Gravy’s new mobile game show is ‘Price is Right’ mixed with QVC

INSUBCONTINENT EXCLUSIVE:
Following the success of the live mobile game show HQ Trivia, a team of serial entrepreneurs have begun testing the market to see if another
game show concept can work, too
Their new game show-inspired app, Gravy, is meant to be a riff on the “Price is Right” combined with a QVC-style shopping experience
That is, the “contestants” compete for discounts of 30 to 70 percent off the products advertised, with a portion of the proceeds going
to charity
In addition, through a side game, users can guess when the product – whose quantities are unknown – will sell out and at what price
Those who guess closest win a cash prize.The startup was created by Mark McGuire, Brian Wiegand, and Craig Andler – the founding team
behind Jellyfish.com, an older social shopping network that was acquired by Microsoft back in 2007, to help create Bing Shopping
They’ve also paired up on other projects, including NameProtect (before Jellyfish), printable coupons resource Hopster, social network
Nextt, and e-commerce subscription retail site, Alice.com
These have either exited or shut down or both.The team’s efforts imply a clear passion for working with brands, but getting consumers
to connect with brands in new ways is far more difficult, as their track record shows.That’s why they’re now trying Gravy.The hope is
that the excitement around seeing the product unveiled nightly – and knowing you’ll get a big discount if you buy – will become an
entirely new ad unit of sorts, while keeping players engaged in a game-show like experience.“One of the challenges with millennials is
their short attention spans, and they don’t respond well to interruptive advertising,” explains Wiegand, of why the team wanted to build
this startup
“I don’t think anyone’s really mastered how to monetize live video
So we came up with this opportunity to create this new ad unit where brands could tell their story, and – for seven or eight or nine
minutes – create a live shopping event where millennials can tune in and hear that story but in a fun, gamified kind of manner,” he
says.Here’s how Gravy works
Every night, at 8:30 PM ET in the Gravy iOS app, a live host will unveil the product users can buy
Currently, there’s a rotating selection of hosts who work on a per-show contract basis, usually local comedians – not brand reps.Players
are not told how many items are available, but it’s typically anywhere from two to twenty.Then the price starts to drop
If you buy early, you’ll have a chance to snag it at a slight discount
But the longer you wait, the higher the percentage off will become
However, you don’t know who else could snatch it up first and when
If you wait too long, the product will sell out.Meanwhile, if you’re not interested in the product itself, you can guess when you expect
it to sell out (meaning, at which price.) Those ten or so closest will receive a small cash prize – a split of maybe $200 or $300, with
first place receiving the largest chunk.At least 20 percent of sales are given away to charity – a nod, I suppose, to millennials’
interest in do-gooder style companies
But ultimately, that decision that has more to do with the fact that Gravy doesn’t aim to be a retailer – it’s not another
deal-of-the-day destination like Woot!, despite the similarities around generating product excitement.Instead, it expects brands to donate
products and pay a fee for the “advertising opportunity” Gravy offers.Brands will like Gravy because they get millennials’ attention
for seven minutes or more, Wiegand says
“They love the engagement
It’s a highly engaged audience…I have a chance to buy the products, so I’m heavily engaged in thinking about that product
The recall, memorability, and all of the subsequent buzz – tweeting and all the social media that gets created because of that – is
great,” he adds.However, none of this is proven out yet – Gravy is just a couple of weeks old.So far, around 50 percent of the products
it has featured have actually been donated by brands, including 23andMe, 3D Doodler, Tapplock, and others
The rest have been subsidized by Gravy, including the bigger draws – like a DJI drone, for example.It’s not yet charging for the ad
opportunity, either, as it’s hoping to grow the audience first.The company says that’s already underway
After alerting friends and family to the app’s launch, the games are seeing 600+ players nightly, Wiegand claims, and is growing its
audience 15 percent week-over-week
Around half of those who signed up to play are returning to watch around three shows per week, he says. While the early numbers are
promising if true, and it’s clear the team likes to work in the general space of connecting brands with consumers, Gravy still feels –
like much of what the founders have created before – designed primarily with the needs of brands in mind, before that of consumers.A
“Price is Right”-style app would be a lot of fun, but this isn’t it – it’s, at the end of the day, an invitation to watch an ad
and shop at a discount
That’s not something consumers may want to do every day, long-term – even if you try to woo them with a small cash prize won through a
guessing game.And like Trivia HQ , which has dropped from a top 20 app to the 140’s (by App Store overall rank, the shine may eventually
wear off for Gravy, too
Especially because it’s not primarily a game – and millennials, as fickle and short attention-spanned as they may be (really the
generation that binges entire TV seasons in a few days), will know it.Wiegand isn’t concerned, though.He says he gets bored with trivia
apps in a few weeks, but Gravy is different.“I always shop and I always like a deal
The deal industry and the shopping industry are so much larger than the trivia space,” Wiegand insists
“And the thrill of seeing a product that you like going down into the sixties and seventies percent off is unbelievably thrilling,” he
enthuses
“We are able to feature things that have the best price on the planet of first-run products…it creates this heart-pounding, exhilarating
and experience like, ‘Should I buy Oh my God, look at this price
I can’t turn it down,'” he says.The company raised $2.1 million in seed funding from a range of investors, including the founders at the
turn of the year
Around eighty percent was outside capital, led by New Capital
The under-20 person team is based in both Madison and Minneapolis.Gravy is on the App Store here.