WisBusiness: The Podcast with Wes Schroll, founder and CEO of Fetch Rewards

This week’s episode of “WisBusiness: The Podcast” is with Wes Schroll, founder and CEO of Fetch Rewards.

This Madison-based startup has thousands of brands listed on its app, which lets consumers scan receipts from grocery and convenience stores for coupons while they peruse the shelves.

Schroll is originally from Massachusetts, and came to UW-Madison for his undergraduate education. He studied entrepreneurship at the UW-Madison School of Business, where he came up with the idea for his company between his freshman and sophomore year.

“It really stemmed from going to as many different grocery stores as I did,” he said. “I had just moved out of the dorms into an apartment in the real world where I needed to actually go grocery shopping.”

He was feeling worn out by all the different stores offering separate loyalty programs, and saw the need for a centralized application for shoppers which rewards loyalty to brands, rather than individual stores.

“We’re going to have a big year coming up in 2019,” Schroll said. “The number of brands we represent is on track to double by the end of the year, the user base is going to explode hundreds of percent larger by this time next year and we already have commitments to get us there.”

The company has some new features in the works which will help users derive meaning from their own shopping data. That could take the form of smart lists, he says, which would track things like when the milk is about to run out.

The company has about 60 employees right now, with offices in Madison, Chicago and New York.

“They’re all growing and hiring as we continue to expand out new users, new consumers and new brands on board,” he said.