Speaker 1 (00:01):
All right, everybody buckle up because today's episode is all about reinventing loyalty in ways you've probably never thought about. Think the brands that you love. Maybe it's your go-to coffee shop, your favorite rideshare app or the airline you swear by for those last minute getaways. Now, imagine if those loyalty points weren't just perks, but actual financial ecosystems. What if the brand could run its own version of a rewards driven economy? This is Meet the Startup where we bring the boldest ideas and smartest founders together. Let's dive in to today's startup.

Speaker 2 (00:39):
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Speaker 1 (01:08):
As a reminder, the Tech Optimist podcast is for the informational purposes only. It is not personalized advice and it's not an offer to buy or sell securities for additional important details. Please see the text description accompanying this episode. Let's talk about loyalty programs. The points you rack up at coffee shops, airlines, grocery stores, they're everywhere. But have you ever stopped to ask who actually benefits from that? For years, loyalty programs have been stuck in the past. Brands handout points, customers collect them and most of the time they go unused. Meanwhile, companies like Starbucks, Delta and United Airlines have figured out something huge. These programs aren't just rewards, they're multi-billion dollar businesses generating more revenue than the actual products they sell. So here's the question, why can't every brand do this? Why do only a handful of companies get to turn loyalty into a financial ecosystem while the rest settle for outdated punch cards and random discounts? This is exactly the problem that Calder is here to solve.

Speaker 3 (02:17):
I'm actually from Turkey, so there's a mix of my upbringing and background where I have been always fascinated by the ideas of financial freedom and understanding how to build what I call global currencies. And I think the first idea of Calder came up when I was working on the credit cards business at Robinhood and understanding that there are companies out there that are leading companies like Starbucks, United and Amex of the world that are making more money selling rewards than their core businesses, and they're actually operating their loyalty programs like banks, and essentially they were making more money selling rewards than coffee or flights.

Speaker 1 (03:03):
Imagine a world where your favorite brands don't just give you points, but operate their own loyalty driven financial networks where cashback points and rewards work seamlessly across different businesses. And where loyalty isn't just a perk, it's an entire economy. That's what today's guest, Goche, Guen, CEO and co-founder of Calder is building a way for brands to own their loyalty systems, generate revenue and create deeper customer engagement without the complexity of banking infrastructure, this is a whole new way of thinking about rewards, money and the relationships between brands and consumers. So how does this all work? Let's break it down

Speaker 3 (03:45):
There on fast moving three years. Today we work with leading DA stations, grocers, mall groups, sports teams and banks that are building rewards programs around their brand. So what Calder does is we are a white label FinTech product that allows any brand to build partner rewards or cashback product around their brand. So you will never see Calder, but you can go to, let's say your favorite sports team app or let's say as an example Uber. And if Uber was to use Calder for your Uber one membership, you can connect your credit card. And if Sweetgreen has a 5% Uber cash offer, you can directly go to Sweetgreen Wall Street location, spend a hundred dollars with the same connected credit card, and instantly Cal will detect that transaction and send you a notification saying, congrats, you just earned five Uber cash by spending a hundred dollars at Sweetgreen. And it is a win-win win because Uber now gets to engage you and give you Uber cash, not only at Uber, but everywhere at every partner you spend. And Uber gets to get a commission from these offer partners like $5 revenue from Sweet Green's customer and Sweet Green as an offer partner is also happy because now they're getting to target a new customer pool Uber's millions of customers by just essentially targeting their a partner program.

Speaker 1 (05:14):
Behind every great startup is a founder with a vision, and as always, today's guest is absolutely no exception. Meet Goche Govin, the CEO and co-founder of Calder, the company that's reinventing brand loyalty as we know it, but Goche isn't new to shaking up industries. Before launching Calder, she was at the forefront of some of the biggest shifts in FinTech crypto and digital commerce. Working with companies like Robinhood Open Sea and cilo with a background in engineering and decentralized finance, Goche saw an opportunity that most people missed. Loyalty programs weren't just about engagement, they were untapped financial powerhouses. And if brands could take control of their own reward systems, they can unlock an entirely new economy. So how did she go from building major tech companies to launching a startup that's redefining the way businesses think about loyalty? Let's try and answer that question together.

