We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Caroline Creidenberg a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Caroline, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today What’s the backstory behind how you came up with the idea for your business?

I first started Wedfuly back in 2017, my senior year of college while studying computer science. I was searching for a more female-dominated industry where I could flex my software engineering skillset while surrounded by a culture that I felt at home in. Initially, The wedding industry was and still is very female dominated so I started to look for a job at an existing wedding-tech company, but quickly realized there weren’t a ton of companies that gracefully merged the tech side and wedding side. What was born from that was what we call internally Wedfuly 1.0 – a virtual wedding planning app where couples could work with a real wedding planner online. We built that product out and entered two markets from 2017-2020. When the pandemic hit, couples were frantically trying to figure out how to salvage their wedding and a lot of couples were looking for full refunds. As a bootstrapped company, I knew we would go out of business during this time if we didn’t think on our feet. While on a pandemic walk in early March of 2020, I thought of offering virtual weddings where guests could attend remotely. From there, I put together a partnership with Zoom and offered 50 free virtual weddings. We got hundreds and hundreds of sign-ups and I followed the demand and started putting together a more formal product offering. It was a crazy, hectic time, but I was able to bring on an amazing team and together we hosted over 700 weddings in 2020 alone. Around June of 2020, the lightbulb went off for our entire team that this livestream/virtual wedding offering could be more than just a pandemic fix, but was an amazing way to allow couples to have an intimate wedding without leaving anybody out. And thus Wedfuly 2.0 was born and has flourished! Since March of 2020 we’ve hosted over 1,300 weddings and have fine-tuned our service to be an amazing post-pandemic offering.

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.

Wedfuly is all I’ve ever known in my working life. I started it my senior year of college in 2017 and have had the most amazing, difficult, emotional, and growth-filled past 6 years because of it. I’ve had the privilege of experiencing everything I dreamed of as a 22-year-old college student. As mentioned earlier, I kind of fell into the wedding industry simply by searching for a job as a software engineer. There aren’t a lot of industries out there that are so predominantly female-run like the wedding industry. I always joke that I was wide eyes and bushy-tailed when I entered into this journey and without the naive start I had, I probably would have never started this business. A lot of investors or startup people like to bet on second-time founders because they’ve been down the path before and know what they would do differently, but I think first-time founders have the benefit of NOT knowing the path and really pushing the boundaries because of that.

I’ve always been an outside-of-the-box thinker and doer. Since I was a little kid, I always like pushing boundaries and doing the opposite of what everyone else was doing. That paired with the confidence I had at a young age really set me up for success on this path. It has humbled me and also allowed me to gain wisdom beyond my years especially when it comes to managing and building a team. That is something that I’ve found a lot of joy in and learned a ton from. I’m really proud of the leader I’ve become through this experience. I care deeply about the culture and the people that make Wedfuly what it is.

Have you ever had to pivot?

Our story is the story of the ultimate pivot! When COVID hit in 2020, we were going to go out of business, but what truly felt like a hail mary, allowed us to pivot within our industry to offer a completely different service, one that was new to many people. Through that pivot, I felt the euphoric feeling of product market fit. I spent years banging my head trying to know what product market fit would feel like, thinking I had product market fit. It wasn’t until we pivoted and started offering our virtual/livestream wedding service that I felt it. And it’s true what they say – when you know you know!

For me, pivoting was all about following what was making sense and building as we went. I believe Wedfuly saw so much success because there wasn’t time to overthink the small decisions and we had to go with our gut. I know there are horror stories about moving too quickly, but I do believe that there is a fine balance to hit between moving quickly and acting intentionally. Our pivot was life-changing for the business and allowed us to build a product that people truly needed.

How did you put together the initial capital you needed to start your business?

I started Wedfuly with $500 from my bank account during college. In the early days, me and my then co-founder were freelancing, working odd jobs, and cutting back our living expenses like crazy. I was at a stage in life where I only had to worry about myself, I didn’t have a family or dependents to worry about, so I was able to find a living situation where I shared a curtain between the room with my roommate. I worked a job at a coworking space to get free office space and ate leftover pizza from free events they had each night. I truly put all my resources into growing the business the way I knew how. Our business expenses were less than $1000 each month so once we had one paying customer per month, we were breaking even. We didn’t have a fancy logo or branding, we didn’t have agencies helping us do marketing, we really buckled down to grow the company organically. From there, we took all customer dollars and put it back into the company and that’s how we grew. Once we hit about $1 million in revenue, I was able to take on some friends and family funding, but I did it using the Indie.vc investment vehicles which meant I could buy back my equity if I chose to or I could go raise VC capital, but I had optionality which was intentional. I am a firm believer that VC capital too early on in the game can ruin a company rather than help. Bootstrapping until you know what the paths are for your company is the way to go in my opinion and I have a few advisors/mentors who helped me see this vision along the way to thank.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://wedfuly.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/wedfuly/
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/caroline-creidenberg/
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCWWqKXNGjFhIK1wH1ZibK5w/videos