Who is Brian Whiteman?
Brian Whiteman came to consumer tech from the printing business. He and his wife, Julie Whiteman, owned a printing company, and that trade knowledge shaped GrooveBook, a subscription app that automatically turned up to 100 smartphone photos a month into a small printed book mailed to the user for $2.99. The key insight was the grooved spine: it kept the finished books flexible enough to qualify for bulk postal rates, which made the low price workable. By the time the couple pitched on Shark Tank in Season 5 (aired January 2014), GrooveBook had about 18,000 subscribers.
They asked for $150,000 for 20% equity and instead accepted $150,000 from Mark Cuban and Kevin O'Leary for 80% of the licensing rights, leaving the Whitemans with full ownership of the company. Subscribers climbed past 500,000 after the episode aired. In November 2014, Shutterfly bought GrooveBook for $14.5 million, and the Whitemans stayed on as consultants. Shutterfly shut the GrooveBook service down in April 2022.
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