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[narrator] Join us on
Tomorrow's World Today,

as we journey through the worlds

of inspiration, creation,
innovation and production

to find the ideas
and technologies

that are shaping our future.

In this episode, we visit
the world of innovation

to explore how
digitized cash-back programs

are helping shoppers save with
every trip to the grocery store.

From Inventionland
world headquarters,

here's your host,
George Davison.

Well, there are two goals
for any innovator.

First, can they invent
a new product

that benefits
our everyday lives?

I mean, think about it.

Where would we be
without the telephone,

or the automobile,

or the internet for that matter?

A second goal of innovators

is to improve
an existing product.

And we've seen
huge improvements in...

the automobile industry,

since the first cars came out.

The same with the phone,
and the internet.

Well, just recently,
we've also seen huge changes

in the world of couponing.

Now, coupons have been around
quite a while.

In fact, in 1887,
the first coupon was invented,

and it was for...

a free glass of Coca-Cola.

Since then, coupons have existed

to save customers money
and improve brand loyalty.

But they're also a little
cumbersome to carry around.

And it's very time consuming

to clip them
and keep them organized.

With everyday consumers relying
on technology more and more,

it's no wonder that they're
looking for an easier way to save

than to have to leaf
through the Sunday paper.

I'm sending Greg over
to Ibotta headquarters,

to explore how one app

is innovating the way
we save when we shop.

[Greg] It doesn't take a scientist to
tell you that people love to save money.

One of the ways a whole
lot of people like to do that

is by clipping the coupons
that come to you each week

in your Sunday paper.

But did you know, that last year

almost 14 million trees
were used

to make those coupons,

and 99% of them went unused.

They were either recycled,
or worse yet, thrown away.

Well, as we become a more
sustainability focused society

that waste of paper has become
a real concern for consumers.

But does the end
of paper coupons mean

the end of saving money
at the grocery store?

Not quite.

I'm here in downtown
Denver, Colorado,

across from
the offices of Ibotta.

We're here to learn, first hand,

how they're gonna take you from

taking a bundle of coupons
to the grocery store,

to taking this.

Let's head inside now,
and talk to Bryan Leach.

He's the founder
and CEO of Ibotta.

Hey, Brian, great to meet you.

Hey, Greg, welcome to Ibotta.

Thanks, you ready to show me
the magic behind the curtain?

- [Bryan] Let's do it.
- All right.

So, Bryan,

when it comes to
innovative products like yours

one of the things that people
always want to know about

is the Eureka moment.

What was the bolt of lightning

that sparked you
to create Ibotta?

You know, I was sitting
on an airplane,

coming back
from a conference in Rio,

and I saw a woman
take her mobile phone out

and start snapping pictures
of her receipt.

And I got to thinking,

wow, if you had all that information
about everything you bought,

what else could you do with it?

And that led to the idea
of giving people cash back

based on what they buy.

So you have this idea,
and, uh, now of course

you have to start thinking about

development and financing
and everything.

What was your next step?

First thing was just
to say it out loud,

and to get past
my shyness about it.

I went out, then,
to Silicon Valley,

and met with Larry Sonsini,

who was the lead lawyer
for Apple and Facebook.

And I was very coy about this,

but I eventually blurted out
my idea

and asked him for advice.

And to my surprise,
he suggested that

he'd be interested
in helping me, in funding this

as long as I'd be willing to
quit my job as a law partner.

And in the moment I said,
"Of course I'll quit my job!"

And then afterwards,
I had to explain to my wife

that I had just promised
to quit my job

as long as we somehow
found a way

to raise $3 million together.

What was her response?

My wife said,
"Well, don't worry,

the odds of doing that
are pretty slim."

So how did you manage
to put that money together?

Well, I ended up finding
angel investors,

friends and family, who
were interested in putting in

small checks, $20,000, $30,000

and after 50 of them did that,
we came up with the $3 million.

That's excellent,
so now you've got the money.

And you've gotta start
working on development now,

you don't have a product yet.

