500Friends YC Application

Winter 2010Acquired

500Friends went through Y Combinator in the Winter 2010 batch as a B2B company. Below: what the company does, who founded it, and its application to YC, reconstructed question by question in the real YC form.

YC batch: Winter 2010
Industry: B2BRetail
Team size: 51
Status: Acquired
Launched: 2012

Founders

Hong HuFounder

What 500Friends does

Merkle Loyalty Solutions, formerly 500friends, is a leader in customer loyalty marketing solutions. Clients depend on us to help them develop and execute a differentiated and impactful customer loyalty strategy that delivers the business results they expect. Merkle Loyalty Solutions is recognized by Forrester Research as a Strong Performer in The Forrester Wave™: Customer Loyalty Solutions, Q3 2017, and as a Leader and received the highest overall score in The Forrester Wave™: Customer Loyalty Solutions For Midsize Organizations, Q1 2016. The end-to-end loyalty services Merkle Loyalty Solutions offer include: - Strategic consulting - SaaS loyalty platform named LoyaltyPlus™ - Platform integration - Program management and support - Advanced analytics Merkle is a leading data-driven, technology-enabled, global performance marketing agency that specializes in the delivery of unique, personalized customer experiences across platforms and devices. The agency’s heritage in data, technology, and analytics forms the foundation for its unmatched skills in understanding consumer insights that drive people-based marketing strategies. With more than 4,100 employees, the Merkle team is based in Columbia, MD, with 16 additional offices in the US and 8 offices in Europe and Asia. In 2016, the agency joined the Dentsu Aegis Network. Learn more about Merkle Loyalty Solutions at --- We're hiring! Please check out our openings at:

500Friends's YC application, reconstructed

Y Combinator application

500Friends, Winter 2010 batch. The real form questions, answered from public data.

Founders2
Company7
Progress7
Idea4
Equity3
Curious2
Batch Preference1

Company

Company name

500Friends

Describe what your company does in 50 characters or less.

The best loyalty and retention marketing partner for CMOs

What is your company going to make? Please describe your product and what it does or will do.

We build LoyaltyPlus, a SaaS platform for customer loyalty marketing that helps retailers design, run, and measure programs that keep customers coming back. Alongside the software, we offer strategy consulting, platform integration, and managed support tailored for CMOs who want clear ROI from loyalty programs.

Where do you live now, and where would the company be based after YC?

We are based in San Francisco, CA, and after YC we plan to stay here to stay close to key retail and marketing customers and talent.

Explain your decision regarding location.

San Francisco is the hub of marketing technology and retail innovation. Being here connects us to CMOs and marketers who need strong loyalty solutions and gives us access to engineers and data talent specialized in consumer marketing.

21 more answers in the full application

Founders, Progress, Idea, Equity, Curious, Batch Preference are in the full version. Create a free account to open it in YC Insights, next to every other YC batch.

See full application

Frequently Asked Questions

Is this the real 500Friends YC application?

No. Y Combinator keeps submitted applications private. This is a reconstruction: the real YC form questions, answered from 500Friends's public data (launch notes, founder backgrounds, product description). It shows how a company like 500Friends would present itself to YC, not the text they submitted.