Founder Buys Free Gifts Back from SGN for Less than 10% of the Purchase Price [TCTV]

Zachary Allia is just 26 years old. He's either really lucky, is a negotiating savant or a combination of both. Back in 2007 when Facebook first opened their platform, Allia and a graphic designer pal came up with the Free Gifts app-- mostly because he was a poor college kid and paying $1 to send someone a picture of a cake seemed�exorbitant. He launched it and woke up the next morning to find it had 1 million users. It soared to ten million before he sold it to SGN in 2008.

Three things are notable about that deal: It was for a small undisclosed amount but Allia owned 100% of the company at the time, so it was likely a life changing amount of money; he chose selling to SGN over selling to Zynga (doh!); and he came to regret the deal once SGN abandoned the product to move more towards games. When Facebook abdicated its own virtual gifts product last summer,�Allia decided he wanted the company back. Getting it took some doing, as he explains in the exclusive interview with TechCrunchTV below.

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