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DealScience, a Manhattan Beach-based coupon comparison startup, found success much faster than expected over the past year thanks to the holiday season, media attention and, of course, its robust database and user experience.
Brandon Hunt and Cory O'Daniel co-founded DealScience as the Kayak.com for online coupons and promo codes. The site went live as an MVP in October and went from zero visitors to 300,000 in a few months. By the 2013 holiday season, it saw exponential growth, driving millions of sales to retailers from its coupons.
“We were surprised to see the site take off so quickly,” O'Daniel said. “We’re still in the MVP phase and are planning to launch many additional features.”
The site caught the wave of success for the 2013 holiday season thanks to high search engine rankings and getting picked up on features by The New York Times, CNBC, LATimes, Reuters and other major news networks. O'Daniel notes the strength in DealScience is its shopping data, which proved DealScience’s authority in the space, helping get its name out to the public.The goal is to be the reliable one-stop shop for online coupons.
“There are no coupon sites that aggregate different sites,” O'Daniel said.“A lot of people go to a site like RetailMeNot, but get frustrated because they can’t find the deals they want on the site. We can directly deal a user to a coupon, no matter what site. If it’s not listed on DealScience, it doesn’t exist. We take it a step farther by offering online shopping tips and rating deals on factors such as how rare that type of coupon deal is. We built the best coupon site available for savings, and people are using it.”
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DealScience strives to provide users with a better coupon experience by getting rid of the spam that is prevalent in the space. 8,500 stores are currently on the site, including international shopping destinations. Upcoming features include editorial features, such as specialized shopping tips and comparisons.
DealScience currently has seven employees and is looking to double its staff in 2014. O'Daniel said the next goals are growth, a funding round and product enhancements, including predicative analytics on possible feature coupon deals and mobile applications.
