Today I received a great email from one of our member/shareholders.  Matt wrote (I’ve edited a bit):

I first would like to thank you for being so candid and public facing.  It is rare for a CEO to be so willing to answer questions and provide continuous feedback.

Make me blush!

Certainly one of the best attributes of “our” company is your commitment to being present and accountable during the start-up process.

It’s a company-wide commitment; it’s a large part of the value we provide our member/shareholders.

I have a few questions/comments that I didn’t get a chance to address during the Investor Conference that I hoped you could shed some light on.

– Why isn’t  “Target” available on iConsumer?  It is a significant retailer that could provide a lot of value to both iConsumer and the users of iConsumer?  Are there similar challenges to those of Amazon?

I love this question.  Target IS available.  iConsumer.com/target.  But don’t feel bad, you didn’t make a mistake, they just came back to us this week.  Stores come and go for lots of reasons.  With 1,900 or so stores, we’re constantly working to make using iConsumer easy.  The iConsumer Button for desktops and laptops is my fave.  It’s always up to date.

– I appreciate that there is going to be a push to get the iConsumer name more into the mainstream?  Can you share any details about these efforts?  Frankly, I haven’t noticed any additional marketing efforts either on traditional mediums or through social media.  I think this was a huge missed opportunity by iConsumer during the Christmas-holiday season.

We had limited budget this season.  We chose to spend it on PR.  We started late in the season, understanding that it was a crap shoot.  We didn’t get any coverage worthy of note.  I am not happy about that.

– Similarly, I am frustrated that I received an email only last week about the double cash offer from mid November to year end. While the additional rewards are great, the lack of communication about this offer from the inception likely resulted in many missed opportunities by current iConsumer users or potential users.  Communication and updates is typically a strong suit of the company.

We don’t always send or offer all of our members the same messaging at the same time.  Double cash back is a very expensive offer for us, and we wanted to make doubly sure (pun intended) that offering it moved the right needles.  The only way to do that is to test different messaging and offers with different audiences.  

While we didn’t highlight it to all of our members, all members received double cash back when they made a purchase.

– I believe it was asked during the conference, but do you anticipate the option of converting your cash to share?

This is one of those questions that has regulatory involvement, so we give a “we’ll think about it” kind of answer until we actually do something.

– May I propose a loyalty strategy….

We love suggestions! (And the good ones we don’t share with our competitors, so the balance of the letter isn’t being shared.)

Appreciate your time.

Thank you.

Matt