MeDine is a free mobile app that rewards you for just checking in at places such as restaurants, cafes, spa, shops etc. You download MeDine app and every time you walk into our thousands of partner places, the app's 'intelligent assist' feature automatically recognizes your location and alerts you to collect reward points. This technology works even without your GPS being on or when your data is switched off too.
These reward points can be redeemed for a host of shopping, lifestyle, movie, e-commerce or utilitarian e-gift cards/e-vouchers examples include Flipkart, Amazon,Bookmyshow, Freecharge, Snapdeal, restaurant, spa treatments etc.
From a consumer's standpoint, it's an absolute pleasure to just download some 6MB of an app and get rewarded at places that he/she goes to with the least possible effort of just one single tap. The app currently currently caters to users in cities - Bangalore, Hyderabad and Secunderabad only.
Below are questions we put up to Bengaluru-based startup behind the app, to understand more about MeDine as an app and its conception story :
How does the rewards concept work in the app? What do you redeem for?
Reward redemption is one click away and you can choose from a host of 30+ brands that you can redeem the reward for. The rewards are essentially e-gift cards/vouchers of various brands online, offline stores, mobile recharges, shopping vouchers (with no conditions like you have to buy for X Rs. etc) that come straight into the app itself. You can chose to watch a movie free and get bookmyshow egift voucher in your app or if you want to buy stuff online, you can redeem for e gift vouchers of Flipkart, Amazon, Lifestyle, Coffee day, Jabong, Shoppers Stop, Myntra etc. You can chose to get a bit pampered through select spa treatments or if you chose to recharge your mobile free of cost or pay your bills. SO a customer gets a host of additional benefits and earns great rewards for just having the app.
Hence, just have the app and forget about telling your mobile number to the store clerk or calling endlessly with a list or standing in line for redemptions etc. All you need is to keep the app and redemption is click away.
What is the addressable market and underlying opportunity you are going after?
The single most problem for any offline business (retail, restaurants, storefront etc) is to drive foot falls into their physical stores. Now, if that is the most important aspect for any business that has an offline presence, then why not reward people to just walk into the stores? Well, most businesses would have loved to do it if only they know who came in through the door. This is where our technology helps.
We are building a platform for businesses to reward customers just for walking into their stores and reach out to their customers real time. Converting digital traffic to foot traffic, essentially to personalize intelligently!
Tell us more about your industry; competition (will be great if you can share certain market trends with numbers)
India’s restaurant industry itself is about $55billion (24 times bigger than the film industry as well as ahead of the telecom industry) and organized retail which accounts for less than 10% in India is another US $20 billion in size. Both are growing at a healthy rate and poised to grow even bigger provided they stave off competition from online players. The wallet share of these industry spends is primarily being driven by top line growth contributors including ad networks, specific players, CRM players etc. Hence there are a number of players across sectors who have a pie in this huge industry. From our standpoint, we will of course be vying for a small share of this immense spends and competition could be anyone who is vying for the same wallet share.
What is your product differentiation and competitive advantage?
How many apps tell you to do nothing except download and register? Every app says that it helps you to do this, that etc but we ask you NOT to do anything other than to check-in and get rewarded!
In almost all the apps across the world, you open the app and then they show you all near-by places and you select a place to check-in and that’s posted on your social network etc. In MeDine, you do not have to remember to check-in also. The app tells you that you are in a partner restaurant/café and once it pops up, all you need to do is tap once. This ‘intelligent assist’ is based on a multitude of factors and works even if you are NOT connected to the internet – Yes, even if you are not connected to the internet you can earn rewards. Its context-aware, hyper location-aware and will get personalized over time.
Our execution model and convenience of a consumer doing almost nothing to get rewards and redeem them is what differentiates us from the rest. Ultimately scale has to weigh in apart from the technology.
What inspired you to start this venture?
Convenience, ease of use and the way data sciences can be applied to simple everyday activities driving customer experience is what we are passionate about.
Who all are the founders and what is their background?
Satish Medapati: Have about 10 years of analytics, data sciences and portfolio management across multiple domains like BFS/Telco/Retail/Insurance and multiple geos.
Anita Bhat: Founding team member manages engineering & development. She has about 18 years of experience in developing and delivering large scale applications
Tell us about your journey so far .What is the current team size , revenues and in how many cities have you expanded to ? (Please feel free to elaborate as much as you can)
The journey so far has been an exhilarating one. My corporate experience was not aiding me in the startup journey and its all learning afresh. You start getting enormous support from the start up community and of course disappointments are also as common. You will always be surprised to see how many people want you to succeed! We have had 2 pivots and that experience has taught us a lot in terms of approaching product market fit. We are growing fast now and we are learning at double that pace to.
We have a team of about 6 full time employees, 3 part-time employees and 3 interns apart from freelancers that continue to be really helpful to us on an ongoing basis. Anita and Nagarajan are the key members of technology team and Amitesh & his team is responsible for growth hacking for us.
At the early stage we are in, our focus is on growth and technology and hence we do not have any revenue focus at the moment. We are present in Bangalore, Chennai and Hyderabad at the moment. Our alpha product was launched on Feb 5th and Chennai and Hyderabad have been recently added.
Some of the most critical challenges you have faced and how you overcame those?
Product market fit is the most important challenge that we had learnt from our past keeping ears to the ground and only tracking numbers that grow (& do not). At one point your consumers will start telling you the next step and you need to listen to them attentively minus the noise.
The second most challenging job is to get people to believe in your vision and building a team that delivers without loads of money in your pocket [for that matter even nothing :)].
Some exciting learnings/moments in your journey so far which you would like to share with all of us?
There have been many transforming from living on indulgences to living on necessities as an entrepreneur. You should desperately want to be an entrepreneur and want to succeed - then everything else will not matter, else it’s difficult. We are always excited when our consumers call us with suggestions or blog about us or write about us.
When customers get their first egift card through us, they typically write a review and few of them even call us to tell how exciting it was to earn and redeem rewards with so much ease -makes us feel very happy.
What can we expect from you in the coming months?
We are focusing on optimizing our ‘intelligent assist’ to a good measure of accuracy and making it work across all devices. Though we do have a viable product in the market that works very well, we haven’t addressed all devices or all operating systems. We are re-branding the new product with a name that suits the current business model. We should be making rewards more exciting to earn and focus on growing the consumer base we have already.
Are you looking for funding?
We are a growth focused business and technology intensive one that would need impetus in funding. We are looking for partners who can take us to the next level than mere funding and want to be part of this exciting journey.
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