Just me and the money,

and sitting in the front
of my house,

with no office and no team.

Had to go out
and recruit a team,

people that knew how
to build a mobile app.

We began to figure out what
consumers actually wanted.

What was the best way
for you to do that?

We tried a lot of things,
but my favorite technique

was putting, uh, a table out in front
of the ballpark in downtown Denver,

and as passersby, uh,
came by we just

gave them a bottle of water
in exchange for

their honest thoughts on whether
they would use this free mobile app.

So it's really
a consumer-developed product?

It is. You know, there's,

there's no substitute
for just asking people,

and iterating
and trial and error.

And eventually you get something

that tens of millions
of people want to use.

That's excellent.

So now, you've got this thing
put together,

but it's not gonna work if you
don't get, uh, the big brands

or the big stores on board.
How'd you manage that?

We were unheard of technology,

so we had to find
that entrepreneurial person

within Coca-Cola,
within Unilever, within Kraft,

who was willing to take a flyer

with a test budget, a pilot,

and then prove it out
with a case-study over time.

And that is what Erik and
his team did so very well.

Well, I'd like to find out
more about that.

- So can we go meet Erik?
- Sounds great, let's do it.

Greg, this is Erik.

He helped build
our relationships

with some of the biggest
brands in the world.

That sounds amazing.
It's great to meet you, Erik.

Likewise, nice to meet you.

Bryan, thanks a lot.

So, Erik,

you did some really important
work with this company,

helped take it
from proof of concept

all the way through to getting

some of the biggest brands
in the world involved.

How did you do that?

It was a challenge.
Especially in the early days.

Uh, we have a two-sided market,

which makes it
even more challenging.

Meaning, we have
CPG manufacturers

that aren't gonna want to
advertise their products

on a platform that doesn't
reach a broad audience.

And then you have consumers that
are never going to download an app

if they don't have the ability to earn
cash back from those CPG manufacturers.

Right, that makes it
even more important

to get a, a big brand
like, say, Coca-Cola,

which I know was one of your,
one of your biggest involved

because it not only shows other
brands that the platform is viable,

it shows consumers that,

"Wow, I can save
on products that I know."

Absolutely, yes, we needed to
get the big manufacturers on board.

And I think we made
some smart decisions

as it comes to
the go-to-market strategy.

So, specifically,
we price the product

on a pay-per-sale pricing, which
was a novel idea at the time.

And it allowed
these CPG manufacturers

to run their offers
on Ibotta, risk-free.

They only pay if they actually
physically move a unit

through the Ibotta platform.

And that's gotta be
really important

for brands that have used
coupons for decades,

maybe even a hundred years.

And you know that they paid to
print out thousands of coupons,

They all go out, and only
a few of them get used.

With your product, though, they
don't pay unless it actually works.

Absolutely, and then
we would also add on

some additional value
for the CPG brands.

So things like robust
data and analytics reporting.

We also allow them to put

media engagements
behind their offer.

So, a coupon is just a discount.

We actually allow them
to put videos, facts, recipes

behind those offers to educate
consumers about their products.

Great, well,
I think at this point

the only thing left for me to
do is learn how the app works,

and maybe even
do a little shopping.

Absolutely, let me
introduce you to Luke.

Sounds great.

So, Greg, I'm excited to
introduce you to Luke Swanson.

He's Ibotta's
chief technology officer.

And while we talked about how we built
our relationships with the CPG brands,

none of it is possible without Luke
and his team building the actual app.

So I'm excited to have him
walk you through

how it all works,

and I'll let you two
take it from here.

- Sounds great, thanks Erik.
- Thanks.

Luke, great to meet you.

Great to meet you as well, Greg.

So I am fascinated to see
how the app actually works.

But before we get into that,

I want to talk a little
about the history.

You were here
from the very beginning.

I was. I joined the company
right after our CEO, Bryan,

raised the initial
seed-round of funding.

And, uh, he a presentation
and a great idea,

but didn't have experience with
building a product or technology,

and so I came on board
to help with that.

