Company: RewardMe
Website: www.rewardme.com
Founders: Yu-kai Chou, Jun Loayza and Stephen Johnson
Headquarters: Mountain View
Investors: Telenav, D.J Martin
Year Founded: 2010
Twitter: @rewardme
Brief Company Description: RewardMe is a customer loyalty platform for brick-and-mortar franchises and corporations that proves a measurable ROI.
By Jun Loayza, co-founder
Product Overview
RewardMe is a customer loyalty platform for the restaurant and retail industries that captures data from the point of sale and enables businesses to use the data to influence customer behavior.
RewardMe is different from the other loyalty program competitors in the industry.
1. The only loyalty program that can prove ROI: In a case study conducted over the course of five months, RewardMe proved a measurable, data-driven two percent increase in bottom-line revenue for its clients.
2. Capture ALL customers: A customer simply requires a mobile number to join the RewardMe loyalty platform—no smart phones, no iPhone apps, and no loyalty cards required. In other words, a non-tech savvy mom can easily join the rewards program.
3. Capture dollar value and items purchased: The RewardMe patent pending technology captures customer data from the point of sale without needing to integrate with the POS provider, saving time and money for the business.
4. Personalize marketing messages: Businesses use the RewardMe intelligence platform to send a message to customers that have bought a salad in the past 30 days and a completely different message to customers that have bought a hamburger in the past seven days. Personalized marketing messages result in a higher open-rate, higher in-store conversion rate, and a lower opt-out rate.
5. Real-time business intelligence: Businesses utilize the RewardMe Admin Dashboard to understand deep customer analytics such as demographics, purchase patterns and behaviors, and the ROI of the product.
Founders’ Story
Yu-kai Chou and I met as undergraduates at UCLA. During our last year, we started a company called Future Delivery, which aimed to make the real world more productive.
Yu-kai and I needed to hire developers to build the product, so we began recruiting UCLA CS undergraduates in hopes of finding a technical co-founder. After two months of searching and cycling through 15 undergrads, we found Stephen Johnson—the best developer, product engineer, and business mind we had met.
Together we raised a seed round of $100,000 that moved the company to Silicon Valley where we pursued a new startup called RewardMe.
After deploying our minimal viable product, Adam Gervin found the product at a bookstore in Mountain View and met with Yu-kai to express his interest in joining the team. Adam’s impressive background (over $1 billion in successful exits) and experience brought a unique element that the RewardMe team was missing.
Together, the four of us seek to disrupt an archaic industry and fundamentally change the way people and businesses interact. We have raised $1 million in Angel funding thus far.
Marketing/Promotion Strategy
RewardMe aims to become the thought-leader online about customer loyalty, local marketing, and social media for the restaurant and retail space. We have therefore created our Local Marketing Secrets blog where we write expert articles, design info. graphs, and publish marketing guides. Here are examples of our latest pieces:
The Definitive Guide to Local Marketing on Facebook
Infographic: The Evolution of Loyalty Programs
Podcast: Content Marketing for Local Businesses
By becoming the expert in local marketing, franchises and local businesses will turn to RewardMe to solve their customer loyalty needs.
Business Model
RewardMe charges a monthly service price for the loyalty program, text marketing, email marketing and analytics dashboard.
Current Needs
We are currently raising a Series A round of $5 million for product expansion and business development.
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Jun Loayza is the Co-Founder of RewardMe, a digital rewards program for restaurants and retailers. In his entrepreneurial experience, Jun has sold 2 internet companies and led social media technology campaigns for Sephora, Whole Foods Market, Levi’s, LG, and Activision.
RewardMe – www.rewardme.com
