GroopBlog

It’s an exciting time in the Groopik office. We just received the approval to be one of the exhibitors at Saddleback’s 2007 Small Groups Conference that will be held on Feb 20-22. We’re working on our display strategy, which will hopefully be a lot smoother than the “non-strategy” I used to get us into the conference. I’ll explain…

I’m Caryn. I’m the “technologically-challenged” woman married to Groopik’s developer, Cristian. Up until December, my part in Groopik consisted of coming up with the name and logo, choosing colors for the design, and doing the typical “man’s chores” around the house while Cristian was coding. I bring great value to the Groopik team in the area of testing for “user-friendliness”, which basically means, if I can use the system, anyone can. So back to my non-strategy story…

I called Saddleback to see if we could exhibit our system at the conference and was quickly directed to Ron Wilbur, the Associate Director of Small Groups. I asked him if they were having exibitors at the conference, and he asked me what we had to offer, so I asked him if he was near a computer. He was, so I directed him to login to our demo account so I could give him a walk-through of our system. It was at that very moment that panic set in as I realized I had heard my husband explain Groopik a million times, but I had never done it myself. “Um…um…this is our Reports page. Um…uh…here’s where you see your reports.” (brilliant explanation) Then I froze some more, and had him click on the News tab, which we think it’s neat that you can post news, but it’s definitely not the coolest thing about Groopik. After I stuttered and ummed for a few more minutes, he ever so kindly helped me out and said, “Okay, I think I have a pretty good idea of what you have to offer.” He was very kind and encouraged me some more, and after discussing a few details, we left it that I would call him back later. I hung up the phone and cried out of total embarrassment. How could I not explain this way cool, incredibly easy-to-use tool my husband and I had lived for the past year? I was sure that Saddleback would say no to this flaky woman, but when I called back, once again Ron was very encouraging, and long story short, we’ll be there! Two things certainly took place that day. One, Ron Wilbur soared to the top of my heroes list for being so gracious. And two, I spent the rest of the day learning how to easily explain the Groopik that’s easy to use. I’m actually pretty good at it now. Swing by our booth, and I’ll tell you all about it.

In Dec 2006, we launched Groopik.com. This came after 7 months of “after hours” development. My day/weekend job is Media Director at NorthWood Church in Keller, TX. In 2006, I didn’t seem to get enough of web development and creative brainstorming from 9-5, so coding became my life. Actually, I love my job at NW, and plan to be there for a good long while, but even as a kid, I dreamed of running my own business one day.
The idea for Groopik took form out of a wish list we had for our small group ministry at NorthWood. There were obvious “make-my-life-easier” features on the list, like receiving instant reports, assigning actions to leaders, helping visitors easily find groups, etc…but in a nutshell, here’s what we wanted: