Jeebster, a new Calabasas-based online discounter, launched last month aiming to increase customer loyalty and encourage residents to shop local through discounts and referrals. The network is currently only available for Woodland Hills merchants, but the website plans to expand to Calabasas and Studio City in mid-January. The goal is to lift up the small businesses, and get them out of the economic rut, said Co-founder and CEO Eman Talei. Talei started the company after his father’s experience with the daily discount website Groupon. Earlier this year the Talei family’s Bella’s Italian Deli & Market, which has struggled during the recession and slow recovery, hired two additional employees when customers — cashing in Groupon vouchers — flooded the Woodland Hills deli with orders, Talei said. “We thought, ‘This is it. The deli is just going to take off,’” Talei said. “After two-and-half years this is what we have been waiting for” to boost business. But the deal ended, the customers stopped coming, and the two new employees were let go. Talei said out of 450 Groupon vouchers only about five became permanent customers. “We thought this would continue, but it didn’t,” he said, echoing a frequent criticism of the online bargain site, which negotiates deals with businesses ranging from 50 to 90 percent off. When a customer signs up with Jeebster, they are able receive a 10 percent discount on their purchase at participating merchants. They must subscribe to a minimum of five merchants. Those businesses can then send their subscribers a list of additional deals. Merchants pay a one-time fee of $2 to $5 per subscriber, Talei said. However, the fee can be waived for the merchant that originally recommended the customer, if the customer inputs the merchant’s Jeebster code. Jeebster is Talei’s second attempt to launch an online business. A company that offered a dating website and a social network — both catering to the Iranian-American community — failed, in part due to lack of research, but also because he lacked investment dollars, he said. This time around, Talei launched his latest website after receiving the financial backing of fellow co-founder and now chief financial officer Gary Gillman. The team took about 10 months to develop a business plan and fine-tune the website prior to its November launch, Talei said. With the social network and dating site, Talei said he had no financial plan to support the business in the case it wasn’t an instant success. “Here, we have it planned out for the next two years or so how we are going to stay afloat just in case it doesn’t work out,” he said. A month in, the website has about 35 merchants signed up. Talei said more than 600 users have also joined, hunting for bargains at their local delis, salons and dry cleaners. But unlike some new businesses, Talei isn’t racing to add just any business to his roster of participants. There are requirements: one business per category and the online reviews must be good. That helps participating businesses because there won’t be multiple hair salons or Italian delis competing against each other, he said. Anna Petrosyan, owner of The Boulangerie, signed up in November after Talei walked into her Woodland Hills cafe with his pitch. In about two weeks the website, Petrosyan said, has contributed about five new customers. She said she has worked to get other local businesses involved, in part, because the referrals limit the price she has to pay Jeebster, she said. The 10 percent discount “is a nice incentive to come back,” she said, noting it’s not a significant hit to the business. “What’s 10 percent off $9.73?” said Petrosyan, a former line cook at the upscale restaurant Spago in Beverly Hills. “That means that person is going to come back, because I know as soon as you try my food that means you are coming back.”
