Upside

Given today’s hyper-efficient online shopping experiences, it’s natural to ask if brick-and-mortar businesses are now obsolete. We created Upside to level the playing field. Consumers use our app for everyday purchases, merchants use our platform to earn more profit without changing their business models, and as a result the offline world is made more efficient. And, it makes a difference for our communities.

Our advisor, Hal Varian, developed an economic theory that is the bedrock of our model. His theory says if we know what a customer has done historically, and we know what that customer needs right now, we can design a personalized offering that maximizes the customer’s purchasing power, the merchant’s profitability, & societal value overall. At Upside, we do just that. We use real data to understand user behavior and generate personalized cash-back offers to motivate customers to buy more, more often--for millions of users and thousands of businesses across the country.