Can they build the largest community of grocery shoppers in the world and still prioritize time for family? “YES!”
Did you know that Basket was founded and built by a dad? As a parent of three buying diapers, our CEO Neil Kataria wondered if he was getting the best savings ordering items online from Amazon and Diapers.com, or if he could save more shopping locally. As he researched, he found that shopping offline could save nearly 30 to 40 percent. Thus, the idea for Basket, to never overpay for groceries again, was born. (Lucky us!)
With Father’s Day approaching this Sunday, we wanted to take a moment to recognize our founder and CEO, as well as the influence of all the Basketeer fathers here. No, not the uncool ‘dad’ jeans, receding hairlines (yes, we noticed) and knowledge of Moana songs.
Admittedly, it’s totally endearing, but today, our Basket team wanted to salute the effort it takes to find the balance: to be a good dad, and ‘bring home the bacon’ … to make time for family dinner, and work at an exciting, fast-moving startup that has created the largest community of grocery shoppers in the world who are working to save each other time and money on groceries.
Prioritizing
Neil has children ages 4, 6 and 7. While he travels frequently, he works hard to prioritize quality time at home – not be ‘half in and half out’ – but instead focus on what is important. Just coming home can be a party he says, even if it’s “taking a box and making it into a fort.”
Brian Hoffner is our new head of business development, and has two young children. Despite a busy work schedule, he makes sure that, “family dinners are a must … no matter what time I get home, we wait until we are all together.” In his spare time, he also coaches his kids’ lacrosse teams, because, “being a dad means being as much a part of their lives as possible.”
New to Basket’s finance team, Jason Rubinstein has taken on a new activity, family karate, where the whole family trains and practices together on Saturday mornings. Good news: they all just graduated to gold belt! When asked how working at Basket might make him a better father, he answered, “There’s a toy store literally next door to the office. Just saying…”
Then there was the pink toddler potty delivered to Basket headquarters on Friday for the VP of Research and Development, Kirill Velikanov, ergh rather, for his 3-year-old daughter. Yeah, because that’s how you multitask as a dad.
Benefiting All Dads
What these Basket dads have in common is their love of family and passion in working to build the Basket community, where other dads can benefit too. Brian says using Basket means less time at the store and more time with your family, plus “more money in your pocket to spend on trips to the ice cream shop.” Jason says Basket can help dads find inspiration for trying different products or brands. And Neil keeps it real, noting how other dads can share their Basket list using the share feature of the app and not bicker as much with their wives about what to purchase and the right products and right brands!
So to all the dads out there, Happy Father’s Day! And hey, to our amazing Basket CEO and Founder, enjoy that microwaved breakfast burrito you saved 15% on at the grocery store and that your 4-year-old is likely to present to you this Sunday for brunch. You earned every delicious bite.
