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Featured Interview: Celest Benn, Founder of Free Birthday Stuff

February 7, 2008

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The following interview was written by Startup Princess writer, Jessica Cryer.

I hope your birthdays were the best as a child, mine were. Nothing seemed better than getting presents and becoming a year older. But, as we age things start to change. Presents and birthday parties are limited if any and suddenly becoming a year older isn’t so exciting. Wishing you could make birthdays fun again? Wish granted. Thanks to Celest Benn, founder of Free Birthday Stuff, birthdays are fun again!

Free Birthday Stuff is a website offering discounts, coupons and FREE stuff on your birthday! You can join any time and receive cool products and discounts-even if your birthday is today. You can also make suggestions of products you would like offered.

Even though Celest has barely been doing this a year, Free Birthday Stuff already has over 800,000 members! What potential for growth this company has…she gets to market to EVERYONE. Lucky Startup Princess, huh!? Wish you thought of it, don’t you? The amazing thing is Celest had the savings and foresight to think about the backend of the website…and how to keep track of all the vendors that offer free services and coupons, (she just got Six Flags to sign on last week)banner online so she didn’t have to do it herself or have the headache of keeping it straight herself. The bulk of her startup costs were spent on the programming of her site before she launched, but this year she will start reaping the benefits as companies begin to pay for their coupons to reach birthday boys and girls all over the country! If our crystal ball is working right, we predict that Celest will start getting offers from major companies to purchase her site in the next year or so…

Enjoy meeting Startup Princess Celest Benn, Founder of Free Birthday Stuff.com!

Name: Celest Benn

Hometown: San Jose, California

Current Residence (City, State): West Hartford, CT

Education: Ph.D. Psychology

Professional Background: I was a simultaneous interpreter (Spanish, French & Portuguese) with the DOD & NASA and then a Sports Psychologist, now I am a stay at home mom and started up www.freebirthdaystuff.com I was tired of all the doom and gloom in the world.

What you wanted to be when you grew up: a simultaneous interpreter I achieved this by the time I was 21 years old.

What you are: A mom, wife and a website founder

What inspired you? Too many glasses of wine at my daughters 4th birthday party. Please go to the site and on the right side 1st drop down you can read the story of how it all began.

How long have you been in business? 1 year, as a beta site and up and running officially as of February 2007.

How did you fund it? By savings and putting money away from paychecks and clipping coupons Read more

Written by Jessica Cryer · Filed Under Interviews 

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