The Claim app was founded in November 2021 by CEO Sam Obletz (left) and Chief Technical Officer Tap Stephenson (right). Image credit: Courtesy of Claim
“Friends with benefits” just took on a whole new meaning.
Claima rewards app and social network that lets users and their friends earn cash back, share rewards and redeem them together, is set to launch Tuesday at Ohio State University. Obletz said one of the key features of the app — which is now accessible to college students at over 70 locations across the country — is its daily “drop.” Every Thursday at 11 a.m., Claim releases a new “drop,” similar to daily photo notifications from French social messaging app BeReal, that offers users new rewards to redeem with their friends, Obletz said.
“Drop day is one thing, and on many of our campuses, lecture halls fill up with students staring at purple screens,” Obletz said. “We create that magical moment for our students, and then students actively compare what they got and make plans to follow up on that.”
Claim, a rewards app and social network that allows users and their friends to earn cashback, share rewards, and redeem them together, is set to launch at Ohio State University. Image credit: Courtesy of Claim
Obletz said one of the things he and the Claim team are most excited about is working with Sweetgreen – a fast-casual salad restaurant with more than 200 Locations across the United States – which is set to open a new location in the Short North in September and will offer (to be determined) exclusive claim offers for Ohio State students.
“Sweetgreen is our anchor in Columbus,” Obletz said. “We work with Sweetgreen a lot. They’re one of our best partners, and now that they’re opening a store in Columbus, that’s become a big part of our shared excitement about launching at Ohio State.”
The startup was founded in November 2021 by CEO Sam Obletz and Chief Technology Officer Tap Stephenson, but Obletz said the brainstorming began long before that, when he and Stephenson first met during their undergraduate studies at Yale University.
“We lived together throughout college, and if you’ve ever had a roommate, you probably know that you either get along perfectly or you just hate each other. Luckily, Tap and I love each other,” Obletz said. “We always knew we wanted to start a company together. It was just a matter of time.”
Obletz said that shared college experience — she had roomed with Stephenson again throughout graduate school at Harvard — inspired her to develop an app for other college students.
“Part of our initial inspiration was to design something we wish we had as college students — something that would give us more opportunities to spend quality time in person and less time looking at our phones — and that’s still something that really motivates the team,” Obletz said. “We like to say that Claim exists to create simple and affordable reminders, and that’s a good rallying cry for our mission and what we’re still trying to do.”
Obletz said the first university campus to adopt Claim will be his home university, Harvard, in January 2023.
Namirah Quadir, a fourth-year neuroscience student at Harvard and one of Claim’s growth interns, said she was a sophomore at the time and learned about the app through a contest Claim ran among Harvard’s student organizations. The contest offered the first three organizations to receive a referral code from Claim and recruit 100 members to the app within 24 hours a cash prize for their club.
“I was and still am president of the Automotive Society at Harvard and I heard about it and really wanted the money for my club,” Quadir said. “I sent hundreds of emails and definitely more than 300 text messages. I recruited the men’s lacrosse team.”
Quadir said she narrowly reached the goal of 100 users within 24 hours, winning the cash prize.
“The head of growth at Claim – who is now my boss Caroline (Jung) – messaged me and asked, ‘How did you do that? How did you get so many users in 24 hours? We’ve been trying to do that for the last few days,'” Quadir said.
Despite her lack of experience in social commerce, Quadir said she became an intern in Claim Growth shortly after winning the challenge.
Shortly thereafter, in December 2023, Sequoia Capital — an American venture capital firm known for investing in major companies like Apple, Google, YouTube, Instagram, Zoom and others — led Claim’s seed round and became one of the app’s first major investors, Obletz said.
“The backing of Sequoia Capital means this can’t be a small company, and that’s a good thing,” Obletz said. “It gives us the support and confidence to be backed by people who have done this before and been successful.”
The Claim team has grown from an original eight employees and now employs ten full-time staff and four interns. Image credit: Courtesy of Claim
Although the claims team has grown from its original eight employees, Obletz says he is happy to still have a relatively small team with only ten full-time employees and four interns.
“I’m very fortunate to be able to work with this extraordinary group of people,” said Obletz. “If you look at some of the great technology successes of the last few decades – WhatsApp, Instagram, etc. – they were actually sold with quite small teams, and that’s because with a magical group of people you can do a lot with very few.”
In addition to daily drops, users can also earn exclusive rewards for visiting new locations, according to Obletz.
“At Sweetgreen, for example, what we do is, if you’ve never been to Sweetgreen, Claim will give you a little collectible card that you can use to redeem a free salad at Sweetgreen,” Obletz said. “That encourages you to go out and try something you may have never tried before.”
Quadir said Ohio State was the college campus where the claim team was most excited to launch the app.
“I was really excited about launching at Ohio State because I’ve heard so much about the social scene and the big events that happen there,” Quadir said. “I can’t wait to launch there and then launch worldwide. I say worldwide because we’re launching in America first, but eventually we hope to bring it to the rest of the world.”
To learn more about Claim and download the app, visit the Claim website.
