GroupMe: JARED HECHT

Jared Hecht (Columbia College '09) applied his management and tech background as former Business Development Manager at popular blogosphere Tumblr to pursue his own pet project: launching the mobile group-chat application, GroupMe, with his friend Steve Martocci. Jared and Steve left their respective jobs to work on GroupMe full-time beginning in July, and after only three months of brainstorming, financing, programming, and fine-tuning, they had developed a full-fledged social networking device. GroupMe originated as an idea in response to his fiancee's dissatisfaction with group-communication options, and now it has received notable attention from the New York Times and Tech Crunch about the impressive $850,000 funding they were able to solicit from investors.

Jared impressively demonstrates how capitalizing on a good idea can quickly turn into greatness in the lightening-speed world of the Internet and mobile communication.

 

What exactly is GroupMe?
GroupMe is a real-time group chat platform.  It's like BBM (BlackBerry Messenger), except it works on every phone that can text message and it also has voice.  You can also think of it like private Twitter, or reply-all over SMS.  Oh, and it's totally free.

How many GroupMe users are there?
More today than yesterday.  And more tomorrow than today.

Describe your day-to-day responsibilities.
I'm the "business guy."  My job is everything except for coding and developing product.

Where do you get your entrepreneurial instincts?
Jupiter.

How many hours a day do you spend on a computer?
Too many!

What has been your greatest challenge?
Work/life balance.

What is the achievement you’re most proud of?
I was once the national chess champion many years ago.

What living person do you most admire?
My fiancee.

What is your most visited website?
Our GroupMe stats page.  I check it religiously.

Your most-used social media forum?
GroupMe (I'm biased) + Twitter.   

What kind of phone do you have?
BlackBerry.  Soon to be Android.

Most irritating phone-related social faux-pas?
The unsolicited phone call.  Can't live with 'em, can't live without 'em.

Where do you see yourself in 5 years?
I don't even know where I'll be this afternoon let alone 5 years.

What is your current state of mind?
Energized.

What is your motto?
Wu wei.

Best thing about being a young professional in New York:
Being surrounded by other ambitious, smarter people.