REV was a big commitment for GroupCard. It meant moving our development team from Milwaukee to Palo Alto, subletting a small two-bedroom house for the team (at thirty-three freaking hundred dollars a month), and saying farewell to friends and family for the summer.
So was it worth it? Without a doubt I say yes. But you already knew that, or else they wouldn’t let me post this, right? You’re no dummy.
What’s more interesting and instructive is why. Why was it worth it? There were a lot of reasons, but I’ll focus on the biggest one: Access.
Of course REV gave us better access to people at facebook. If you need help with the api or need to report a bug (God forbid), there’s nothing like making that request from the old facebook campus.
But that’s nothing like making real friends and finding mentors inside facebook, like Kristin, Cat, Julia, Josh, Randi, and others (forgive omissions, trying to be pithy). You can’t overestimate the importance of spending time with these people, who can say “Why aren’t you doing this? It’s working for other people.” Or “Hey, we just launched this new feature, you need to start using it.” Or “You want me to put your link on this page with kajillions of visitors? Sure!” Their perspective is second to none. They run the biggest site in time and space for cripes sake.
Then of course there are all the speakers. Dave and team lined up some spectacular people to visit us — all A-list luminaries with expertise in their respective fields; venture capital, metrics, virality, payments, mobile-web, and generally how to run a startup.
Many of these people generously share their knowledge through blog posts and articles. But that’s not the same as meeting them in person. There’s no substitute for asking BJ Fogg his thoughts on our product, revenue strategy, and funding prospects. Or asking Eric Ries “What are we doing wrong?” and having him answer and help redesign our testing methodology. Or trading cards with VCs, press, and top brass from the biggest internet companies.
And last, REV gave us access to people like us — small hungry companies rapidly iterating through ideas to push their company forward. And everyone was generous with their ideas and time. “This worked for us, you should try it.” “Does this look right to you?” “Did you get much return from this?” “Hey, so-and-so, meet my friend, who happens to be awesome.”
So there you have it, we had a great time and met a lot of great people. It’s a good gig if you can get it. 
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Bob Ralian is the Co-Founder and CTO at www.GroupCard.com. Also check out our facebook app and our new product, cash.io.
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