Industry Internet Website www.treering.com Area served United States of America | Products yearbooks Founded 2009 | |
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Founder Aaron Greco, Brady McCue, Kevin Zerber; Chris Pratt; (co-founders) | ||
TreeRing is a Silicon Valley, CA-based technology company providing on-demand digital printing of customizable school yearbooks in the US and Canada.
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It is one of the first start-ups that changed the traditional yearbook industry: the company designed free software with social-networking features allowing the creation of personalized yearbooks and offered a new business model eliminating the financial cost of yearbooks for schools.
Distinctive features
TreeRing's publishing platform allows the school community to collaborate on web-based yearbooks saved using cloud storage. Its users can add, share, and comment on photos, memories, and events. Students and their parents can customize their copy of the school yearbook by uploading their own content for personalized pages. As a result, in addition to a print version, schools can opt to share an online yearbook.
The company's business model does not impose any financial obligation on schools signing up with TreeRing. Unlike traditional publishers business models based on offset printing techniques, there are no minimum orders. The ordering and paying for yearbooks is done online.
Business activities
In 2012, TreeRing printed 125,000 yearbooks and raised $3.6 million in the first round of venture funding in the Silicon Valley. The list of the company's investors included Mike McCue (a Flipboard co-founder), Rich Barton (Expedia and Zillow founder), Second Avenue Partners, Cedar Grove Investments and others.
In 2013 the company served more than 2,000 schools across the US and was anticipating production of over 200,000 yearbooks.
Awards
Social responsibility
The company prints its yearbooks on recycled paper and plants a tree for every printed copy.