Comments on: Manage Those Holiday Gift Cards With Leverage

By: Jacob Saki

Jacob Saki — Sun, 26 Apr 2009 16:10:02 +0000

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By: Holiday Gift Card Management Startup Leverage Goes Belly Up | Q u a r a r a

Holiday Gift Card Management Startup Leverage Goes Belly Up | Q u a r a r a — Fri, 12 Dec 2008 13:53:45 +0000

[...] raised $2 million in angel funding, planned to generate revenue by reselling gift cards (see our launch coverage for more). It turns out the business model wasn’t solid enough to keep the company afloat [...]

By: Holiday Gift Card Management Startup Leverage Goes Belly Up | Top Tech News, LIVE

Fri, 12 Dec 2008 09:24:29 +0000

By: Holiday Gift Card Management Startup Leverage Goes Belly Up

Holiday Gift Card Management Startup Leverage Goes Belly Up — Fri, 12 Dec 2008 08:45:50 +0000

By: Daniel

Daniel — Sun, 09 Nov 2008 03:07:18 +0000

I like this Gift cards holiday idea because with http://www.char...ertificates.org any gift card is great.

By: Eric

Eric — Mon, 08 Sep 2008 03:28:59 +0000

Contest Beat, are you not pinging back? Just curious as to why it did not ping back…

By: adverting gift

adverting gift — Mon, 08 Sep 2008 03:24:31 +0000

I understand that many people are at odds over the class gift. I feel very strongly that the class gift of a seal in the Great Hall of the new Ohio Union is perfect. Even though the Class of 2007 wont directly benefit from the seal much less the Union, it will bridge the gap between our time at OSU and the experiences of the students who have no idea what the old, run-down union was like. Its time to pay forward.

By: best buy gift card » Manage Those Holiday Gift Cards With Leverage

best buy gift card » Manage Those Holiday Gift Cards With Leverage — Fri, 14 Dec 2007 04:34:11 +0000

[...] You know, One Card to Rule Them All. The way that could work is that the card is tied to your online Leverage account, which knows all your balances. You take it to Best Buy, it taps into the $50 in your gift card account. …Read More [...]

By: TC regular

TC regular — Tue, 04 Dec 2007 17:05:58 +0000

Yes Keith, but that would not work well with the Leverage founder’s (see #32 and #33) business. Who else links to market supporting data on hand?

As for Mz. Julie Broad, she should remember the interwebs is amazing, and I can see and a Leverage founder both went to school in Athens at the exact same time. “Lookinf forward to being a user”…indeed.

FYI, launchsquad and leverage folk, we read here enough to see the astroturf a mile away.

By: Keith

Keith — Tue, 04 Dec 2007 08:28:39 +0000

Try this to manage your own cards. Attach a piece of Scotch Magic Tape, or other brand of tape that can be written on, to the face of the card (not over the magnetic strip read by a card reader). Every time you use the card, write the new remaining balance on the piece of tape. It works for me!

By: QuitYerBeotching

QuitYerBeotching — Fri, 30 Nov 2007 16:57:37 +0000

Read this and you’ll understand why we should thank God for companies like Leverage. Enjoy!

http://shopping...t-card-pitfalls

By: QuitYerBeotching

QuitYerBeotching — Thu, 29 Nov 2007 21:48:47 +0000

Stop being so critical and over-analyzing everything. What Leverage offers sounds like a good deal to me. Hell, I’ll even pay them to manage my gift cards especially this year since I don’t know about you but I am sure that I’ll be getting a bunch of them this year. Having the ability of managing all my cards in one central location and pay nothing for it sounds like a deal to me. My two cents.

By: Julie Broad

Julie Broad — Wed, 28 Nov 2007 18:18:10 +0000

Beautiful concept that will revolutionzie the gift card business. Consumers will finally be able to leverage the power of their gift cards in a fashion that allows them to consolidate, manage, and acquire the things they really want. Looking forward to being a user!

By: Vince

Vince — Wed, 28 Nov 2007 12:56:08 +0000

I think the site has serious potential. The 27% figure for those who let cards just sit in their wallets will shrink. I’ll bet the net number of gift cards given this holiday season will be an increase over last year – continuing the trend of more people getting more cards. Gift cards may be boring and unimaginative gifts, but they are becoming the standard way to gift.

By: Jason Throckmorton

Jason Throckmorton — Tue, 27 Nov 2007 20:29:31 +0000

Hi Kathy,

I’m a partner at LaunchSquad, Leverage’s PR firm. The did hire us to do their PR which is why the company is in TechCrunch and a number of other media outlets. I’d say that a good majority of companies that appear in TC work with internal or outside PR support, so I’m not sure why it would be shocking that that they paid us to provide those services.

