Oodles

Deals App For Students

Company Information

Website:

https://www.oodlescorp.com/

Sector:

Mobile Commerce, Food Service

Location:

San Roman, CA

Oodles is a mobile app that connects retailers to college students.

The app features deals from food, drink, and entertainment vendors located in college towns.

Oodles is targeting the 22 million college students in the U.S. who go out to eat an average of one to two times per week.

Services like Groupon offer deals for food and entertainment, but users must pay upfront to claim each offer. As a result, many people don’t end up using these pre-purchased deals.

Oodles is different. The company features a patent-pending process that incentivizes students to share these deals with their friends to gain access to even greater discounts.

For example: let’s say a user receives a deal through the app advertising a lunch special.

If that user shows the advertisement to the vendor, he can take advantage of this deal, also known as a “hot deal.”

If the user shares the deal with a friend through the app, both users receive a badge. If either user redeems this badge in the store, they earn access to a greater discount, also known as a “hotter deal.”

Finally, if both users visit the establishment together and show their respective badges, they each earn a more significant discount, or what’s called the “scorcher deal.”

In short, sharing deals enables users to earn greater discounts, and results in more customers for vendors.

This process enables Oodles to generate revenue both from vendors and users:

Vendors pay a $350 base monthly service fee to appear in the app’s search algorithm, and can pay anywhere from $550 to $1,500 per month for Premium Pricing. This helps vendors appear higher in searches.

Meanwhile, Oodles earns a fee for each deal that’s shared and redeemed through the app. Specifically, Oodles receives 50 cents per deal redemption and 10 cents per deal share.

Acquiring each of these users costs Oodles approximately $3.50 in marketing costs.

Oodles currently has about 8,000 users. By 2020, the company aims to reach 100,000 users across 15 universities.

Oodles has significant user engagement. For example, in January 2018, 84% of its users viewed deals on the app.

In the last six months, vendors who signed up with Oodles have experienced a 150% growth in revenues. For example, in February 2018, a local sandwich shop was visited by 380 unique Oodles users, 45% of whom were new to the establishment.

Team Background

Asheesh Barman - Co-Founder, President, & COO

In addition to his duties with Oodles, Asheesh is a member of the Board of Directors for New Peaks Coaching and Consulting company.

He previously spent seven years as the Chief Information Officer for Acutrack, a shipping company for technology products. While there, he was responsible for shaping the company’s overall IT strategy to meet business goals.

In addition to serving as Chief Information Officer, Asheesh spent nearly 10 years as Acutrack’s Executive Vice President.

He previously served as a systems integration engineer with Philips Consumer Electronics.

Barman received a Bachelor’s degree in Biomedical Engineering & Electrical Engineering from Johns Hopkins University.

Sajal Sahay - Co-Founder & CEO

Sajal brings an extensive marketing background to Oodles.

Prior to starting the company, he served as Head of Marketing for Twin Prime, a start-up that helps mobile apps perform more efficiently. In December 2016, Twin Prime was acquired by Salesforce.

In addition, Sajal formerly served as Senior Vice President of Marketing for Fairchild, a company that delivers energy solutions for mobile and tech-related companies. In September 2016, Fairchild was acquired by ON Semiconductor Corporation for $2.4 billion.

Sahay formerly served as VP of Marketing for notables companies Mobilisafe and HP, as well as Director of Marketing for companies including T-Mobile, Botanical Laboratories, Philips, and Bausch & Lomb.

He earned a Bachelor’s degree in Economics from the University of Chicago and an MBA from the University of Navarra.

Co-Investors

Raising
$963K
Committed
$107.439K (11%)
Current Valuation
$5 million Cap / 20% Discount
Min. Investment
$1000
Deal Type
Title III
(For all investors)
Offering Type
SAFE
Finance History
  • $107K
    2017-08-01
    Unknown
Notable Investors
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