Ina Herlihy believes that e-commerce brands are missing out on organic traffic and potential revenue by relying on third-party community sites like Reddit and Facebook Groups.
As the cost of acquiring new users rises, in some cases by hundreds of dollars, brands need to be more concerned with increasing retention and organic traffic, Herlihy told TechCrunch via email. By building an on-site community, brands can increase that retention and increase organic traffic because the community belongs in their domain.
Herlihy launched in late 2022 to build community software for brands to host communities on their own websites. AddGlow is the result.
“Community ownership is the next big marketing channel for the $17 trillion e-commerce market,” said Herlihy. “Brands that want to foster community do so primarily through Facebook Groups, but there are gaps for both customers and brands. For example, clients have no context about who is posting. We solve this with detailed user profiles so brands don’t lose ownership of the data and can reduce the number of steps to make a purchase.”
Here’s how it works: The New York-based startup collects data through brand-defined profile attributes, for example, skin concern, hair type or favorite type of shoe, so the brand can personalize the home page, product description pages, emails and TEXT.
Additionally, AddGlow integrates with a brand’s catalog so community members can tag products when they mention them. This allows website visitors to seamlessly add to their cart without leaving the community.
Meanwhile, through an on-site, loyalty-based loyalty program, community members can earn points for completing specific actions, such as completing their profile, posting and replying. All these are customized by the brand.
The company is still very much in its early stages after a year of product development. It now has $1.7 million in upfront funding to boost AddGlow into its next phase, Herlihy said.
Example of AddGlow profile and loyalty offers. Image Credits: AddGlow
The venture capital process took about two months, even though Herlihy is somewhat of a unique founder in this tough funding environment: A “non-technical solo founder with an idea,” as she described it.
Stellation Capital and Precursor Ventures co-led the round and were joined by Miles Bird at StoryHouse Ventures and a group of strategic angel investors including former Walmart executive Jeff Shotts, StockX co-founder Chris Kaufman, former Glossier president Henry Davis, of Zumper co-founder and CEO Anthemos Georgiadis and Walker & Company Brands founder Tristan Walker.
“I met Peter Boyce II (Stellation) and Charles Hudson (Precursor) through founding friends,” Herlihy said. “Before and during fundraising I asked tech friends which VCs they were most impressed by for pre-seed founders. Charles and Peter’s names were being heard more so I knew I needed them on my table.
The new capital allowed Herlihy to bring in engineers and a designer who had previous experience at brands like Walmart, Nike, eBay, Google and Twitch. After a year focused on product development, AddGlow’s second year will focus on revenue, Herlihy said.
“We started working with smaller brands and are now building additional features to support larger brands as well,” said Herlihy. “AddGlow helps give people a sense of belonging. Our goal is to create a safe space for community members to seek personal advice and make meaningful connections.”
