HeartThis

HeartThis emerged in the e-commerce landscape as a centralized platform for online shopping, often described as a 'Pinterest for shopping'.

The company was founded in 2012 by Andrew Gadson, who previously served as a senior software engineer at MySpace, and Scott Eister, a former product manager lead at YouTube. Their combined experience in large-scale social and content platforms likely informed the development of HeartThis's user-centric discovery model.

The platform's core function was to aggregate products from various online stores into a single, personalized feed for the user. Consumers could follow their preferred retailers and product categories, creating a curated shopping experience. A key feature was the notification system, which alerted users to sales and promotions from the stores they followed, aiming to drive purchasing decisions through timely discounts.

Operating in the social commerce and affiliate marketing space, HeartThis's business model was predicated on driving traffic to retail partners. It served as a discovery engine for consumers and a lead generation tool for retailers. The company attracted venture capital from notable investors including Freestyle Capital, Founder Collective, and 500 Startups.

After operating for a few years and building a user base, HeartThis was acquired by the local services marketplace Thumbtack in February 2015. While the financial details of the acquisition were not disclosed, the move was positioned as a talent acquisition, with the HeartThis team joining Thumbtack to enhance its product and engineering capabilities.

Keywords: social commerce, e-commerce discovery, affiliate marketing, personalized shopping, online retail aggregator, fashion tech, shopping feed, talent acquisition, product discovery, consumer tech