Surprise HR, Inc.

Our founder has been thinking about the idea of variable rewards for a long time before the idea for a multi merchant loyalty API service was born. The idea for a loyalty API was inspired by behavioral economics research - that variable rewards are known to stimulate goal-directed behavior. He ultimately wanted a way for merchants to easily incorporate this idea, of variable rewards, in their business to stimulate both acquisition and engagement. The API must be simple and elegant, much like Stripe's payments API for developers.

Humans have the unique ability to release huge quantities of dopamine in anticipation of a reward that is unsure. The reward might be huge or it might be small, but we are compelled to realize the outcome. This idea lives not only at the tables in Vegas, but in all aspects of life. The anticipation of something exciting is the reason that we check our email and smartphones dozens of times a day, login to Facebook constantly to view newsfeed updates, watch sports, study hard in school with the hopes of winning the college lottery, or even put wrapping paper over our Christmas gifts.

Most e-commerce companies run deterministic referral programs (e.g. get $10 if you invite a friend) -- these are usually costly and often times ineffective (only a minority of users engage). Treats, however, makes the variable rewards phenomena available as a full service API (both branded front-end + backend) to e-commerce companies, helping propel their businesses in two ways: Acquisition (Refer-a-friend-program as a service) + Engagement (Loyalty as a service). Stripe = Payments for developers. Treats = Customer Acquisition + Engagement for developers.