andrew explains, “because I did six years of investment banking while at the same time doing five years of running my own nonprofit and being the treasurer of a nonprofit. I kind of had these two yin and yang things, the work that paid the bills and then the nonprofit that gave me a bit of more meaning in my life.”

This dual perspective revealed a crucial insight: brands and nonprofits struggled to work together effectively, but solving that problem required more than just technical solutions.

The First Pivot After leaving banking for Harvard Business School, Andrew aimed to bridge the gap between commerce and giving. But the original vision faced challenges. Reading Ben Horowitz’s “The Hard Thing About Hard Things” proved invaluable during this period. As Andrew notes, “Being a Founder is just really hard and you have to make incredibly tough decisions that you frankly don’t want to make, but you know, are right in your gut.”

Finding Product-Market Fit The breakthrough came through H&M’s Pride Month initiative. After facing backlash for pre-selecting charities, the retail giant needed a better way to handle charitable giving. This led to Givz’s current model: letting customers choose where donations go while driving business results.

Scaling Beyond Retail Success with H&M opened new possibilities. “We really haven’t found a sector that doesn’t work yet,” Andrew shares. From pet supplies to CBD brands, the model proved effective across verticals. More importantly, it demonstrated consistent business impact: “Average order value goes from 67 to 84 within a couple of weeks and it stays there for the rest of the year.”

Building for the Future Rather than limiting themselves to retail, Givz is expanding into broader behavioral incentives. “We’re already extending outside of Ecommerce into brick and mortar, but also into incentivizing anybody to do anything,” Andrew explains. Their API-first approach positions them to become “the fabric that basically powers the future of this giving economy.”

Key Lessons for Founders

1. Personal experience across industries can reveal unique opportunities
2. Initial vision may need significant pivoting to find product-market fit
3. Solving acute enterprise pain points can unlock broader market potential
4. Focus on business impact while maintaining mission alignment
5. Build infrastructure that enables expansion beyond initial use cases

For B2B founders, Givz’s journey shows how combining industry expertise with social impact can create compelling enterprise solutions. The key is remaining flexible enough to evolve while staying true to your core mission.