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Sarasota-based Advershares, which calls itself a social commerce network, is entering the crazily fast-growing mobile apps industry.
The startup's timing could be its biggest asset: A new report from Gartner, a Stamford, Conn.-based IT research firm, says worldwide sales from app stores will rise to $25 billion in 2013, up 62% from 2012. Apple's app store now has more than 700,000 apps, up from around 140,000 in 2010.
Advershares executives say its app, released in February through Apple's iTunes store, combines social media with discounts for shopping and earnings for referrals. The patent-pending app, which links merchants to customers and their friends, at its core, is based on incentives: Customers at participating small businesses can form a network of friends through the app. The more of those friends who buy something at the business, the more rebates the original customer gets.
So customers have an incentive to promote the business to their Advershares network. And small businesses in the Advershares network, from dry cleaners to pizzerias to hair salons, have an incentive to give discounts, because that could quickly lead to more sales.
Advershares President Jeff Birnbach says other sharing and shopping apps miss the incentive piece. “When you shop you save, but when your friend shops, you earn,” says Birnbach. “No one else is offering a program that fully leverages your social circle.”
Small businesses can sign up for the Advershares network for free, and so too can customers. Advershares makes its money from a percentage of the discount the merchant gives.
Advershares, founded in 2011 by local entrepreneur Roy Gonzales, tested the app locally, in addition to some markets in Detroit and Cleveland, over the past few months. The firm hopes to add 15-20 more markets over the next year, including several college towns. It recently debuted the app for students and businesses in and around the University of Central Florida campus in Orlando. “This is really a very viral business model,” Gonzales tells Coffee Talk.
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