The NextWomen Start-up Interview series looks at women that are founding and leading online businesses across a number of technological markets.    We showcase the businesses of diverse female  innovators, making them notable and quotable. Today, Taryn Westberg, a MIT graduate in ocean engineering and a LBS MBA graduate, and now startup entrepreneur and co-founder of Glö.

1) How did you come up with the idea of your start-up?

Glö was born out of a need that we had when we were planning our own wedding in 2007. Our guests lived around the globe, and we were planning numerous activities in Italy (from the UK), so the thought of collecting everyone’s snail mail addresses, sorting out postage, and collecting all the RSVP information almost did my head in. In this day and age, we just didn’t see why we couldn’t send invites and collect RSVPs online.

We looked and looked for a solution that combined beautiful email wedding invitations along with a wedding website and online RSVPs, but we couldn’t find anything that offered the functionality we needed, plus felt sophisticated enough for a wedding. My brother (who is a web developer) ended up creating a system for us to use and the response from our guests and friends of our guests was so tremendous that we decided to start Glö.

2) How did you form your team?

The core team is me and my husband Enrico – My background is in customer-centric business strategy (after a degree in ocean engineering from MIT and an MBA from London Business School) and Enrico’s is in finance and venture capital. I like getting my hands dirty and making decisions based on intuition, and Enrico likes to be an advisor and analyze everything, so there is a healthy ‘checks-and-balance’ to the way we approach the business.

Although we’re both technically-minded, neither of us has a web or software development background, so we hired an initial team of designers and developers to create the software and front end user interface (website) for Glö. After that, we transitioned to a global team of partners to maintain and advance the site and continue to build the business.

We found our team by asking everyone in our network for referrals and then going through an extensive interview process and reference checks. It is important to us to choose team members who demonstrate passion and enthusiasm about our business, plus come highly recommended by those they’ve worked with on previous occasions.

We also have very good lawyers and accountants that advise us and kept us out of trouble.

3) How did you fund it, with how much money, and what is the business model?

To date, the business is entirely self-funded. We also had one partner who took a small equity stake in lieu of cash payment because he wanted to be involved with the business.

We will likely do a financing round in autumn to fund the next stage of growth.

We are a software-as-a-service business, and our business model is subscription based. Our customers pay an up-front fee to use the software for a period of 18 months, which can be extended if needed.

4) Can you tell a bit about your current funding process? Did you kiss a lot of frogs?

I only had to kiss my husband, so I really can’t complain! We evaluated the business opportunity together as we would any other investment – ensuring that the numbers stacked up and the business model was sound enough to justify our time, attention and seed-funding.

5) Do you have a mentor or coach?

I have had and will continue to have numerous mentors. Enrico and I are fortunate to be London Business School alumni, so we have access to an extensive alumni group who are very willing to provide advice and assistance.

I have one set of subject-matter-expert mentors who I can call when I’m facing a particular challenge, but I also have an informal network of incredibly smart and talented peers who I can bounce ideas off of over a glass of wine or a phone call.  I think both groups are essential when you’re starting a business.

I think an entrepreneur also needs a set of cheerleaders – friends and family members who help you through the low points and encourage you to keep going, but who will also give honest feedback when they see you headed towards a train-wreck of an idea.

6) What makes you different from other players in your sector?

Versus paper wedding invitation players, it’s easy – we’re totally virtual!

There are other email invitation players who are focused on being the next e-Vite, but their service offerings are slightly different than ours and they target more informal gatherings and get-togethers like dinners and birthday parties.

Glö is focused 100% on weddings, and therefore have some unique functionalities that engaged couples need. We are the only player that offers animated, email invitations integrated with a full wedding website. Users can add unlimited events (e.g., rehearsal dinner, golf day, ceremony, and reception) and RSVP questions to their site and select which guests are invited to each event. When viewing the couple’s site, guests only see the relevant events and RSVP questions. Guests are able to edit and update RSVPs for everyone in their household, exactly like a paper invitation and RSVP response cards.

7) What was your biggest challenge during the development process and how can other start-ups learn from that?

As with any business, we’ve had lots of challenges along the way! Fun things like deciding to scrap all of our prototype code and start over from scratch, finding a designer who ‘got’ our brand concept and positioning, and ensuring that our invitation emails arrive in inboxes instead of spam folders.

Overall, solving challenges just takes time, determination and a willingness to ask for help from others who are more knowledgeable than you are.

Three important learnings I’ve had are:

• Don’t rush into decisions, especially when it comes to choosing your team. The world of web development is not straightforward- every person and agency does something slightly different, and it’s important to take the time to understand exactly what you’re getting from each person, and where you’ll need to look for additional help.

• Never take ‘it can’t be done’ as a final answer. Ask someone else or do more research until you find someone who can help you solve the unsolvable challenge or offer an alternative approach that achieves a similar result

• Accept that sometimes you need to take a step back before you can move forward. Instead of struggling to fix something that is never going to be good enough, sometimes you need to scrap it, call it “experience”, and do it right the second time around. It’s a very painful decision to make, but it’s better than wasting time and money with something that is not 100% satisfactory!

8) Are you profitable?

After two months of being in-market, we’re close to break-even.

9) Where is the company in 1 year?

The main focus for the next twelve months will be to complete a funding round, continue to drive traffic to the site and continue to develop the product.

We’re planning to both build out our existing products, as well as introduce complimentary products and services. We expect to employ a CTO, Marketing Manager and a PR/ad agency to make our advertising and other marketing efforts more structured and effective.

We also have a couple of tricks up our sleeve and are paying close attention to customers’ feedback and requests.

And finally:

I owe a huge thanks to TheNextWomen which has been a true inspiration during this initial phase of building the business. I love the blog - particularly the great startup interviews, which I like to read on the days when a million things go wrong at once! I've also learned a ton from conversations I've had with fellow TNWers at the various events I've attended, so I just wanted to say thanks for bringing everyone together in this great community.

We are flattered, thanks [Simone Brummelhuis]