All right, so you had to
put some folks together,

because, I guess, parts
of this technology existed,

but not the way
you wanted to use them.

Exactly, so we set out
to make an app

that would work at any
retailer for grocery shopping.

And to be able to do that, uh,

we couldn't partner with,
uh, grocery stores at the time

because we were
just a small start-up.

And so the only way to make
that happen was with receipts.

Which I have a couple of here,

- let me show you what we've got.
- [Greg] Okay.

Um, the challenge
with receipts is that

a receipt is different
at every retailer,

and, uh, you can see
that the items on the receipt,

aren't necessarily descriptive
of what product was purchased.

And so there was a lot of work,

both in digitizing the receipts

so that a user could
take a picture of the receipt

and we can understand
the text that was on there,

but also then,
once we had that text,

mapping that to a product.

Right, and, and as you said,

every retailer has a different
format for their receipts,

- different shorthand for their products.
- Correct.

So how does the, how does the,
the app translate that?

Well what we did
is we got receipts

from our users, we essentially
crowdsourced that

from all across the country.

And we had to understand...

was the receipt of the same
at a given retailer

across the country,
was it different?

And then, what did it look like

across all of those different
retailers?

Once we had that,

we were essentially able
to create a product database

that mapped the items
on this Publix's receipt,

for instance, to a given
unique product.

So that we could understand
if the saver

is getting credit for what
they're purchasing.

And that's sort of the part
of the technology

that you guys invented.

Because, being able
to translate that

over that many different
formats didn't exist.

Exactly. Elements of the optical
character recognition technology

were out there,
but they were really optimized

for, uh, documents,
like legal documents.

They weren't optimized
for the format of receipts.

And so we had to do a lot
of customization

to that technology,

in order to be able
to make it work.

[Greg] As consumers become
more focused on sustainability,

paper coupons are becoming
less and less desirable.

But can you still get the
savings from your Sunday paper

without having to cut
down trees?

I'm meeting with the people at
Ibotta to learn how

their fully digital cash back
system works,

and benefits everyone.

From brands, to grocery
stores, to consumers.

- So, let me open up the app here.
- Okay.

[Luke] When you come into

the app you're going to see I'm gonna
go into what we call the Publix gallery.

Which is the area of the app

that contains all of the offers.

I would come in here
and I would add offers

for my shopping trip.

For instance, on here I see
Prego sauce.

- [Luke] You can see that I've added that to my list.
- [Greg] Mmm-hmm.

Also, I have 18 things in
my shopping list right here.

So I can easily find them
when I go into the store.

And I can barcode scan
their product UPC's

to ensure that those products
match the offers.

- [Greg] Okay.
- [Luke] You'll purchase the products.

And then once you have your
receipt you come into the app,

and tap this Upload Receipt
button, at the top.

And essentially, you're taken
into a special camera view

on your phone.

[Greg] Mmm-hmm. And when it
goes green, you snap the picture...

[Luke] Goes green, you snap
the picture.

You submit that.

And we detect all of the items
on that receipt.

And, in real time, it says

that you have seven offers,

uh, that you're going to earn
cash back on this trip.

And that money goes right back
into your account.

Goes right back
into your account

within a few minutes
of submitting the picture.

That's amazing. Now, I'm
looking at this Walmart receipt,

and it's clearly very different

than the Publix receipt.

It's obviously a lot smaller.

Uh, also, the items are coded
differently.

Then, it's got this
long barcode at the bottom.

[Luke] Yes. Yeah, so,

for each trip to Walmart,

uh, for each store,
and unique items purchased,

it creates a identifier.

And that's encoded in this
barcode at the bottom of the receipt.

And the really cool thing is, is
that we've integrated with Walmart.

So that all you have to do
when you go into Walmart,

is scan that barcode
on the bottom of the receipt.

So let me show you
how that works.

You tap Walmart.

And this is going to be
an in store trip.

So I'm going to tap In Store.

And then, all I have to do
is scan receipt barcode.

