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How Mint.com, Groupon, and 39 burritos led to the founding of Offermatic

 

This was written by our founder and CEO, Faisal Qureshi.

So there I was at Chipotle – for the fifth time that week. It’s conveniently down the street from my apartment in San Jose, which is great because I can’t cook to save my life.

“The usual, chicken burrito bowl?” asks the young man behind the counter. “You bet,” I tell him. When I find something I like, I stick with it.

Later that afternoon, I was using Mint.com to take a peek at my finances. While reviewing my credit card spending, out of curiosity I clicked on “Chipotle transactions”. Mint instantly informed me that I had been to Chipotle 39 times in the last 90 days, and had spent a total of $403.42 there. Yowza!

My first thought: “Geez, I am definitely an addict. Are they putting crack in those chicken burrito bowls?”

My second thought came from my background as an internet marketing entrepreneur and a student of direct marketing--“Wow. They (Mint.com) have a complete view of my spending habits and patterns, down to the level of my hopeless Chipotle addiction. If they know I’ve been to Chipotle 39 times, then where is my free burrito bowl?”

I was only half joking to myself about that free burrito bowl, but it got me thinking…Mint.com is a phenomenal tool to help me “manage my money,” but given what they know about me, they could do a lot more to help me save money.

While I like Mint’s recommendations of various financial products that can save me money, I haven’t used any of the offers. Switching financial accounts is about as much fun as a root canal. Also, even though the savings offers Mint recommends are personalized to me, they are fairly standard offers, and aren’t particularly great deals. Banks and credit card companies aren’t known for offering great deals. The real savings opportunities are on purchases of regular, everyday stuff – not necessarily financial products.

What’s a good example of a great deal? Take a look at one of the hottest concepts out there these days – Groupon (www.groupon.com). They have a daily deal that is discounted 40% to 90%. That’s real savings…

So it got me thinking about a new type of online service that I’d like to use—one that would effortlessly save me hundreds of dollars a year. It would simply do 3 things…

  1. Anonymously monitor my credit or debit card transactions (just like Mint)
  2. Send me great discounts (like Groupon) but the offers would be highly relevant & personalized offers based on my spending patterns
  3. Since they are using purchase history to send me money-saving offers, I would earn some passive income just for sharing my purchase history with them. That way, even if I never took them up on one of their offers, I would still get something.

They’d be maniacal about data privacy & security, and of course would never spam me because they know I’d leave in a heartbeat…

So in a nutshell, that’s Offermatic. In a way, I created it to scratch my own itch. We hope you’ll give us a try!

Offermatic was founded in February, 2010. Our headquarters are located in San Mateo, CA. We’re backed by Kleiner Perkins, SV Angel, and angel investors who helped build companies such as AdMob, Facebook, and Mint.com.

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A team that’s lean and green.

We get happy when we send offers to our members =). Like our business model, the Offermatic staff likes to think that it’s one of a kind. We live for aerobie in the park, Ike’s Sandwiches, playing ping pong on our conference table, and great offers. We work hard, play hard, and love what we do! Wanna join us?

 

Management Team

  • Faisal Qureshi  

    Faisal is co-founder and CEO at Offermatic. Faisal was inspired to create Offermatic while reviewing his purchases on his favorite personal finance site. He noticed trends in his purchase history, and wanted more deals & offers on the everyday purchases he was already making. Given his background as an online marketing entrepreneur, Faisal realized he could build a service that would allow both consumers and retail merchants to save money by providing targeting offers to consumers.

    Prior to starting Offermatic, Faisal founded a couple of other online marketing ventures – beginning in 2005 with his first entrepreneurial venture called TellAPal. Before being bit by the entrepreneurial bug, he worked as a product line marketing manager at Sun Microsystems. Faisal attended college at Florida International University in Miami.

     

  • Arnaud Collin  

    Arnaud is VP of marketing and product Management at Offermatic. Arnaud hails from France, and as such, he's our authority on good wine, smelly cheese, and anything mildly pretentious.

    He has been working for over 12 years on consumer web services and ecommerce in marketing, business development and product management. After spending 6 years working around the world for eBay, he joined Offermatic to revolutionize the world again. He enjoys any spare time he has spending time with his family or travelling. And oh yeah, he's a certified skydiver. NBD.

     

  • Tim Welch  

    Tim is our VP of Sales. Known around the office as "the sales guy" or "that dude who rocks tie-die on Funky Fridays," Tim hails from Seattle, Washington and brings more than 15 years of experience to Offermatic, spanning marketing automation and online marketing services, social commerce, e-mail and instant messaging technologies. Before joining Offermatic Tim was VP of Sales for TrialPay, a leader in the alternative payment space. He has a not-so-secret passion for Burning Man and is..."allergic" to garlic. (Yeah, we all think he's probably a vampire too).

     
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Investors

 

  • Offermatic is backed by Kleiner Perkins Caufield Byers, SV Angel, as well as angel investors who helped build companies such as AdMob, Facebook, and Mint. We're fortunate to have such terrific investors.

     
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Board of Directors

 

  • Aileen Lee

    Aileen joined Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers in 1999. Her primary area of focus at KP is in consumer-oriented digital companies.

    Prior to joining KPCB, Aileen worked at Gap Inc. in various operating roles. These roles included product management and marketing for Gap Online, special assistant to Gap Inc.'s CEO, and business development. She has also worked for Odwalla and for The North Face in brand and product marketing. Aileen began her career at Morgan Stanley in technology mergers & acquisitions.

    She has a Bachelor of Science from MIT and an MBA from the Harvard Business School, and is a Henry Crown Fellow of the Aspen Institute.

     

  • Omar Hamoui

    Omar is an entrepreneur with deep roots in the mobile industry. After earning a degree in Computer Science at UCLA, Omar founded and ran several companies in mobile software and services. At the time, he was frustrated by the lack of available options when it came to promoting and monetizing mobile products.

    While earning his MBA at the Wharton School, Omar began to think more seriously about the untapped potential of mobile advertising, and created AdMob to address this growing opportunity. AdMob was acquired by Google for $750 million and is a global leader in mobile advertising.

     
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Press enquiries should be directed to:

Email: pr@offermatic.com
Phone: 650.395.8490

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Offermatic, Inc.

111 E. 5th Ave.
San Mateo, CA. 94401

 
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Jobs

Come work with us!

 

Our business model is the first of its kind. We cut through the over-saturated discount market to provide our members with relevant offers--ones they can use to save money on things they already buy. We think it’s cool that we can provide that service to people for free, and we hope you agree.

Offermatic is a rapidly-growing company, and as we get bigger and better we continue to look for great new people to bring on board. We are a small team so your ideas can have a huge impact on our service. We're fast paced, and have the ability to innovate quickly. We joke that our M.O. is “Ready, Fire, Aim.” That's what makes working here so exciting.

We’re a passionate and hard-working bunch, but we take time to chill out too. We have a conference table that doubles as a ping pong table, a Wii + karaoke machine, and even a mini basketball hoop to attempt some shots during the day. Plus, having San Mateo's Central Park across the street makes it easy for us to take a break and breathe in some sunshine. Wanna join us?

 

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