COMPANY UPDATE
MONTHLY NEWSLETTER | JANUARY 2024
Quick Version
We’re prototyping our new product ‘the Kard’, which you can pre-order here.
We created an AI chatbot (v1) which we’ll be embedding into our site.
We have a new site (redkart.com) focused on subscriptions for local businesses.
We’ve launched a new GoFundMe under ‘Project Main Street’ as a community-based initiative to help subsidize this for local businesses. You can donate here.
COMING SOON
We'll post the January update here once it's available.
Where we are now.
What we've done.
What's next.
What you should know.
What we believe.
What we need.
Email at neelan@redkart.com with any questions.
To unsubscribe, send 'unsubscribe' to hello@redkart.com
COMPANY UPDATE
MONTHLY NEWSLETTER | DECEMBER 2023
Quick Version
We’re prototyping our new product ‘the Kard’, which you can pre-order here.
We created an AI chatbot (v1) which we’ll be embedding into our site.
We have a new site (redkart.com) focused on subscriptions for local businesses.
We’ve launched a new GoFundMe under ‘Project Main Street’ as a community-based initiative to help subsidize this for local businesses. You can donate here.
Happy Holidays and a Happy New Year!
Some exciting updates to share. We’re making progress, but it’s been gradual.Last few months have been hectic, we’ve been pursuing a few partnerships. I drafted October and November updates (which I’ll post on our site). But with all that was going on, I figured it’d make more sense to just send out one simple end-of-the-year update instead.In 2024: our priority will be fundraising.
Where we are now.We’ve shifted from our token-based mobile app to something a bit more streamlined. It’s the same product but simplified. Just go to redkart.com and subscribe to your favorite local business. Subscribers receive in-store perks and digital rewards (aka tokens). Perks and tokens can be tracked via our mobile app but it’s not required. You can just tell the merchant in store you’re a subscriber, or show your red ‘id’ card (which we mail to people).Same product, new face. It’s still rewards based. But no app needed. No training necessary. And everyone knows what subscriptions are. (‘It’s sorta like a Costco membership for local stores’ seems to do the trick.)We’re launching this in Massachusetts. We’ve gotten businesses in Lexington and Cambridge so far, we’ll be adding other towns soon.
What we’ve done.So over the last two months we’ve made a few changes. We’ve removed the mobile app aspect of our product, which was complicating things for both users and stores (it was an extra step required for adoption, and we were competing with the million other rewards apps out there on the market). So it’s just browser-based: go on the site and subscribe.I’ve always said our product is not the app, it’s the token. So we think this new way of selling the token (to those that pay monthly fees to their favorite store), could make more sense. It’s taking rewards, and reimagining it. Stores are essentially creating a ‘community’ or ‘club’ of their best, most loyal customers (via subscriptions), and are rewarding them for it with perks and tokens.In other news, I’ve tinkered with an AI bot. It’s still in the early stages, so it’s relatively simple. It’s just trained on our FAQs, and any product-related data. (And it can engage in Main Street trivia). We’ll embed it into our site soon. But I think there’s some real long-term utility here. One example is helping stores come up with the most optimized subscription plan to offer customers, setting the right price, gathering info on what consumers like best etc. That can be real helpful.
What’s next.Long term, I've shifted our attention to what I think will be our key product, the Kard. The simplest way to reach our goal and at scale, is to create a simple consumer product that incentivizes local spending, and simplifies the whole reward/token process, removing pain-points. Let me explain.The idea is a simple charge card (either reloadable, like a debit, or credit-based) that you pay an annual fee for, and when you use it at local mom-and-pop shops (instead of national chain stores) you get tokens and points. So instead of miles or other perks (ie for Uber or DoorDash) that most credit cards issue, our card would offer local rewards to be redeemed at local small businesses. The more you support local, the more you get.This would simplify the entire consumer experience of our product (obviously), since it wouldn’t require any proactive action from the business, or change in their workflow at the counter. Nor would it require the consumers to change their behavior, and adopt to a new app-based rewards system. Everything would be streamlined and automated. And integration via Visa’s API can help us reach scale. And this would achieve our overall objective of reinventing Main Street for the digital age with a sort of unique rewards-based system, that fosters more local spending.This likely won’t be released until 2025. There’s some complexity involved here. We’ll release more updates in 2024. In the mean time, our primary goal will be growing the number of businesses on our ‘subscribe to local’ product. Stores that have signed up for our former token-based mobile app can transfer over, but we still have yet to hit our first 100 store milestone. We hope to hit that by mid Spring.
