Working at theicebreak, and any startup really, is incredibly exciting stuff. Many times you might feel like you’re going to work blindfolded, right after being spun around 100 times. But, as chaotic as that might be, it’s also the really, really fun part. You never know what’s going to happen from one day to the next, or what’s going to take off and gain traction and user interest until after you’ve put it out there for your users….or in this case send it to them. Below is the story behind how our newest offering for couples—the Date in a Box monthly subscription service—got started. But first, a bit about the box…

For around $35 a month, we’ll send you and your sweetie a themed “date in a box.” We believe that the best moments of a relationship are born out of shared experiences, and so each box will contain everything you and your honey need to experience a fun and romantic date night together at home. Maybe you have kids and can’t get out much, maybe the tough economy means you don’t have a lot of extra cash to spare on extravagant nights out, or maybe you just want to spend some intimate quality time at home together; our Date in a Box lets you do just that. And the best part is that each box is handcrafted with love, for you and your love.

Now back to the story…

For the holidays, we really wanted to send a personal, handcrafted thank you to some of our heaviest users, our advisors, our investors, remote employees, incubators we’ve been a part of, supporters of technology that focuses on the female consumer, and people who had already written about us (note: no one was expecting to receive anything, and so no one had any idea it was coming when they wrote about us previously). We’re a startup and don’t have a lot of money, and just holiday cards alone can be kinda lame, so we came up with the idea of sending out a “date in a box.” We had tossed around the idea for the product before, but had never really done anything with it besides put it into a Google Doc, and so we thought, well…let’s make one for fun for these folks and send it out—that’s way better than a holiday card.

The theme of the box was Parisian Café, and I spent the entire weekend preceding the holidays stamping, gluing, crafting, and even burning myself with lots of hot wax (which was used to seal the envelopes full of croissant cookies and French coffee). At the end of the weekend, my house was a disaster, but the boxes looked pretty and my “love language” is gift-giving—so I had fun.

Then a funny thing happened over the past couple of weeks—several people started talking about their boxes on social media and tweeting pictures of them, and then we started getting requests—lots of requests like…

“omg too cute! where can I actually buy that?!”

(Photo credits: Alexia Tsosis & Chelsa Skees)

And that’s when it dawned on us—we should start selling these things for real.

So, if you want a fun surprise date with your sweetie, and you’d like to be notified of when the Date in a Box subscription service starts, go to the signup page and put in your email—you’ll hear first when they’re ready to launch!

For those of you who answer Icebreakers by replying to the email you receive, we’ve had to turn that feature off due to security concerns. You can still reply by clicking the button in the email and going to the site, or if you have an iPhone, by using the Icebreak for Couples app.

Ever since making them and wearing them around San Francisco ourselves, we’ve been getting a lot of people asking us how they can get these shirts for themselves. So, in response, we’re launching a Twitter contest so that more people can get in on the action (and umm, become “that couple”).

Next week we will be giving away t-shirt pairs to 3 lucky winners.

Here’s how to win => Participate in our Twitter contest

Step 1: Tweet about why you heart your significant other and use one of the following hashtags in the tweet #iheartherbecause #ihearthimbecause

Example

Step 2: Tuesday we’ll pick 3 winners from people who have tweeted with one of those hashtags. Make us smile, make us laugh, make us cry…

Step 3: Follow @theicebreak on Twitter.

The topic: awesome things that theicebreak can help couples (our users) get “more” of in their relationship.