Vidappe [“Vid-app”], a location-based discount app, alerts users of the free discounts they can utilize around town when they get physically close to one. Many people have free discounts they can use thanks to their student ID, employee ID, university alumni membership card, and more. Vidappe has stored the discount info for 170+ of those organizations and sends the user an alert whenever he is physically near a discount relevant especially for him.

Many plans are brought forth when the founder feels the need to correct some injustice in the world. Vidappe is no exception. Only in this case, the injustice just applied to the founder, Star Li, when she realized she could have been getting cash back for all the money she spent the first three years of college if she had just used a cash back credit card instead of a debit card. After the waves of annoyance and nausea passed with the realization that she could have saved some money if she had just used the right card, Star did some research and discovered something even more amazing - a ton of cards, not just credit cards, offered their cardholders great perks in the form of free discounts.

Metro transit riders were able to receive free discounts all over town just by showing their transit fare card, school IDs allowed students and teachers to save at upscale apparel stores and restaurants, even library cards were able to moonlight as discount cards. Star began talking to people who had such cards and was surprised to discover no one really knew about these discounts. No one knew in Boston knew that riding the metro allowed them to save at over 150 different restaurants, museums, and stores all over town thanks to their MTBA CharlieCard discounts. No one knew in Brooklyn knew that having a library card allowed them to save at over 35 different stores all over town thanks to their Brooklyn Public Library card discounts. And perhaps worst of all, very few students were aware that they could save more than 15% at such stores as J.Crew, Club Monaco, Ann Taylor, and more thanks to their student ID discounts. Perhaps this injustice didn’t just apply to Star anymore. Why weren’t these discounts more utilized? The answer usually came down to one thing => there were way too many discounts to keep track of and people just didn’t want to make the effort to figure out where exactly they could save.

Star decided to fix this problem. She wrote a business plan for a mobile app that would consolidate all the free discounts a person was able to utilize and actively alert the user when he got physically close by any store that allowed him to save. She ended up winning the prestigious 2010 Cornell University Big Idea Competition with this plan and decided to get started on this idea for real several months later. Star called her mobile app and the website that accompanied it - “Vidappe.”

All the user had to do was download the free app for his iPhone or Android and subscribe to any organization(s) relevant to him. After that, he would never have to turn on the app to get it to work – the app would always be “on” and send him location-based reminders at his convenience.  For example, he’d be walking down the street rocking out to music and Vidappe would send him an alert telling him that Ben & Jerry’s a block away is offering 10% off thanks to his MTBA CharlieCard.

Vidappe has such a wide-ranging number of discount programs that almost everyone would find this app useful. Many people are eligible to join at least one of these programs for free and just don’t know it or probably already are members and just aren’t aware of all the discount side perks they can utilize.

Vidappe launched in June 2011 and since then, has increased to over 1,400 active users. The number of downloads are increasing at a steady rate every week with no signs of slowing down.

Since it’s launch, Vidappe has also formed a partnership with Collegiate Services Inc., a company that sets up discount programs for universities and university alumni associations across the country. Vidappe acts as the “mobile counterpart” to all the discounts Collegiate Services lists on their website so that all of their clients can download Vidappe to better utilize their discounts. Vidappe is also currently in talks with other companies in regards to transferring it’s mobile “real-time alerts” API to power other company-branded apps.

Vidappe is a convenient, simple, tool that will not only remember everything for the user but will make saving money virtually effortless.

Media Contact:

Star Li, CEO

Vidappe Inc.

626.757.7015

www.vidappe.com

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