Hooch
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Hooch moves beyond subscription drinks, with rewards for travel, dining and more
When we first wrote about Hooch, it offered a fun, straightforward deal — for $9.99 per month, you could claim one free drink per day from participating bars and restaurants.
Since then, the company launched Hooch Black, a pricier subscription that includes perks like hotel discounts and concierge service. But even then, co-founder and CEO Lin Dai was hinting at plans to use blockchain technology to create what he called “a decentralized model for consumer rewards.”
Now Hooch is delivering on what Dai promised, with a relaunched app that rewards users for their purchases.
“We were super excited about the feedback and response [to Hooch Black] that we saw from our members,” Dai said. “What we decided to do is just completely update the app with rewards for consumers across four different categories — travel, dining, entertainment and e-commerce.”
He noted that while most loyalty programs reward you for using a specific card or for shopping with a specific company, Hooch has partnered with more than 250,000 merchants (including Marriott hotels, TAO restaurants, Starbucks, Uber and Amazon). The company can actually scan the purchases made on any linked debit or credit card, and you’ll be rewarded whenever you spend money with those partners.
The rewards take the form of what Hooch is calling TAP rewards dollars — the exact reward will vary depending on the merchant, but the company says it could be as high as 10 percent of your spending.
Lin Dai, CEO of Hooch
Dai said TAP dollars are actually a stablecoin pegged to the U.S. dollar, but he emphasized that you don’t need to understand the backend to use the rewards. For most users, TAP dollars will simply be a digital currency they can redeem for hotel bookings, restaurants credits and gift cards.
“Security is our top concern,” Dai added. The idea is to access your transaction history to verify your purchases (Hooch makes money by driving purchases for merchants), but without storing or sharing identifying information. “When we capture the consumer purchase information, we actually don’t capture any of their names or credit card numbers … We don’t store any identity.”
The program also comes with a big perk for enlisting your friends. There is an upfront reward of five TAP dollars, but the real selling point is the fact that you’ll get 20 percent of their rewards — not just on their initial purchases, but for the entire time they use the app.
If you like the Hooch Black plan, you’ll still be able to sign up and pay for it. But the company’s emphasis has shifted to the broader rewards program, which you can join for free.
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Drink-a-day startup Hooch raises $5M as it plans blockchain initiative
Right on the heels of launching its concierge service Hooch Black, Hooch announced today that it has raised $5 million in seed funding.
The company’s basic subscription of $9.99 gets you one free drink per day from a variety of partner bars and restaurants. Hooch Black (which you have to apply for, and which costs $295 per year) adds hotel deals, concierge service and other perks on top.
Even though Hooch had already raised $2.75 million in two pre-seed rounds, co-founder and CEO Lin Dai said it was more important to bring on strategic investors than it was to raise a lot of money: “We feel like the most important thing for our business is really the relationships.”
After all, he said the hospitality industry is controlled by “a few key companies,” so success is determined by working with those companies — it’s not a situation where someone can just beat you by outspending you.
The funding was led by Revelis Capital Group and Blue Scorpion Investments, with participation from Access Industries Holdings, Warner Music Group (Dai said that Hooch will be working with Warner Music on content, events and promotions), FJ Labs, Diesel CEO Stefano Rosso, former Comcast CTO Sree Kotay and others.
At the same time, the company is expanding its advisory board to include Bob Hurst (previously vice chairman of Goldman Sachs), Bonin Bough (former chief media and ecommerce officer at Mondelez) and Teymour Farman-Farmaian (previously CMO and CRO at Spotify and now managing director of Bitcoin wallet company Xapo).
Dai also said Hooch is preparing to launch its blockchain initiative this summer. What does blockchain have to do with free drinks? Well, Dai didn’t go into detail, but he suggested that by launching its own cryptocurrency token, Hooch could work with partners to create a “decentralized model for consumer rewards.”
Looking ahead, Dai said that Hooch might raise a “proper” Series A in 12 to 18 months, though he expects to reach profitability before then.
“At that point, we will have already built the moat around us with exclusive deals with all the top hospitality and experiential players,” he said. “That would be the appropriate time for us, if needed, to go back to a traditional round of funding.”
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Drink-a-day startup Hooch adds a perk-filled premium membership plan
Hooch, the subscription startup that allows members to claim one free drink per day from hundreds of different bars and restaurants, is adding a new membership level called Hooch Black.
Signing up for Hooch Black will cost you significantly more than the regular subscription — instead of $9.99 per month, it’s $295 per year. And you don’t just get in automatically; you actually need to fill out an application.
But in exchange for that money and work, Hooch Black members get access to a variety of perks (on top of the standard drink-a-day option), including deals at more than 100,000 hotels worldwide — co-founder and CEO Lin Dai said that because they’re only visible to members, Hooch gets access to lower “unpublished” prices that you won’t find elsewhere online, with discounts as high as 60 percent.
It also offers preferred reservations, discounts and free champagne at select restaurants. And there are other giveaways, too — in New York City, the launch offerings include Hamilton and Governor’s Ball tickets.
Dai suggested that Hooch has always been meant as an antidote to apps that “facilitate a couch economy” — instead of delivering stuff to your home, Hooch convinces you to go out to bars. Dai said Hooch Black “continues the concept” with all additional perks tied to real-world experiences. (There’s some couch-centric stuff too, like a $100 Postmates credit.)
In addition, Hooch Black members will get access to what Dai described as a “concierge who can make travel arrangements and dining reservations for you.” (Those reservations don’t have to be with Hooch partners, by the way.) He compared the experience to an American Express concierge, but with the advantage that the communication is handled in the Hooch app: “No one wants to pick up the phone anymore.”
About that application: Dai said he wants to limit the initial membership to around 295 people in the three launch cities of New York, San Francisco and Los Angeles. [Update: While those three cities are the initial target markets for members, Dai said the perks can be used “by almost anyone no matter where you live.”] He hopes to bring in more people eventually, but at first, having thousands of members would “dilute the experience,” particularly since some of the benefits (like access to celeb-hosted parties) don’t really scale.
At the same time, Dai said the application is “not about income or job title.” Instead, he sees the service as appealing to the same audience of “young professionals or millennial hustlers” as Hooch itself. So the application is focused on your bigger ambitions and “how hard you want to work to get there.”
Dai also noted that Hooch’s current membership is roughly even between men and women, something he’s hoping to continue with Hooch Black.
“We want to build a very inclusive community,” he added. “The primary criteria is, I would say, aspiration. We’re not just catering to a specific income level or race or gender.”
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