For D.C.’s GetUpside, the pandemic has meant aggressive hiring and rapid growth — and that’s not changing anytime soon.
The e-commerce tech firm has tapped Silicon Valley veteran Kristen Thiede as its chief people officer, a brand new position for the company. She will spearhead the expansion of its team amid increased demand for its mobile app, which offers customers personalized cash-back deals to shop at partner brick-and-mortar businesses in major markets around the country, including the District.
Those businesses — namely, gas stations, grocery stores and restaurants — provide the cash-back dollars to customers, which GetUpside guarantees will be profitable, according to the company. And those deals incentivize people to patronize their locations and drive repeat business. GetUpside takes a portion of the transactions made through its platform.
“Now more than ever, people need more purchasing power for their everyday expenses and businesses need more profit,” Thiede said in an email. “In the years to come, our team members will go on to start other tech companies, and I know that building a ‘people-first’ organization at GetUpside will have a positive ripple effect outside our company."
Thiede’s resume includes 14 years at Google (NASDAQ: GOOG), where she joined in 2001 and built and led teams across the tech giant’s offices around in the world. More recently, she served as director of content licensing and business development for Google Fiber. She’s also run teams at Boston internet provider Starry and New York hedge fund Two Sigma, where she was senior vice president for two years.
At GetUpside, she now joins fellow Google alums Alex Kinnier, CEO, and COO Wayne Lin, both of whom served as product managers at the California company for years. The duo, along with four more co-founders, started up GetUpside in 2015 after a collective stint at Arlington energy software company Opower.
And they’ve been growing the company fast in recent months, even through the pandemic. GetUpside started the year with 100 employees, with the intention of doubling that in 2020. It’s already grown to 170 people thus far and plans to hire another 30 by the end of the year, not just in D.C., but also in Chicago and Austin, Texas. It's seeking software engineers, business development experts, operations analysts, sales representatives and other positions, Thiede said.
Part of that growth has come from acquiring a Chicago investment firm called A-Frame Ventures in April, at the height of the pandemic, for an undisclosed amount. That move brought on board A-Frame’s team and its co-founder, Arman Ghosh, as its new president of restaurants and revenue operations. And it coincided with GetUpside's recruit of a second new executive, Meredith Sadlowski, a longtime high-level sales and marketing executive at Gulf Oil and The Carlyle Group LP alum, to oversee its fuel and convenience store business.
While Thiede declined to share specific figures, she said the company has seen revenue balloon 300% in 2019, after growing 9,800% in 2018. It is “doing better than forecasted,” she said, and “we’re on track to hit our pandemic-adjusted goals.”
“Today’s reality is that unemployment is spiking, and nonessential brick-and-mortar businesses are struggling,” Thiede said. “As we weather this storm, GetUpside is positioned to help people get more value for their dollar on everyday purchases and to help businesses consolidate remaining demand for their products and services.”
Despite its growth, the company said it has also taken measures to preserve its cash and redirect funds to individual customers for more cash-back offers to help drive more business to the retail outlets signed up on its platform. In all, it said it put $5.8 million in earnings from its previous quarters toward such cash-back offers and created a $2.5 million stimulus package to help back local restaurants in several of its markets.
Heading into 2021, GetUpside hopes to expand internationally and add more offerings for the small businesses on its platform, Thiede said, though company officials declined to give more details about new product features.
GetUpside, a DC Inno 2020 Inno on Fire winner that late last year expanded into nearly 15,000 square feet of WeWork space on Rhode Island Avenue NW, now works with 20,000 merchant partners in 47 states and has provided more than $50 million in cash back to customers and additional profits to the small businesses on its platform. Just weeks ago, it launched in nine new markets, including Denver, Los Angeles, Cleveland and Minneapolis.
