Early last year, Jacky Goh started a crypto community on Telegram to discuss and analyse crypto projects. Through that community, he virtually met Ivaylo Yovkov, who soon became his business partner.
They invested “close to six figures” — with support from family and friends — to start up cashback platform Rewards Bunny in mid-August 2021.
“Both Ivaylo and I believe that earning and spending crypto is challenging as we have to jump through a few hoops, and honestly, it is not an easy process,” said Jacky, 32, co-founder and CEO of Rewards Bunny.
“Hence, we hope that users can earn and multiply their rewards with a crypto cashback program by receiving cashback in various options. We hope to make the process simple and at the same time, reward users as they shop online.”
While this may be their first venture together, neither of them are rookies in the business world.
Jacky is a former CTO and co-founder of game development company DinoMao, which operates a real-time claw machine game that lets users ‘catch’ toys via their mobile phone.
He is also the former CTO and co-founder of tech firm WhaleSave, which offers cashback to gamers for their in-app purchases.
He has also co-founded a local energy drink brand called GOshot, which aims to boost the drink’s mental acuity for up to six hours.
Meanwhile, Ivaylo is the co-founder of two successfully sold e-commerce projects for over S$200,000 in profit. He is also a former web design lecturer and mentor, specialising in UI/UX design.
In April, both of them will be meeting for the first time in person in San Francisco, as they were selected to participate in the 500 Global Launch San Francisco program. In partnership with Enterprise Singapore, the sixteen-week programme helps local startups explore market expansion with the United States as a launchpad.
A ‘crypto-based ShopBack’
To simplify things, Rewards Bunny can pretty much be described as a ‘crypto-based ShopBack’.
“Rewards Bunny helps merchants by driving our users a part of the commission as cashback. As a cashback platform, we not only offer various crypto cashback, but we also provide USD cashback options,” said Jacky.
“As our users are internationally based, cashback in crypto or USD is a good fit as we help users to avoid the reduction of currency conversion fees on their cashback rewards.”
He added that they are looking to add more currency options, particularly localised currency SGD to make it easier for Singapore users to withdraw cashback straight into their bank account.
“With a Rewards Bunny account, users are able to browse and shop through all of our participating brands, cart out their favourite items and receive cashback of their choice. We also have several browser extension options that will prompt users to activate their cashback every time they (search) for an item of any of their participating brands. With just one click, they can shop and earn cashback easily,” explained Jacky further.
With every sale, Rewards Bunny receives a commission that ranges greatly between 0.5 per cent and 50 percent. On average, the commission they get is about three to five per cent.
Rewards Bunny currently has close to 1,000 brands onboarded on its platform, and garnered over 50,000 registered users. Based on these statistics, Jacky expects them to break even by the end of this year.
With the strong support from the community, he said that they try their best to acquire the brands that the community uses and make an effort to improve accordingly based on their feedback.
Rewards Bunny has also inked several partnerships such as with Binance Pay and Ramp.
“We partnered up with Binance Pay to better facilitate crypto withdrawals. Users can withdraw their cashback with zero fees compared to withdrawing directly to their mobile wallet, which will impose some network fees,” shared Jacky.
“With Ramp partnership, we allow users to buy crypto instantly on our website, which helps to onboard non-crypto users quickly if they wish to apply for our Rewards Bunny membership (that is) launching soon.”
Some are not educated about the concept of cashback or crypto
Jacky admitted that trusting someone you met online is not easy, what more if it’s entering a business relationship together. However, through their communication in the community, Jacky felt that Ivaylo is a selfless person who always help other members.
It’s a bonus that they also hit it off during online meetings and share common interests despite the distance.
“With each of our expertise and knowledge, we took the responsibility to figure out how to make things work together. It is amazing how much we achieve as a team as well as individually. We have learned so much from each other, it is amazing. That pretty much sums up how we entered into an official agreement,” he shared.
When it comes to growing their business, education remains one of their biggest challenges.
“Although the cashback platform has been popular for many years, there are still many who do not understand the concept of getting cashback on their online shopping. Thus, we make earning cashback easier and educate the public on how it works, and how it’s possible to get cashback in crypto or USD,” said Jacky.
Detailing their education efforts, Jacky said that they have an active community that helps crypto beginners learn more about the world of crypto and Rewards Bunny, as well as shares tips and advice on how to avoid getting scammed.
Beyond leveraging on this community, Rewards Bunny is also looking at pushing out educational articles on crypto topics. This also helps to sync with their marketing efforts, because they realised that they have to make sure their marketing campaigns and promotional materials are easy to understand for non-crypto users as well.
“Marketing a crypto business is very different compared to marketing a traditional business,” he lamented.
However, while Covid-19 is seen as a challenge for most businesses, it was quite the opposite for Rewards Bunny as the pandemic presented them with business opportunities.
“People preferred to stay home to be safe and to avoid the pandemic. We also see an increase in online shopping as we came in at the right time to provide them with an innovative way to save and/or invest with their cashback rewards from the things they are already spending on. Here comes the next big thing: users get to earn cashback on top of their credit card benefits.”
They will launch a crypto card by end year
Commenting on the cashback landscape in Singapore, Jacky feels that there is “little to no innovation in the traditional cashback model.”
However, users are looking for new ways to be rewarded as they shop online. This “gamified shopping experience” is what helped Shopee’s popularity skyrocket over the years, he noted.
“We see opportunities to enhance the cashback experience through gamified experience, giving users a whole new way to earn cashback, multiplying rewards, and having fun at the same time.”
Rewards Bunny has recently launched a mobile app — available on both Apple App Store and Google Play Store — so users can now earn cashback on the go.
In its next development phase, it will also be introducing a membership program in its cashback platform.
“Users can earn exclusive benefits such as a higher cashback bonus, faster confirmation time, and early conversion of pending cashback to pending crypto, a debit card program, and many more,” explained Jacky.
In particular, the Rewards Bunny crypto card will be launched by the end of this year. Users will be able to use it to spend their crypto easily and at the same time, earn cashback on their online purchases.
He added that they are also diving into the world of metaverse and are in talks of partnering a company to propel their plans forward. They have also acquired land space in the metaverse and expect many developments in the coming months.
“We will be able to build our metaverse shopping mall where users can browse and shop products all in the metaverse. We are still exploring what might be possible, and (will) share more details along the way as we go into development.”
Featured Image Credit: Rewards Bunny