10 Minutes With Ruby's CEO: An Interview

We sat down with Ruby’s Founder and CEO, Rahul Talari, to find out what makes Ruby the most exciting money-saving app of 2021.

Why did you start Ruby?

Me and my co-founder, Dongkeun, bonded over our passion for developing new tech while at the University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign. It all started off in a Silicon Valley hackathon. We won the competition, having developed a way to aggregate and maintain loyalty points for retailers.

We realized we were onto something big, so we consulted with industry experts and found several gaps in a decades-old industry, slowed by tradition. With everything we discovered, we created Ruby: with the sole purpose of helping people shop and save seamlessly on mobile. It was built keeping the customer in mind so that no matter what they want to buy, they can save automatically and finish shopping with a smile on their face.

So that’s how it all began. How’s Ruby changed over time?

When we started Ruby, it was a loyalty points management and tracking app. We gained thousands of active users who gave us plenty of feedback. We figured out there are so many more ways to save that could be added to build a fuller shopping journey, like cash back, coupons, deals, and promo codes.

So we built out our “Stacked Savings” layer and ensured that we can apply all those savings automatically. Signing up to countless newsletters, scouring coupon code sites, comparing dozens of deals, and reading all the fine print. We wanted to put an end to the confusion: so people can apply all the best offers, without all the time-consuming searching.

Everyone’s talking about your Netflix-style personalization. How did that start?

With the latest advancements in Artificial Intelligence (AI), new exciting opportunities to build truly customized experiences are cropping up in every industry.

The coupons and savings industry has been too slow to innovate, and we saw that people were frustrated by irrelevant deals they weren’t interested in. So, we built a personalization experience that keeps each individual’s shopping behavior and interests in mind, while picking curated “stacked savings” to help users.

There are loads of money-saving apps out there. What’s all the buzz about Ruby?

Other coupon sites and apps completely rely on merchant relationships. That means their main goal isn’t to help you save the most: it’s to increase commission. So they’re all about endorsing and promoting specific stores, based on the commission they get per sale, not based on what saves you the most.

Ruby flips the script by being fully built around the shopper – not the store.

Sounds awesome. How do you implement that customer-centric approach in your app?

It’s all about showing our users the deals that will save them the most, based on every different saving stacked together and what each user actually shops for. To achieve this, we take a modular approach, allowing us to add endless layers into our Patent Pending Stacked Savings functionality. Our users especially love the ability to combine loyalty points with deals – we are first movers to develop this functionality on mobile.

How we do loyalty is another great example of how we’re different from the competition. Other “money-saving” apps focus on promoting their own loyalty programs and obscure the user from what they are actually saving and being rewarded for. On Ruby, users can see a breakdown of every store’s loyalty program, including how dollars convert to points – and then back again. We believe in giving our users the power to make informed decisions, based on which loyalty programs will earn them the most back.

What’s the biggest challenge Ruby’s faced?

Ruby’s breaking into an industry that’s been around for decades. We’re also changing the status quo, which comes with its own unique set of challenges.

Ruby’s shopper-centric and we always put our users first, which means that satisfying retailers is the biggest challenge we’ve faced. But, ultimately, we know our business model relies on our users. We believe that once we satisfy shoppers, the retailers will come after us. That’s why we’ve been so big on gaining feedback from our early adopters, who’ve been so generous with their time.

You’re working hard on Version 3, and a new Android app. Give us the lowdown.

We are excited about our new release, Version 3, and our Android app, which will make Ruby available on the Google Play Store. In our current version, you can already search by store and coupon. In Version 3, we’re adding over 50 million products from over 1,000 retailers. So users will be able to search for specific products, and stack savings while shopping for them.

We’re also completely re-designing the app with a brand new user experience, having listened to user feedback to make shopping and saving even more seamless. Everything – from our search to our content, to our next-gen AI-powered personalization – is going to be much more powerful and provide relevant products that each user will actually care about and want to buy.

What new features are you most excited about?

So many! We’re launching the new Ruby Browser, which enables people to shop anywhere they want like a regular browser. Ruby automatically pops up and applies all possible stacked savings, while reducing checkout to just a couple of taps.

We’re also bringing cash back through our partner, Hoopla Doopla. This allows our users to get cash right back into their wallets – on top of stacking deals, coupons, and promo codes!

You’re also gamifying the experience, right? How much can you tell us?

Yep, we are so stoked to launch Ruby’s gamification element in Version 3. We’re keeping it all pretty under wraps until closer to the launch. But here’s a teaser: you’ll be able to save anywhere you shop, and play with family and friends.

Where do you see Ruby in 5 years’ time?

We really believe that it all starts with the user – a great shopping experience will allow us to grow exponentially, organically. And we’ve already started to see the effects of that.

In the long-term, our vision is to take on the Amazons of the world, bringing power back to high quality products with affordable prices. We’ve seen so many high-end and trusted brands leaving online marketplaces, like Amazon and eBay, purely due to the damage caused by counterfeit products to brand reputation.

As Ruby grows, we can offer retailers powerful benefits, like anonymous shopper behavior intelligence and effective sales channels. This offering for retailers goes hand-in-hand with what we offer shoppers. Within 5 years, we’ll have added tons of new layers to our Stacked Savings, like Credit Card rewards, Crypto, Buy Now Pay Later, and more. We also envision a fully customizable shopping experience for users, giving people the power to shop how they want, while making savings easy – and relevant.