Kyle
Wait free snacks? Yes free snacks!!!! Brad Thorne, the founder of PrizeMonkey is a true startup entrepreneur and founder. He told an awesome story to the StartupAmerica partnership website.
But first lets dive into what PrizeMonkey is. As we just said, Thorne is a true #startup founder and entrepreneur, in otherwords he’s poured his heart and soul into an excellent idea and for the time being he can’t even afford snacks in a vending machine, so he created a platform that solves that problem.
PrizeMokey gamifies the vending machine. Through Thorne’s innovative technology your wi-fi enabled smartphone connects with the wi-fi enabled, and PrizeMonkey enabled snack machine. Now, instead of paying for snacks, you can play sponsored games for your chance to win free snacks. Again, for emphasis, you play games on your smartphone and instead of racking up virtual points, you can win free snacks.
You’ll be able to pick from your choice of Reeses Peanut Butter Cups, Lays Potato Chips, heck even rice cakes if their in the machine. Whatever’s in the machine that’s Prize Monkey enabled can be yours for winning these games.
It’s a win-win for the end user and the game sponsor. The sponsor wants to engage the end user and what better way then with candy and snacks.
More after the break
Now for the cool part. We know that Thorne couldn’t afford snacks so he created Prize Monkey, so when he got the last minute call in January that he had been accepted into Eureka Park at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas he jumped at the opportunity. Except he was broke.
He drove cross country without stopping in a minivan with a vending machine and his partner in the van. They set up their booth and slept in their booth at the Venetian at Eureka Park. All the rooms had been sold out for hundreds and hundreds of dollars (we know we were there) so they just slept in the booth. They even made nice with the catering staff who hooked them up with free food trays that weren’t eaten. Thorne told the StartupAmerica partnership that they ate “Like Kings”.
After checking out PrizeMonkey we’re pretty sure Thorne’s days of being broke are almost over. The idea is truly revolutionary I mean who doesn’t want free snacks. The vending company gets paid by the sponsor and life is good, because being broke sucks.
Linkage:
Check out the whole story at the Startup America Partnership
Find out more about StartupAmerica (we’re members and love it)
Check out some of our coverage of CES 2012’s Eureka Park
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