MEET
ELLIOT BOHM
With a master’s degree in
education, Bohm always
enjoyed making a difference
in people’s lives. Yet
while being a teacher and
professor was interesting
and exciting, he sensed
there was more opportunity
to be found in starting a
business—especially one
like CardCash.com.
Having always considered
himself an entrepreneur,
Bohm felt passionate about
finding ways for people
to save money. At only 25
years old, he and Ackerman
built CardCash.com and
became focused and
passionate about turning it
into a sustainable company
offering discounts, providing
a positive shopping
experience, and supporting
an internal team that always
works toward success
and progress.
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Imagining an online marketplace
where consumers could immediately sell unwanted gift cards and
buy others at a discounted rate,
Ackerman and Bohm believed that
this untapped market—in 2014, for
instance, close to $1 billion in gift
cards went unused—could be an
industry with a lot of potential. It
turns out that they were right.
Before diving headfirst into this
new venture, they ensured they
were working to solve a problem that
actually existed by spending time
exploring every vertical. To make
the dream a reality, they would need
capital, an e-commerce website, and
fraud protection.
With an initial personal investment
of only $2,000, they enlisted the help
of a freelance developer to create
a basic, e-commerce website. Once
launched, they focused on generating
media coverage for exposure. Without
making any investments on marketing
efforts, CardCash.com handled more
than $1 million in gift card transactions its first year.
From these humble beginnings as a
basement startup to the current state
as one of Forbes’ 100 Most Promising
Companies, CardCash.com has experienced significant growth—both internally and externally.
Industry Pioneers Blazing
the Trail to Success
According to co-founder and CEO
Bohm, effective growth is grounded in
your execution.
“It’s really about being on top of your
game and being sure that, whatever you
do, you execute properly. If you don’t
grow 100% year to year, that’s fine. If
you don’t execute properly, that’s not
fine,” says Bohm.
CardCash.com experienced this
firsthand when competitors began
cropping up around the country.
One of those, a Silicon Valley startup
named Plastic Jungle, raised more
than $30 million in venture capital
funding while garnering plenty of
attention about their business. By
focusing on creating buzz more
than developing their core product
and service offering, Bohm says the
company quickly burned through
their capital. CardCash.com moved in
to acquire them in 2014.
“You have to build a company
slowly and you have to build a
company smartly. Ultimately, [Plastic
Jungle] was an eye-opener that we
can’t get distracted. We can’t start
looking at what other people are
doing,” Bohm says.
In fact, Bohm often reminds himself
and his team to not direct their attention toward new, rising com