What is SparkPlug?
SparkPlug is the world’s first sales gamification engine that lets frontline retail employees and food-service workers earn a piece of the pie.
The current industry landscape
Whilst SparkPlug respects the grind, the grind isn’t working. From income inequality to supply chain shortages, businesses and employees alike are struggling in the wake of COVID and the rise of The Great Resignation.
The solution? Anti-grind. Less stick, more carrot. Meaning having more employee sales incentives–but not the kind one would be thinking of. In 2022, everyone wants to be their own boss.
Establishing the company
Founders of SparkPlug Andrew Duffy and Jake Levin met at Harvard where they studied behavioral economics. After spending their early careers working in public policy and leading innovative research at Bridgewater Associates, they spotted an opportunity too exciting to pass up. They learned that businesses were leaving massive value on the table and with tools like SparkPlug, businesses could better motivate the sales associates that customers rely on.
The growth and mission of the company
SparkPlug isn't just disrupting the $1 trillion retail and food-service industry, it's disrupting the fundamental economics of capital and labor. SparkPlug seamlessly connects to the retailers POS system and lets retailers, restaurants, and the vendors whose products they carry create and manage daily, weekly, and monthly sales targets and goals for employees as well as receive real-time campaign ROI and sales success.
SparkPlug is uniquely simple and powerfully disruptive. By harnessing the influence that frontline sales associates have over consumer purchasing behavior, SparkPlug empowers businesses to motivate the key behaviors that drive revenue and boost consumer experience, all while delivering cold hard cash to the pockets of hard-working retail and restaurant employees.
Since March 2020, SparkPlug has raised over $4MM from world-renowned investors that share its vision. The company is growing at a rapid pace and is currently partnered with 500+ leading brick and mortar businesses and CPG brands to offer cash-incentives to the frontline employees that fuel their growth.
Customer experience
Customers love SparkPlug, and this is known from the simple interface to manage sales incentives, to the impact it has on employees' lives. SparkPlug has received feedback from employees that because of SparkPlug, they had extra cash that went straight towards groceries and Christmas presents this past Holiday Season all from being rewarded for what they already do so well.
A message from the founders
“We're thrilled to be building an innovative platform that's really changing how businesses think about the economics of labor. SparkPlug is revolutionary for restaurants, retailers, and the consumer goods companies they work with. By giving these businesses tools to better leverage their employees' power to influence buying decisions, we're aligning incentives and helping those influential employees to get paid based on the value they create everyday on the frontlines. By incentivizing a workforce that perceives itself as undervalued and underpaid, SparkPlug has a dramatic impact on employee retention, product sell-through, and campaign profitability”- cofounders, Jake Levin and Andrew Duffy.
Check them out: https://sparkplug.app/