START-UP NATION: Dublin-based technology company Redeem&Get:Redeem&Get's model for daily online deals takes away the legwork for the merchant and makes things simple for the customer

For businesses looking to lure customers, daily deal sites can seem like a honey pot. Enabling you to sell your wares to thousands of members, deal sites promise customers by the bucket load. But what if it all goes a bit too well? With cash-strapped customers biting on daily deals in their droves, beauticians, mechanics, hoteliers and restaurants can sometimes struggle to cope with the sudden demand.

“What we’ve noticed is that when somebody runs a daily deal, there is a bit of fear around it, like, ‘what if I sell too many?’,” says Gene Murphy chief executive of Redeem&Get.

With his business just a year old, Murphy says the idea for Redeem&Get came about when a client of the digital marketing agency in which he worked used Groupon to sell tickets to an event. With 1,350 people buying the deal in 24 hours, having a plan to deal with the demand was key.

“Imagine that number of people trying to call or email your business, and what if they all tried to do it at the same time?” says Murphy. Setting up an online service by which customers could redeem and get their discounted ticket, Murphy says he and his colleagues made the headache that can come with servicing a daily deal go away.

The majority of businesses using daily deals are owner- operators, says Murphy, with up to 30 per cent of deals sold around Europe in the health and beauty sector. But with response to a deal suddenly making the phone ring off the hook, businesses can find it hard to juggle calls and schedule new appointments while continuing to service customers. “We just thought there might be a business in this.” says Murphy.

Invited by Enterprise Ireland to join its five-month “Propel” course for start-ups, the company was tutored on how to take the next step. “It really just helped us to understand our offering and get it as concise as possible,” says Murphy. “We got absolutely super mentoring in finance and marketing that gave us the ability and the confidence to explain ourselves properly and have a successful pitch.”

From there, they joined the National Digital Research Centre LaunchPad programme. Focused on supporting digital entrepreneurs, Murphy says the programme gave them confidence to launch themselves fully as Redeem&Get. “We just cut loose from what we were doing outside of Redeem&Get,” says Murphy.

Comprising Murphy as chief executive, Jade Alison O’Connor as chief technology officer and Adrian McMahon as chief information officer, the message is simple. “Our service works with a merchant who doesn’t want to be overwhelmed and wants to reduce costs of managing a daily deal and ultimately end up with the ability to turn all those one-time customers into repeat customers,” he says.

Through an online deal manager, new customers can redeem vouchers online or schedule an appointment, saving merchants hundreds of inbound phone calls. And by gathering information about the customer, it enables merchants to contact them again with new offers.

“We’re trying to get as much as possible for the merchant,” says Murphy. “We feel that if the merchant isn’t catered for properly and they go away, then deal sites will have nothing to sell, customers won’t have any great deals to buy. By making this more sustainable for the merchant, the whole industry can grow.”

Murphy says Redeem&Get works directly with merchants as well as with marketing agencies and with deal sites themselves to service the growing phenomenon of daily deals.

Winning the ESB Electric Ireland Spark of Genius Award at the Dublin Web Summit in October saw the company garner recognition as well as investment worth €100,000 from ACT Venture Capital. “It was a great start on our road for our full funding round that will hopefully complete in the next six months,” says Murphy.

Processing €1 million worth of vouchers in its first year, in the first seven weeks of 2012, Redeem&Get has already processed €300,000 worth of vouchers. So what’s next?

“Our goal is to continue to prove the company and to raise further investment so that we can sell in other countries,” says Murphy. “This year we hope to create 10 jobs in Ireland. We could do with those people straight away today,” he says.

“It’s sell, sell, sell.”