Leisa:  Hello, I’m Leisa Holland Nelson and welcome to another edition of Women Mean Business, where we’re going to take you up close and personal with extraordinary women doing extraordinary things.  My guest today is Katy Aucoin, the CEO and Founder of dearduck, a brand new mobile app that helps you with gifting.

Katy:  Yes, thank you Leisa, I’m so excited to be here.

Leisa:  Well we’re excited to have you, tell us about dearduck.

Katy:  So dearduck takes the guesswork out of gifting and if you think of all the times that you have to choose gifts for people, even if it’s as simple as going to someone’s home and bringing wine you’re thinking red, white, which type of red, which type of white?  It’s a constant guessing game.  And so dearduck learns this information for you so that you can give the perfect present to anyone at any time.

Leisa:  So how do I get to dearduck or use it?  I have a million questions; who are the users?

Katy:  Great question.  So right now we’re an IOS app and you can download it in the app store.  And the way that it works is everyone is a gifter and a giftee.  And so you download the app, invite your gifting circles, whether it be your coworkers, your family or friends.  And we have researched very heavily different categories, like people have various consumer DNA as we like to say; your scent preferences, your taste, these things that you don’t normally talk about with everyone.  And so you tap once if you like something, twice if you don’t, we store this data and it acts just like a Google search.  You enter someone’s name and we match them against these points to make the right recommendations for them.

Leisa:  Oh my goodness.  Well I have a technology company so I have one big question for you – how long did it take you to build this?

Katy:  We’ve been researching the market for 2 years and building for about 6 months.

Leisa:  I mean this is just beyond exciting, where did the idea come from?

Katy:  I’ve always loved giving gifts and I know that I wasn’t always great at doing so.  And I started noticing that I was finding myself saying there’s a gift receipt when I would give a gift rather than excitedly say open it.  And so the more research that I did – I have a background in data analytics and that’s what I was doing before dearduck – so I realized that we lack this information and the guides that are out there are things like the Gift Guide for the Mom or the Woman Entrepreneur or the Graduate and they were grouping people as if they all had the same consumer DNA.  And so looking at these details that were missing to make that perfect present choice is where we started.

Leisa:  So if there was one thing you would want our audience to know about dearduck what’s the most important thing it’s going to do for you?

Katy:  It will make your life easier.  And our mission is to strengthen relationships through effective gifting.

Leisa:  That’s great, that’s great.  So this has been quite a journey – 2 years – and you’re very young so it’s a lot of your life so I would love for you to share with our listeners advice that you have for them to achieve the success that you have.  I mean to get live and get in the app store is a big deal.  I mean it is, congratulations.

Katy:  Thank you, it’s so exciting for us and it’s been a lot of hard work and just the beginning for us.  So for anyone that is looking to start a company you really have to surround yourself by experts and people that will believe in your passion and vision.  And I’ve done so with surrounding myself with an amazing team – we have 7 amazing women on dearduck’s team – and also mentors and advisors along the way.

Leisa:  Okay, thank you very much.

Katy:  Thank you so much.

Leisa:  There you have it, another extraordinary woman doing extraordinary things.  I’m Leisa Holland Nelson, Vice President and Chief Marketing Officer of Astoundz, your one click, one search, one company for all things interactive; websites, search engine optimization and social media.  You can find me at Astoundz.com or follow me on Twitter @LHNelson.  We’ll be back again next week with another edition of Women Mean Business.