As Vice President of Product at Evite, Karen Klein wears a lot of hats. “I oversee product development, product marketing, merchandising and user experience. I love my role because it allows me to be analytic, strategic, creative and work with everyone across the company to achieve our business goals and revenue,” says Karen, adding that motherhood helps her excel at her job. “As a mom, I’m a core user of our products, so I love feeling invested in the products we build on a business and personal level,” she adds. Her newest “baby”? Evite’s new SignUp Sheets which make school volunteering and event organization a cinch.
The Local Moms Network asked Karen to share her journey with Evite, her working mom strategies and more.
Can you please tell us a bit about your background prior to Evite?
I’ve had 16+ years of Product/Ecommerce experience. In college, I worked at Shopbop and then got my career started at Bloomingdales in the buying program. I fell in love with both e-commerce, products and the business strategy behind it all. All of this led me to kick off my Product journey at Ticketmaster where I stayed for eight years really learning the ropes. I then moved on to Clique Media for 6 years, which encompassed publications like Who What Wear and DTC brands like Versed and Merit, before starting at Evite.
What have been the biggest changes since you came on board two years ago?
Evite has been around for 26 years and is a household name, but we are a small team working very much like a startup, so in my two years a lot has happened. We’ve overhauled our entire invitation experience to be much more user focused and elevated. Our goal is to always be helpful and fun for the host, so we continue to iterate on our current experience and think about how we can build new products like SignUp Sheets to help. In the last few years, it’s the first time the company has been profitable and we’ve grown over 50% YOY. It’s been an exciting ride and the fun is just getting started, as we start to think about how to go beyond the invitation itself.
Why is Evite the perfect mom party planning hack?
As a mom myself, I know our core users are busy, so we try to make planning and hosting events as easy as possible. At the core, we help moms keep track of their guest list and rsvps and better yet, we do the nudging for them, so they don’t have to remind guests to rsvp. We also know that many of the same moms are heavily involved in their kids’ school and sports activities and volunteering requires a lot of effort to coordinate. Our new SignUp Sheets product makes it much easier to do so. We made it easy, delightful and free to create signup sheets from any device (we know busy moms are on the go), and better yet we don’t include tons of ads like some of our competitors.
Do you have any “working mom” strategies?
I’d be kidding if I said I’ve figured this out. It’s really hard to balance it all, but I’ve realized that there is no real separation and you can’t always win on all fronts every day and that’s ok. Being a mom is my most important role and I’m thankful that I can use it as an advantage in my work because I truly understand our core user. I try to show up for what matters most to me and my kids, like baseball games, frequent school pickups and special family events, and I make sure it’s a known priority for me at work as well.
Are there any other female executives/CEO/founders that inspire you?
I have massive respect for any female founder, especially those juggling motherhood. I follow many of these women like Meg Strachan (founder and CEO of Dorsey) and Alex Taylor (co-founder of Perelel). They are building great products and businesses while juggling mom life and being real about the struggles.
What’s next for you and the brand?
There are many of us moms who work at Evite, so building tools that help run our lives and events more smoothly is what we’re about. Not to mention, celebrating anything should be fun and we want to be part of it (we love our moms night out too). SignUp Sheets is our first of many products we’ll build into our Evite ecosystem, to really make it a one stop shop for all event planning needs.
This story is sponsored by Evite.