Jesse Spivak

That's funny. We did assert, well, I'll get to that later. But basically, Ibotta is a way for you to get digital coupons. Brands put offers in the app. You click on the offer. You show us evidence that you bought the thing that is on offer. And then Ibotta will pay you cash back. They'll send it to your PayPal account, give you a gift card to Amazon, whatever you want.

That's funny. We did assert, well, I'll get to that later. But basically, Ibotta is a way for you to get digital coupons. Brands put offers in the app. You click on the offer. You show us evidence that you bought the thing that is on offer. And then Ibotta will pay you cash back. They'll send it to your PayPal account, give you a gift card to Amazon, whatever you want.

So the problem that we're trying to solve is how do we make sure that the offers in the app don't exceed the budget that is allocated to them by the brands that put those offers in the app? And that sounds maybe like an easy problem, like there's an easy way to just say, okay, there's $500,000 in budget for Oreo coupons.

So the problem that we're trying to solve is how do we make sure that the offers in the app don't exceed the budget that is allocated to them by the brands that put those offers in the app? And that sounds maybe like an easy problem, like there's an easy way to just say, okay, there's $500,000 in budget for Oreo coupons.

Just divide $500,000 by how much money we're giving out per coupon, and then you know. But it's actually much easier Like it's obviously much harder than that. And in order to preserve a good user experience, we need to make sure that we're not yanking content and surprising our users. Like you would be really upset if you went to the store specifically to buy Oreos to get coupon.

Just divide $500,000 by how much money we're giving out per coupon, and then you know. But it's actually much easier Like it's obviously much harder than that. And in order to preserve a good user experience, we need to make sure that we're not yanking content and surprising our users. Like you would be really upset if you went to the store specifically to buy Oreos to get coupon.

And then by the time you checked out, the coupon is no longer in your application. So we have to run some predictive algorithms to basically guess when we're going to run out of money and kind of slow the velocity down as we approach that point.

And then by the time you checked out, the coupon is no longer in your application. So we have to run some predictive algorithms to basically guess when we're going to run out of money and kind of slow the velocity down as we approach that point.

We are only in the United States right now. Sorry, Luke.

We are only in the United States right now. Sorry, Luke.

Yeah, it's interesting that you say that because right when I joined the company, I was kind of put on...

Yeah, it's interesting that you say that because right when I joined the company, I was kind of put on...

the team I was actually giving you my my tech buddy my mentor when I joined the company this was his project and as someone new in the company it was it was very it was really overwhelming problem space because basically these campaigns and our application almost have like a physical momentum to them so if you imagine trying to stop a moving train you can't just

the team I was actually giving you my my tech buddy my mentor when I joined the company this was his project and as someone new in the company it was it was very it was really overwhelming problem space because basically these campaigns and our application almost have like a physical momentum to them so if you imagine trying to stop a moving train you can't just

hit the brakes and expect it to stop on a dime. You have to apply the brakes over some distance to slow the train down. And that's really how the content in the application is modeled. And it's, I'm not a physics person. And so it's really confusing.

hit the brakes and expect it to stop on a dime. You have to apply the brakes over some distance to slow the train down. And that's really how the content in the application is modeled. And it's, I'm not a physics person. And so it's really confusing.

Yeah, that's sort of right. So we have an event-based architecture where our system, and for folks who aren't familiar with that, that means that basically your system publishes events, which is data, that signify that something has happened of interest in the system. So maybe like shopping cart loaded is an event that you might have in like a typical inventory space or something like that.

Yeah, that's sort of right. So we have an event-based architecture where our system, and for folks who aren't familiar with that, that means that basically your system publishes events, which is data, that signify that something has happened of interest in the system. So maybe like shopping cart loaded is an event that you might have in like a typical inventory space or something like that.

So we have events that we're interested in, like content awarded, which means that John went to the store, submitted a receipt through the app and got cash back. So the content has been awarded. So we listen for those events in order to keep track in real time of how much budget is being used. And we basically track that over time to make a rough prediction about how fast things are moving.

So we have events that we're interested in, like content awarded, which means that John went to the store, submitted a receipt through the app and got cash back. So the content has been awarded. So we listen for those events in order to keep track in real time of how much budget is being used. And we basically track that over time to make a rough prediction about how fast things are moving.