Speaker 4 (06:14):
I love that. And honestly, learning about Calder and sort of loyalty generally made me reflect on all of the dollars that I have likely had stored on so many different apps at this point. And I'm just thinking to myself, I think, I mean it probably came up as you were sort of unpacking this market that Starbucks I think has 2 billion in wallet share, which I mean just through their loyalty, which is just a staggering amount and yeah, offered some personal reflection for me,

Speaker 1 (06:46):
Guiding today's conversation is someone who is no stranger to this podcast. They know startups, venture capital and the future of FinTech inside and out. Mira Oak partner at Alumni Ventures, Mira has spent years investing in early stage companies backing founders who are building the next wave of innovation in vertical SaaS, AI and FinTech infrastructure. She's seen firsthand how the right ideas, the right execution and the right backing can turn a promising startup into an industry shaping force. And today she's sitting down with Calder, CEO Goche to dive deep into how brand loyalty is evolving, why fintech's at the center of it and how Calder is giving companies a whole new way to engage customers. So without further ado, let's get right into the rest of this conversation. This is one you're not going to want to miss,

Speaker 4 (07:38):
But I guess just piggybacking off of that, I was curious how you honed in on loyalty specifically if we, because there's so many different ways to engage with consumers today, and so I'm just curious why was it loyalty and specifically loyalty rewards, how to monetize that?

Speaker 3 (07:56):
Yeah, it's very interesting actually. I have always been interested in FinTech and I have never been a loyalty person. I love my rewards, but I've always found myself building wallet solutions and banking solutions. What was very interesting with this product is we are actually a purely FinTech company. We build wallet solutions, money movement solutions and reward management solutions, but the front end of the product is loyalty. So we sell to marketing teams, but we help them essentially build banking operations under the hood. So for the first time, loyalty is not a cost generator. And what I loved is I always find myself working on the hardest problems where people think Yohi, why do you not build a simpler product? When I started, the company told us loyalty is a notorious market. It's very saturated, it doesn't work. But if you look at the first principles, loyalty is a great market.

(08:54):
Most of the brands make four to 40% of their business from top 10% loyal customers. So it seems like there's loyalty in fan. And second is loyalty was notoriously known as a cost generator because ROI is not clear, not by people don't want to give discounts anymore, but when the market was super big, essentially I saw an opportunity to fully redefine the market with them. It's actually category defining product because we've seen loyalty tools for the past decades where only discount codes point generators and loyalty SA tools. And then what we realized is if you can turn this cost mentality into a revenue generating mentality, then we can take over the market. We can essentially turn every loyalty campaign and product that every brand has into being powered by Calder and be the main network. That was our mission. We're not going to stop until every brand turns into a FinTech and has a partner program with Cal.

Speaker 4 (09:57):
Yeah, no, that's amazing. And I love how you are sort of like the buyer persona and the product don't necessarily seem like they'd be synced to one another, but they generates so much value for the brand itself. I am curious from a timing perspective, I mean when I lived on the east coast, I feel like my Starbucks app was traveled with me wherever I went, and so loyalty as it itself is not necessarily to your point, a new fascination. I'm just curious why you felt like now was the right time for this type of product.

Speaker 3 (10:36):
Yeah, one was the technology in 2022, and then the second one was replicating success of major players. So if you look at 2022, that was the perfect time where processors like Visa, MasterCard and Amex started opening their API to startups like us. Before this, there were so many cashback apps, but what they did is build one off POS level integrations and Amex did this. They had hardware, they had no way to pull the data and imagine an MBA team or even a chain grocer trying to build a PS integration to a local offer.

(11:12):
So we are actually onboarding a major grocer right now, and the first thing they told us it was a LinkedIn outbound and it was the reason they accepted this call outbound is the chief commercial officer reached out to me and said, I envisioned building a local rewards program in St. Louis before, but we had to essentially make QS integrations with every pizza restaurant shop to give them cash back. But now we are at the stage where essentially build card linking built in so that even a small restaurant can build a program around themselves and all they have to do is send a form powered by Calder so we can get the merchant and POS ID of that offer partner and onboard them instantly. So essentially we took that six month or one year integration timeline to one click, and this was the second. Essentially this technological shift that we created by being able to white label Amex model is exactly why we are able to democratize access to, as we say, Amex and United model because United, Starbucks and Amex, these giants had the source engineering and sales source of sources offered partners in the reward program and also had the resources to be able to invest dollar amounts and time into building these wellness integrations.

(12:35):
And then now that everything can be deployed, one click with Calder, we can now go to virtually any brand and say, Hey, do you want to copy the success of Amex and make 15 million a year while doing that? Can this be a no-brainer for you? That was essentially the rights market, right? Essentially customer case, these and technological shift to build Calder.