As for our blog, I’d hardly call it fake. We in fact have two blogs, one which discusses the latest news and developments at our company and the other which explores stories we find interesting. Some posts include our clients, some don’t. A few, in fact, include companies such as PageFlakes that are represented by agencies we compete with and respect. We’re completely transparent in all our posts that mention clients and are certainly not the first marketing services firm to eat our own dog food and engage in the blogosphere. I would expect nothing less if I were a company in search of a PR agency.

As for mypoints.com, we’re big fans of the service and wish you guys the best of luck! Our blog administator has been out of the country for the holidays, as soon as he gets back, we’ll be sure to post your comment.

By: Kathy Aleria

Kathy Aleria — Tue, 27 Nov 2007 13:07:37 +0000

A new loyalty marketing company huh? Very original…

I have taken a look at their site, and this seems nothing more than a loyalty marketing play, very much like MyPoints.com. Instead of playing games, taking surveys, purchasing stuff online or offline via mypoints Visa card, Leverage allows one to track their gift card balances and earn some laughable amount of interest. Woah, what a value-add.

What’s worse is that they have paid a company called launchsquad.com to help with their marketing. This company operates a fake blog, and I mean “Dan Greenberg style”: falling all over themselves with praise after noting some real problem their client addresses (albeit in some minimal manner), and couple that with fake comments.

I posted a legit response in their comments section and it was never published. The only comment that was published was from an anonymous “ashley” who fell all over herself praising the new service. At the very least, Launchsquad did admit Leverage was their client. Still, a load of crap.

I guess this is why silicon valley still doesn’t take SoCal seriously as a hotbed for startups, they are just too sleazy. Will they ever learn.

By: Holiday Gift

Holiday Gift — Mon, 26 Nov 2007 01:52:22 +0000

First of all, generic gift cards are boring gifts. Therefore, building a business on such a shakey foundation is bad to begin with. Most people would prefer anything but a gift card for a holiday gift. Secondly, could they not have thought of a better name than leverage. It is an overused cliche from consulting, web 2.0 and a bunch of over done business fads. Bah hum bug

By: Nina Hartley's New Biz

Nina Hartley's New Biz — Sun, 25 Nov 2007 19:18:41 +0000

I like this…i can trade all my Cracker Barrel gift cards for Best Buy ones.

By: David Mackey

David Mackey — Sun, 25 Nov 2007 00:43:01 +0000

Sounds like an okay idea…Though I don’t personally have any problem remembering to spend my gift cards.

By: 42mb.com

42mb.com — Sat, 24 Nov 2007 12:43:06 +0000

I think they should design their site with good festive theme to attract consumers.

By: Ben M

Ben M — Sat, 24 Nov 2007 05:04:26 +0000

The kind of people who forget to use their gift cards are the same people that are too lazy to register all that crap on a website. There may be a little value for retailers but none for consumers.

How about this website: giftcardalarm.com (domain still available for budding web 2.0 entrepreneurs) It sends you an email each month telling you not to forget to use your gift cards. Wait a second, with targeted ads on the site and in the emails, I could be onto something…

By: Big Tone

Big Tone — Fri, 23 Nov 2007 22:54:54 +0000

I think a company like Leverage will have trouble with the “One Card to Rule Them All” concept that they say is in the hopper. If I was a Home Depot and selling half a billion dollars worth of gift cards every year with 27% of them going unredeemed, why would I want to participate in a program that would help people keep track of that unredeemed 125 million dollars? That will be an uphill battle for Leverage, IMHO. Sounds like the service is useful for those wanting to manually manage loyalty programs and the such, though.

By: Steve Ballmer

Steve Ballmer — Fri, 23 Nov 2007 22:04:28 +0000

NO!
Just use MS HolidayCardMaker 2.5b

http://fakestev...er.blogspot.com

By: Philip G.

Philip G. — Fri, 23 Nov 2007 21:25:43 +0000

Well, GiftCertificates.com has been offering a “Virtual Gift Card” for a long time, but it’s called a SuperCertificate. No tracking, or interest though. They also support hundreds of different stores. Same thing though, send gift certificate by email.

2.5 years in development? Wow.

By: Nice idea...reads like our business plan

Nice idea...reads like our business plan — Fri, 23 Nov 2007 21:16:49 +0000

Oh well, and we thought we wouldn’t have any competition. I better just keep my mouth shut.