Assertion certainty 4/5 debate potential 1/5

Tobaccowala: Evite Conceived in 1998 as Consumer Adaptation of Web Calendar

Selina Tobaccowala · Evite: Selina Tobaccowala · Nov 11, 2019 · at 22:57

Evite co-founder Selina Tobaccowala recounts the origin and timeline of pivoting from enterprise calendar software to consumer event planning.

0:00 / 0:12exact quote · 12.5s
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“We're sitting outside, and we said, oh, well, what if we take this web calendar thing and we let consumers do it? Let them organize stuff with their friends. And that was the birth of Evite, and this was July, August, 1998.”

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