What you should know.Our mobile app product was facing a few hurdles. One, there was the explaining to businesses what this was. And then them actually adopting it in store required a few more steps, which I think was already one too many. Mind you, every product requires some change to user flow, but I think for rewards, there’s less of an immediate demand, since the merchants weren’t making money directly from it (it was long term revenue increase). And rewards is already something they’ve heard of, despite how much you reinvent it. So getting them to adopt it was a bit slow.Then there was the customer app download issue. Again, an issue that exists with every mobile-based rewards app. But I think even despite our spin on it, there was some consumer exhaustion with too many rewards apps. Not to mention our tech, full disclosure, wasn’t creme de la creme.Then there was the monetization issue. If we charge upfront, businesses were turned off, especially when they haven’t tested the product yet. If you don’t charge, and let them trial it, it was taking 3, 6, 9 months before they were seeing real value. And the bigger issue, is that we can’t self-sustain, since we’re not venture-backed, so we can’t afford that sort of runway.
What we believe.Until we release the Kard, our ‘subscribe to local’ site can help merchants create loyal customer bases, while allowing us to build a network of local merchants. The new site (redkart.com) is simpler for customers to understand and use, and doesn’t require any app downloads, nor constant maintenance or check-in. It’s just one-time subscribe and get perks whenever you go in-store. We can add app-based features for certain subscribers down the road, for those that want it. And for stores, it’s simpler to understand, requiring less explanation and product training. Every store owner I’ve spoken to so far knows what a ‘membership plan for your customers’ is.The main question will be whether all stores need a ‘membership’ plan for their top customers, or will only some. The benefit for a customer to pay a monthly fee to businesses in exchange for exclusive perks and tokens makes sense if you’re a recurring customer, and go to that business frequently (coffeeshop, bakery, etc). The question is whether you’ll subscribe to a business you go maybe once a year (optometrist, bike shop, etc). We think we can frame the subscription (/membership) as an annual plan, or offer exclusive deals based on their business, such that every merchant having a subscription makes sense. But we’ll have to A/B test this over the next few months and see.The last thing I’ll add, is that we’re living in a time where Patreon and Substack and other subscriber-based platforms are increasingly popular. I know those are for the creators and writers, but I think there’s a real unexplored gap for applying this to everyday businesses. It may be harder to scale, but I think the advantage is an already existing movement behind ‘buying local’ and ‘supporting local businesses’. That coupled with the fact that everyone goes to local businesses in their area, and knows local brands, I think will create enough demand for this product. And once we release the Kard, we can sync subscriber benefits with card benefits, and make the experience better and more streamlined for everyone.
What we need.Funds. Short and Sweet.I mentioned we launched a gofundme. As of August, I am no longer taking a salary from redkart, at least until we officially reach self-sustainability. We’re offering our base product for free, in these early stages, and are asking for optional payments (or donations) from businesses and users. The idea is that if I can run this as a ‘local initiative’ purely off of donations, this can at least offer real value to businesses essentially as a free product. Truth be told, if we paid off our current investors, and I could grow this as a non-profit, it’d probably make more sense given its mission. But growing a tech product is not optimally run that way, as we need to build features and scale growth.But if you can, we’re asking you to donate anything to help keep our product low cost and accessible for small businesses and customers alike. All funds will go directly to building out our site, and covering any product-related costs. This way we can keep the platform for free for stores and users, and solve the monetization issue I mentioned earlier.We’re still seeking investors, fundraising will be our priority in 2024.
That's all. Shoot me an email at neelan@redkart.com with any questions.
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