Selleb
Georgetown University, McDonough School of Business
Industry: Consumer Social / AI
Founding Student Name(s): Claire Lee
Brief Description of Solution: Selleb is the first product discovery platform powered by purchase receipts. In a world of fake, incentivized, and sponsored reviews, we’re restoring faith in the $7 trillion e-commerce market by requiring every recommendation to be backed by proof of purchase. A key feature of our app is helping users find their “taste doppelgängers” by using AI to match users of similar purchase histories.
Funding Dollars: NA
What led you to launch this venture? It was an unrelenting fascination with personal taste, followed by a deep-seated frustration with existing social networks that have reduced our unique preferences to clickable, saleable moments. I wanted to create a platform that fully embraces the REAL choices people make in their lives – the purchases made through recommendations from friends and family or through word-of-mouth – ones with no ulterior motives.
THIS is where the gold is: the real inspiration/aspiration revealed in the unassuming moments when someone decides that a particular product, experience, or service matters enough to purchase with their hard-earned dollars. Selleb was born to capture those choices and to provide a space to tell the story behind the how, why, and what.
What has been your biggest accomplishment so far with venture? Turning a private Instagram account into a full-blown app has been surreal. What started as a side quest—a cheeky way to share receipts (read: favorite finds) with friends via Instagram—became a full-fledged platform that elevates the humble receipt to beautiful content. It’s not just about showing what people buy, but about giving receipts the power to become touchpoints for our taste IDs. Instagram did this with photos; Selleb will do this with receipts. Everyone is a tastemaker in their own right, and our biggest achievement is creating a dedicated platform for users to showcase their taste through their purchase receipts and connect with those with similar purchase histories.
How has your business-related major helped you further this startup venture? As a finance major, I’ve appreciated that idealism needs to be anchored in numbers if it’s going to have a standing chance at success. Finance taught me that even the most groundbreaking idea won’t survive without strong financial bones and that the answers often lie in knowing when to tighten the belt and when to go bold.
Which business class has been most valuable in building your startup and what was the biggest lesson you gained from it? Startup Studio. Biggest lesson: Your users have all the answers. All the theories, all the shiny concepts—they dissolve the second you hear real users talk about their needs, frustrations, and wishes.
What business professor made a significant contribution to your plans and why? Dale Murphy, who taught CLAB Startup Studio, gave me the space, framework, resources, and support to pursue my startup in earnest while I was back at school. I am forever grateful for the Startup Studio class, which gave me the perfect mix of freedom and structure to take Selleb to the next level while at school.
What founder or entrepreneur inspired you to start your own entrepreneurial journey? How did he or she prove motivational to you? No traditional entrepreneur or story lit the fire for me; I was just motivated by the relentless need for independence—the freedom to build on my terms, report to no one, chase an idea as far as it would go, and create something that did not yet exist. The real motivators are the nagging questions, the what-ifs, the little moments when you realize you cannot not do this.
What is your long-term goal with your startup? Building the largest, most trusted search and discovery engine in the world, powered by receipts. We’re taking the receipt from a dusty transaction record to a symbol of trust.
People should have a platform where everything they see is anchored by authenticity. We are that place. With Selleb, every recommendation comes with real receipts, proof that real people actually bought them, no strings attached.
How has your local startup ecosystem contributed to your venture’s development and success? Between the late-night coffee chats with people in the industry, the serendipitous meetups, and the fringe communities that live on Slack, Reddit, and Discord, there’s a world of resources right at your fingertips. If you’ve got an internet connection, there’s no excuse not to dive in head first. As long as you’re willing to ask questions and stay curious about getting to the bottom, there’s help and inspiration everywhere. You just have to spend a lot of time alone burrowing down the rabbit hole. My college campus also provided fertile ground for me to test out my ideas through several entrepreneurship initiatives (be it summits, competitions, etc.) and I am forever grateful for that.
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