In short order, Berman had met the one-stop-shop dream of her grad school thesis on sustainable design at Philadelphia University, and she’d received significant attention for her efforts, taking meetings with senior White House officials and even auditioning for Shark Tank. But late last year, Berman started hearing a different message from her users. Through Craigslist focus groups, social media interactions, and mailing list questionnaires, she heard that her users were overwhelmed by the content MilkCrate was providing and wanted more guidance and rewards for their socially impactful behavior.
“We decided to pivot our business model,” says Berman, “and instead of just giving users options of where to shop, we wanted to reward them, and create something social for them.”