And then I'm gonna hover
over that barcode.

It's going to see, say
that it was accepted.

And then you can see that
we got three offers for $5.55.

So every shopping trip
to Walmart

- has a unique barcode?
- Yes.

And you didn't even have
to press the button to scan it.

Yeah. It's even easier than
taking a picture of a receipt.

[Greg] Then how do you finish
that up and actually take that--

[Luke] All we have to do is
hit collect $5.55.

And there you go.

Sweet. $5.55 will be in your
account in the next few minutes.

[Greg] Okay, so now...

Say you're shopping at a store

that has its own loyalty program, does
that interfere with how Ibotta works?

It doesn't.
We actually partner

right alongside the loyalty
programs of retailers.

So, we've integrated with over
a hundred different retailers

in the last nine years,
and their loyalty accounts.

So as you can see,
I've connected

my Weis loyalty card here
inside of the app.

All I have to do is hit
view card,

and you can see my Preferred
Shoppers Club Card come right up.

I can either show this
to the cashier at checkout,

or I can use my phone number
or loyalty card when I checkout.

And behind the scenes,
all the purchase data

is sent directly with
no receipts involved at all.

So, you're going to get the benefits
of both programs by doing that?

Exactly. You're going to get
your loyalty rewards from Weis

and you're also gonna get cash
back from Ibotta at the same time.

Now, what if I want to do
my shopping online?

Great question.

So, I'm going to go back here

and then I tap on Walmart.

And rather than hitting
In Store this time,

I'm going to hit Online,
where you can see

we have up to 6% cash back.

So we have, uh, 1% cash back
on personal care,

all the way up to 6% cash back
in different categories.

The other great thing is that
all the same offers

that I unlocked for Walmart
in store,

things like grocery products
are available online.

So all I have to do is hit
Shop Walmart.com.

You go to Walmart's website.

You make your purchases as
you normally would. Checkout.

And that same
purchase information

that's on the receipt,
is sent to Ibotta

in real time, and you get your
credit almost immediately.

That's amazing.
Well, I'm excited.

I'm excited to actually
get into a store

and try some shopping
for myself, so I'm

going to go ahead and do that.

Great news! And I've actually
got a Weis loyalty card

for you here, right here.
You can go check it out.

-Excellent. I'm gonna do it!
-Okay.

- Thanks a lot, Luke.
- Thanks, Greg.

[Greg] So far, we've learned
a lot about

the history
and development of Ibotta.

But now it's time to put
our money

where our phones are.

I've got my list loaded up,

I've got the app all ready
to go.

I'm outside of a Weis market
in Allentown, PA.

I'm going to head inside now
and do some shopping,

and find out if Bryan, Luke,
and Erik are right

and the Ibotta app is as
user friendly as they say it is.

Ha! This is great, we are
going to need one of these.

And it's got a handy holder
here for my phone.

That is awesome.

So, we open up the app.

I go to the Weis gallery.

Look at my shopping list.

It's got 16 items on it.

First one up is Prego sauce.

Let's go see if we can find it.

All right. So, here we are
in the pasta sauce aisle.

Looking for Prego. This looks
like the item right here.

So, we, uh,

call up the barcode scanner.

And... [scanner beeps]
It's a match.

Which is great.

Now, the deal says we have
to buy two.

So, two we buy.

There we are.
And on to the next.

And as I look at the app here.

My shopping list tells me that

Kraft Deluxe Macaroni
and Cheese is the next item.

So why don't we take a look
in the next aisle

and see if we can find that?

Okay. Kraft Deluxe Macaroni
and Cheese.

Got some Kraft Macaroni
and Cheese here,

but that's not the item that
we are looking for.

Let's see what we... Ah, here
we go.

Okay. We've got Deluxe
Macaroni and Cheese,

but a lot
of different varieties.

Let's try this one. See
if this, uh,

matches our deal.

Get our scanner going.

And... [scanner beeps]
There we go, it's a match.

Now, I look at my list.
It also says we need

Bumblebee Chunk Light Tuna.

