GroupMe launched and sold in one year for $85 million without making a single penny.
In 2010, Jared Hecht’s girlfriend told him she hated using email chains to talk with friends during music festivals. Within 18-hours, him and his friend, Steve Martocci, built a prototype group messaging app and pitched it 2 days later at a TechCrunch hackathon. Their lives were about to change forever.. In a world without iMessage, word of GroupMe spread, starting a viral loop since users had to invite their friends. Steve and Jared quit their day jobs in August and stayed afloat using a small loan from Hecht’s parents. Now, hold on tight. By September they raised $850,000 in funding, in October they launched the official beta, November they realized this was far bigger than just music festivals, December they were sending 500k messages a day, and in January 2011, they raised another $10.6 million. The next two months brought their first acquisition, lawsuit, and competitors like Google+ and iMessage but none of that mattered. In May 2011, 370 days after launching, GroupMe was acquired by Skype for $85 million.