Speaker 4 (12:58):
That's amazing. There's two things I wanted focus on is one, obviously it's amazing when you can point to real tangible value that these giants are generating and just offer that as an opportunity for brands is amazing. And I love that this is the case for the cold inbound, the fact that this all was facilitated through a cold outreach. I'm just making an announcement to the founders, this is the story that you need to sort of share

Speaker 3 (13:28):
Far

Speaker 4 (13:28):
And wide because sometimes in this day and age, it's hard to know exactly if the conversion's going to come from that channel, but it's such a great story.

Speaker 3 (13:37):
Yeah, even today, LinkedIn is our top really outbound channel because I think one, like you said, Mira, the ROI needs to be super clear and the product needs to be no brainer. And I have to say it takes years to get there. I have always done outreaches in LinkedIn and there were times I received nothing. So it's important to be intentional, but when we came to a point where I can go to a sales meeting saying, okay, based on the number of customers you have, you are actually set to make 18 million in commissions the first year. If you deployed this product this month and there's no cost to start, then essentially I have hard dollars and an example case study for them to get started and no integration costs. So ideally I always try to make something no-brainer. And when I realized how revenue calculator is so helpful, then I started replicating that to my outbound. Then the outbound became basically I started estimating their multi-active users and say, Hey, you're leaving 8 million on table every year. Hey, you're leaving 28 million on table every year. And people often that because they're like, who am I leaving 28 million?

Speaker 4 (14:50):
No one wants to feel like they're leaving money on the table. And yeah, I love that. That's the, I mean that hook is so important and the fact that you're leading with immediate value is for an open rate, right?

Speaker 3 (15:03):
Yes, exactly. And I have to just say, it took us a long time to get here, but now it works and it's beautiful. So I think a lot of founder journey is surviving and hitting your head on the wall and then seeing on that works. But now I started making up my mind that there are two products that businesses buy. Either you need to save significant amount of money or you need to make significant amount of money for a traditional company to buy you because the B2B market is super saturated and it feels like sometimes everything is built and they have it everything. So you need to have a significant differentiation for them to even respond.

Speaker 1 (15:45):
All right, we're going to take a break. We'll be right back.

Speaker 5 (15:49):
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Speaker 4 (16:13):
I love that. No, I know you're right. It's like the competition is fierce, but you've been able to find real differentiation, which I'm just thrilled for you. And you spoke about the founder journey and just sort iterations it took to get to this point, but I know that you recently secured Calder seed round, which is so exciting, and that's sort of how you and I and Alumni Ventures became involved. I mean, can you share some of the specifics of the round and then how you feel this capital will really allow you to achieve your goals and accelerate the momentum even further?

Speaker 3 (16:47):
When we raised prese, we had the same problem space. We were very excited that United and Banks have this revenue generating loyalty model, and essentially they turn their brand into an ad network by bringing the customers in and monetizing their eyeballs and transactions because a transaction is attributed to United instead of not being attributed instead of ads. So it was the perfect time to, in a world where ads don't work, customer acquisitions all time high, 2022 was a perfect time to start on this journey, but from 2022 to 2024, we have it trade on the product so that we come to a repeatable enterprise motion. Where can we make every brand one click deploy united black program? And when we started feeling the early indications of this, that was the perfect time to raise our seed and it actually started internally, which I think is great if your internal investors are ready to deploy and you're seeing the signs of like, okay, this is the time you need to push, listen to it and go with it.

(17:54):
And of course it's great to now say We raised 7 million and if you look at our cap table, we have likes of alumni that are everyday helpful to find us the rights customers, right? Strategy And Javelins like JP No was specifically essentially what really excited me to work with him was that he built two loyalty companies before on what United Mileage place today. So everything was very intentional and I think the founders out there, it's really important. What I would say is choosing your cap table is very important because investors, you get married with investors and they're in it for the long run. And essentially building a company is a 10 year plus journey. So I think we to cover time to curate our cap table, and I'm very happy with that. And now as the next steps, what we are very excited in is we are now seeing early stages of the network effects where we are onboarding high frequency retailers like gas stations, grocers, mall groups, fashion retailers that are building programs on top of their loyalty program.