And I see some canned seafood
here, so let's see if we can find it.

And here we go.
Bumblebee Chunk Light Tuna.

And... Call up our scanner.

[scanner beeps]
And there we go. It's a match.

It's fun. It makes shopping
like a treasure hunt. It's cool.

[Greg] For every offer
I purchased,

I can expect to see cash back
in my Ibotta account,

within 48 hours.

Now that I have everything,
all that's left to do is checkout.

My Weis Preferred Shopper
Club Card was accepted.

So I got some instant savings
there.

And within 48 hours,
I'll get cash back

in my account, from Ibotta.

Sounds like
a pretty perfect system to me.

Time for me to get out of here.

Greg, I'm glad I caught you.

- Hey, Ron!
- How are you?

Ibotta told me you would
be here today.

Yeah, and I had
a really good time.

It turned shopping into more
of a, uh, treasure hunt.

It was really fun today.

- That's great, let me show you what they are doing today.
- Okay.

[Ron] We're actually building
a display for the Ibotta products

to make it very simple
for the customer.

So, we have all these items.

Plus, you can go to their app
and see

all the extra items they have
on file.

That's excellent. And now
I know there's a lot more

on the Ibotta app than there are in
this display. There's hundreds of things.

There's hundreds of items
for Ibotta, and we make it

very easy. It's electronic.

Plus, when you take our
loyalty shopper card,

on top of that, you get all
of our discounts,

and coupons and offers
and rewards.

And then, you can compound it
with all of the cash back

that you get with Ibotta.

And it's super convenient too.

You don't even have to scan a
receipt. It all just happens automatically.

It all happens automatically.

You just have to scan and go.

Excellent. Well, I'm going
to head back to Inventionland.

-Ron, it was great to see you.
-Good to see you, Greg. Take care.

- Hi, George.
- Hey, Chris.

Welcome to Inventionland.

- Thanks so much for having me.
- You bet.

Well, I'm glad you're here now
because I'm working

on these new,
innovative hard goods.

And I was curious. Is there
anything that Ibotta can do to help us?

We do! And your timing
is perfect.

We've just decided that we're
going to move beyond

the world of grocery rewards,

to allow people to get
cash back on hard goods,

and general merchandise.

Which we're all buying
on a regular basis as well.

So brands like this can get
the same power

that our CBG brands have,
historically.

[George] That's beautiful.

Wow. So like, like at,
Father's Day,

that might pop up?

Exactly right. Or let's say
for example,

we know that you're buying
salad,

this would be
a great opportunity for us

to give somebody a tool that's
gonna make their salad fresher.

- Nice. All right, that's a big innovation.
- Yeah.

Any more?

Yeah. So, we're always trying to
make it easier to find those rewards.

And we really want to meet
people where they are.

So, let's say for example,
you're looking at a recipe site.

A particular brand of flour

wants you to try their flour.

They're going to serve you up
an offer say,

"$2 when you try this product
for the first time."

We can also make it easier
to add that item to the basket.

Oh, my gosh. My youngest
daughter loves to bake.

She's going to love that.
Mom and dad will love it too.

'Cause we're going to save
some money.

Okay, so that's two big
innovations. Do you have a third?

Yeah. Let's say
you're at the grocery store.

We want to be able to use
augmented reality

to help you find the specific
items that are on your list,

and also figure out
which items are on promotion.

So that you can maximize the value
you're getting from the grocery store.

Well, that's a third
big innovation.

But you guys are so busy. You know,
I don't want to hold you here, Chris.

That sounds great.

But, before I go, I've got
a gift for you.

This is a Giant Eagle
Advantage Card.

It's the gift of time.

So instead of having to upload
a receipt,

simply link this card once.

Every time you use
the platform, we'll go out

and find rewards for you.

Saving you time and money when
you go to the grocery store.

That's great!

Thanks a lot for having me. I've got to get
back, but I really appreciate being here.

- Safe travels.
- Thanks a lot.

- I'm loading it right now.
- Bye-bye.