As of Tuesday, Daymaker (the artist formally known as CommuniGift) went live! A few years back, we made it our mission to create a meaningful, relatable giving experience for kids across the country on their birthday. Our solution: a birthday invitation platform where the host can choose a child with a different set of circumstances and invite his or her party guests to direct gifts to them instead. We launched the platform in Los Angeles as “CommuniGift” in July 2015 and feedback came quick. Parents LOVED the idea of avoiding party excess and gaining a meaningful experience for their child, but we struggled to get past one thing…
Feedback everywhere told us one thing had to change: our name. It loomed in the back of our minds. Each day that we got closer to the experience we had set out to create, we came realized that our name did not reflect the product. So this week, for the first time as Daymaker, we share with you three points of feedback that helped us discover who we were.
- Can. your. users. say. it? Seriously, can they say your name in conversation? We’d set out with a platform that would be primarily used by young, busy parents and their KIDS. Even our biggest champions (once we actually had champions) would introduce us as “Community Gift” or even the occasional “Communion Gift” or sometimes they would simply trail off and hope we’d finish the word “Commun-…..” With each occurrence, we began to realize that if our people can’t say it, how in the heck are they going to stay excited about it? We had put an unnecessary compound word in front of them and asked them to associate it with a very special, personal day (and one where their child was learning about giving back). The way people talked about their experience was warm, personal, and fun… and our name was nothing of the sort.
- Can your users find it? Let’s say another parent described to you their experience hosting a CommuniGift Birthday party: fun, engaging, and the most meaningful conversation they’ve had about giving back with their kids. You sit down at the computer and…. nothing. You wanted the story you heard, but you didn’t know how to get to it. You start typing words like “in lieu of gifts” and “give back birthday” and you stumble through some good options but they’re not the story you heard. Once we connected a few dots, we were able to capture those wandering searches; more users were searching for “Community Gift” than our actual name.
- If they can say it, and they can remember it… can they get excited about it? We thank our lucky stars that someone finally came to the table saying “the name has got to go” and also added “when you’re ready, I’d love to fix it.” Thus began five months of relearning who we were. We asked all those users still trying to find us on Instagram what we meant to them, what we meant to their kids, and it began to take shape. For many, we were the first conversation they’d ever had with their child about giving back. Stories of children hopping into the back seat of the car after school and asking, “Did my friends send gifts to my birthday buddy?!” solidified for us the importance of our name reflecting the experience: simple, personal, and relatable. When we got to our shortlist, feedback became the final step. We turned to our most honest customers, like eight-year old Millie who giggled as she said, “Yeah. I like that. Daymaker”
This week we became Daymaker. We’re now distributing gifts to nonprofit partners and seeing more birthdays giving back in more places than ever before. We now have a name that feels as good as the days we’re a part of, and it’s all on the back of listening and responding to a whole lot of relatively simple feedback.
I’m Zack Newbauer (@znewbs) director of partnerships at Daymaker (wow that feels good to say). My work specifically is to build out our network of product distribution to our nonprofits partners across the country. Our nonprofit partners use Daymaker (wow again) to connect their program participants with moments of celebration and joy, and we are honored to be a part of that.