(19:04):
We are seeing sports teams like NBA teams like football clubs, building cashback programs, and we're also seeing banks that are using Calder to fully move into a hyper personalized rewards engine and building their reward program with Calder for either local outsourcing local offers or personalizing their reward experiences or fully creating a more revenue generating model that's scalable. And now it's the matter of executing. We work very, I spent so much time in Ohio, Texas, and St. Louis for our anchors sourcing offers for them and spending time with them. We are day to day on tech spaces with our customers, and the goal is essentially coming to a place where can we onboard, let's say a sports team or a grocer fully self serve from Calder, and can we get the top airlines to use Calder Shop and earn programs? And from there we will be able to see the early indications of series A. And I think for me, the number one thing was when I get into a meeting in the first 10 minutes, will the story resonate and will that CMO take calor to as a story to another CMO? And that is now happening and that's what I'm really excited about. I imagine a world where essentially all a grocery ads and airlines an offer partner and then we start working with that airline and it's just a flywheel of our anchors add their offers and from their own data sale for us.

Speaker 4 (20:36):
I mean, that is exactly the type of flyaway you want, just like customer referrals. And there's no stronger testimonial than that. One thing I really loved about what you were saying is the idea of focusing on grocery stores, gas stations, these are sort of businesses that people interact with on a day-to-day basis in a very personal, local way. And I think it's just amazing that you're building loyalty where people are as opposed to, I mean obviously there's brands that cross the entire US and beyond, but there are brands that are very focused on certain geographic areas, and I think it's just so great to see that you're facilitating that type of stickiness in some of these more local regions. So I think that's awesome to see.

Speaker 3 (21:22):
Yes, and I think we are seeing top tech companies building partner programs with Cal too, but also what I call the Unforgotten GDP of America. Because if you think about our everyday spend, it's not sexy tools, it's the unsexy groc, it's the gas station, maybe the hotel you're staying in. So what we have seen is Calder can create magic for customers that don't have loyalty for the brands that already have the hard earned loyalty or eyeballs looking at their app every day, we can help them build the ad network essentially within their app and site to monetize that loyalty so that offers can target those top customers, but as an anchor, building a program around their loyalty, I shouldn't be earning Shell rewards only at Shell. What if I earned it at every restaurant, every coffee shop, so that I think about Shell and then stayed spread at Shell back again because I know Shell Buck, if it's one shell buck is a $1 for me because I'm going to spend it. It's valuable.

Speaker 4 (22:26):
Yeah. Oh yeah. No, I think that's great. And I think this kind of segues nicely into my final question, which is really around what is the best way for our audience, just sort of engage with Calder and how can we be helpful in connections and amplification? What makes sense for 2025 and where you are with Calder?

Speaker 3 (22:46):
Yeah, I guess three asks. There's a lot of ways, I think there's many ways to engage with Calder, and we always love Wild cards too, if I'm not mentioning your use Case. Number one is we are always hiring. We are hiring exceptional engineers, designers, sales leaders that are ready to be 24 7 like us, work with exciting teams, go to sports games, go to fashion shows and close deals and hungry essentially day-to-day life to onboard to our team and join our New York office. And the second part is if you are a brand or a tech consumer app that qualifies as a high frequency, high fandom or high loyalty, be it as simple as Uber Instacart of the world or as traditional as Refuels Giant goals or Utah Jazzes of the world, we have a way for you to monetize your loyalty. And we would love to build a partner or cashback program with you so that you can reward your fans every day and monetize it so you get the best of both worlds.

(24:02):
And last stop is if you are a smaller business that is looking to acquire customers, we also have our offer product where we will place your offers in these top anchors like leading essentially teams and brands of the world so you can get to acquire their customers. So if you want to be an offer listed in the gas station or grocers or the tech consumer apps of the world, and instead of giving your money to ads that don't give you ROI, you can just go to Calder and apply some offer and apply is free, and then we will get you listed and get you your customers right away. And those are the ways you can get started.

Speaker 4 (24:45):
I love that last positioning, just like ad dollars or just real conversion. I think that's fantastic. Thank you so much for joining us. This was a fascinating conversation and I really appreciate the time.

Speaker 3 (24:59):
Yeah, thank you, Mira. It was great to be here too, and I will see you next time.

Speaker 1 (25:04):
Sounds good. Thanks again for tuning into The Tech Optimist. If you enjoyed this episode, we'd really appreciate it if you'd give us a rating on whichever podcast app you're using and remember to subscribe to Keep up with each episode. The Tech Optimist welcomes any questions, comments, or segment suggestions. So please email us@techoptimist.vc with any of those and be sure to visit our website@av.vc. As always, keep building.