GroupValet Wasn’t Meant to be a Product — Until Members Turned It Into One

Like a lot of good ideas, GroupValet wasn't something I set out to build as a business — it started as a simple favor for a friend.

Ari was a close friend of mine and was responsible for organizing our weekly golf game at our club in Connecticut. What began as a casual foursome quickly grew to nearly twenty players, and with that growth came a lot more work for Ari. Every week, he was stuck chasing down RSVPs, managing tee times, and handling all the back-and-forth communication — and it became a real headache.

As a website developer (and someone who wanted to make sure my friend still enjoyed his own game), I offered to build a simple website to automate the scheduling, reminders, and RSVPs. It was built for just our group — nothing more.

But the tool worked so well that word spread fast. Other members at our club asked if they could use it. I said no. I had a full-time job and didn't want the hassle of expanding it. But the requests kept coming. Eventually, I gave in and rebuilt it to support multiple groups — canasta, bridge, mahjongg, committee meetings, and of course golf. Even our Director of Tennis started using it for his clinics and saw his income increase immediately. He loved it. But I still didn't think it was a product.

Then came the real turning point. Ari's father-in-law, Lew, ran the largest men's golf group at the club. He wasn't interested in trying my tool — Lew had run his group with a spreadsheet for years and saw no reason to change. But his wife Judy was using it for her canasta group and wouldn't stop talking about how much easier it made her life. Eventually, Lew gave in. And he loved it.

When the season ended, Lew asked if he could use it at his Florida club for the winter. I said yes and modified the system so it could handle multiple clubs. But what happened next blew me away — with zero involvement from staff, this little tool spread like wildfire at Lew's winter club. It started with his golf group and Judy's card groups, but as soon as other members saw how easy it made things, they started using it too. Within a month, 20 groups at that club were using it.

That's when it finally hit me: this wasn't just a helpful tool — it was a product. And more importantly, it was solving a problem members didn't even realize they could fix. It gave members a way to engage directly with each other, without needing staff to act as middlemen.

That's how GroupValet was born.

What's interesting is that the benefits went far beyond saving time for Ari and the other group captains. As more groups started using GroupValet, they started growing — fast. One group that had 12 members before using GroupValet grew to 25 members in just a month. It turned out that the desire to avoid the hassle of managing a larger group was the only thing holding them back, and with GroupValet removing that burden, captains were happy to welcome new members.

More than just growing groups, something even more valuable happened: members became more engaged — not because staff pushed more emails at them, but because members could now easily find, join, and even create their own groups and events. The platform made it easy for members to connect directly with each other, and that's when it all clicked for me: this wasn't just about activity management — it was about member engagement at its core.

Today, GroupValet helps some of the country's most prestigious clubs create that same sense of effortless connection for their members — while giving club staff the tools to support it without adding extra work. And it's still built on the same belief: the strongest member engagement happens when clubs empower members to engage with each other.

If you'd like to see how it works — or if you're stuck managing a group like Ari once was — I'd love to show you. After all, that's how this all started.