What is Chips?

Chips is a unique way for you to support and interact with your favorite restaurants/bars in your area. Chips allows you to invest a currency called “chips” into local places, which in return increases the chip total on that place. The places with the highest chips in total, as well as places growing the fastest, show up in leaderboards along other places in their category. As a user, the more you invest in a place, the more chipholder value you gain. The higher that value is, the more features you unlock such as the Chipbowl, leaderboard rankings within that place, and unique perks based on how much you have invested in that place.

Think of it as a rewards loyalty app, investing app, and social media app all in one.

Why use Chips as a customer?

Chips is very simple and easy to use - pop on and invest your chips for the day. Chips serves as a interactive community of all of your favorite restaurants/bars. Use Chips as a way to find/interact people who also love the same places as you. Use Chips to get cool, unique, app specific perks for places. Use Chips to give back to your favorite places by making their chip count skyrocket. Use Chips to directly interact with restaurant managers/owners to get inside intel on best times to come, or any deals specific to that day. Use Chips to find trending spots near you into which people are all investing.

Why use Chips as a restaurant owner?

Chips allows you to create a two way street between you and your customers. Get new customers by offering unique perks on the app in a central spot, while also getting them to increase your chip count at the same time (and tell their friends to invest too!). Via the Chipbowl, you directly have a line of communication with actual messages between those who invested chips in you and yourself. You have a list of those who have went out of their way to invest in you in the palm of your hands, to reward them for being loyal, or get their honest feedback on the status of your place. Most of anything - claiming your place has no cost! The more you interact with users in your Chipbowl, the more your place shows up on trending lists. What is there to lose? Reach out to adam.wasserman7@gmail.com to claim your place today and get started.

What options do I have in Chips as a restaurant owner?

• Ability to interact with users via the Chipbowl

• Ability to create custom perks, such as happy hours, one time events, and other unique perks for those who have invested (up to you to dictate threshold, maybe you only want to reward your #1 fan?)

• Ability to update your bio, header photo, website, and chipbowl threshold (how many chips does a user need to invest to see the chip bowl?)

• See metrics on growth over time

What is a chip?

A chip is the form of currency in the app. You receive one free chip a day when you login and retrieve it, and can get chips via chip subscriptions in app. The most chips you can receive in a day is 6 (5 via subscription and 1 via free chip retrieval). Chips can be used to invest in places on the app.

What is a chip subscription?

You can pay between 2.99 and 9.99 monthly to get a daily allowance of chips overnight. This is managed via Apple Subscriptions. You can cancel your subscription via your apple account at any time.

What is a chipholder?

A chipholder is a user who has invested at least 1 chip in a place.

What is chipholder/chip growth value?

Chipholder value is the metric calculated on a place based on how much the place has grown in chips since you have invested. This value incentives people to get others to invest chips in the place, as the user is rewarded based on the restaurant growth, and not only how many chips they have put on the place. An example would be that someone may be rewarded for putting chips on a place, and also for the place increasing in chips. This value is calculated independently for each place.

How is chipholder value calculated?

Chipholder value is currently calculated at 1 AM CST and 1 PM CST, to make sure users have a period of time after investing to incur any benefits. An algorithm compares your chip investment history on a place to the growth in chips on the place as a whole to calculate your value.

What places are on chips?

All restaurants and bars in Chicago are in chips to start. This includes quick service spots, all the way to fine dining experiences. If you do not see a place in Chips, please let the admin know (adam.wasserman7@gmail.com) and he can work to figure out why. If the place is listed as a restaurant, bar, or cafe in Google it should have returned.

What cities is Chips in so far?

Just Chicago to start. As we grow, we will expand strategically into other cities.

What types of perks are there in Chips?

A place can add perks such as happy hours, one time events, or any other sort of creative reward for people who invest the most chips in them, and help the place grow. A place can dictate the threshold of what makes a user qualified for the perk, whether it’s for all chipholders, only the top ranked chipholders, or chipholders who have invested a certain number of chips.

What is the Chipbowl?

The Chipbowl is a reward given to those who have invested a certain amount of chips (by default 1) in a place. This is a message board that allows owners/managers of places, along with all chipholders, to interact with each other directly on that place’s page. Users could plan meetups there, discuss their favorite drink, or just chat about anything related to that place. Chipholders get notified specifically anytime a representative of the place posts in the Chipbowl.

How do I get the app?

The app is in beta on iOS only today. Use the download link on the top of the page to join the beta.