Open Sourcing our Algorithm

When it comes to product, sometimes it's better to keep your algorithm a secret, and sometimes it's better to open it up. When it comes to an App like TikTok for example, their algorithm is the secret sauce that helps drive user engagement. It makes sense that they hold it tight to the vest and do not share it.

When it comes to an app like PassPass, I feel, it is important to provide the end consumer - which is the Member with the best possible user experience. To do this, we need to provide the best, most relevant deals that the member will likely consume, which ultimately will drive more usage of the app, more business for our Partner businesses and better savings for the member.

So with that, our goal with our Algorithm is to use location and usage signals to help recommend the best deals to our members every time they open up the app.

Therefore, it is important businesses know how we will be ranking deals so they can use this information in a free market to improve their rankings and drive more customers into their stores. Since we do not charge businesses, and we do not have any paid advertising, it will be completely based on these factors for a business to show up with a higher ranking in the discovery algorithm. Since we may have 1,000's of businesses with 10,000's of deals in 100's of locations, it will be incredibly competitive to rank highly, we are hopeful that this competition will bring out the best in our marketplace for all involved.

We realize this is not perfect, it is our initial attempt and will likely change if we don't get it completely wrong all together. I'm also putting this out in the world and if anyone has other ideas of how to do this better I'm always open to conversation and improving.

Here is the first version of how deals and businesses will show up in the rankings of the Discover Tab (see below) which is the main interface for finding and redeeming deals in the PassPass app.

If you have thoughts, I'd love to hear them.