Greater Prosperity For All
We drive the Impact Economy to enable stronger businesses and happier people.
What’s The Impact Economy?
Being Mindful of Resource Allocation
Where does the money you spend on advertising and marketing go? If you’re like most US companies, the answer is probably a shortlist of oligarchs in technology and media. We think this is broken. We believe in lessening the cost to discover and retain customers so more value is retained by those directly involved in the transaction: the buyer and the seller. It’s pretty simple, we seek to make other middlemen obsolete and be as efficient a middleman ourselves as possible.
Being Mindful of The Future
Long-term thinking often seems like a practice lost to time. We actively practice having an investor’s mindset and put this idea to action with our pricing model. We charge a base subscription rate to cover some of our cost to on board new businesses to Ryze and make our profit down the line, scaling up with a 1% charge on future transactions we actually help facilitate. This alignment makes sure we work hard for a future mutually beneficial to our company and those we work with. We all grow together.
Being Mindful of Each Other
We’re all connected. We practice being good to everyone we interact with. You can see this in how we communicate; by being responsive, complete, respectful, and empathetic. Win or lose, we’ll be known as some of the good guys.
Baking a Bigger Pie
We don’t ask ourselves how we can charge our customers as much as possible. We ask how we can charge them as little as possible. This distinction is important. By building technology to introduce greater efficiency, utility, security, and resiliency for our customers, we help them grow to be more financially successful in a virtuous win-win cycle where we make more by primarily helping them make more.
Our Team of Builders
Phil Osolinski
Founder and CEO
I graduated from Butler University with over $100,000 in student loans. Big yikes. To put it lightly, the real world hit me hard. After working for the man for two years, I quit, moved back in with my parents, and bet what little I had on my vision for a company that could make a significant difference for my generation – the most debt burdened generation in history – and do rewards right.
At Ryze my most important job is building an incredible team and enabling them to do their best work. I also tend to get my nose in pretty much everything.
Tom Fortunato
Co-founder and COO
I joined Phil on this mission because the thought of waging a war on student loans gets my blood boiling in all the right ways. I’m ready to delete your debt and build your wealth.
I lead in the operation of our product, research and development, and building out our vision for a customer driven culture.
John Nguyen
Co-founder and CMO
I joined Ryze because it is my calling to do more. Student loan debt is the biggest challenge facing my generation and I want to do something to help solve it. A higher education should be the key to unlocking the future, not the mortgage holding this generation back. My dream is to help my generation take back control of it’s financial future.
I build bridges. Whether you’re a business owner, university, student, or regular individual, my goal is to build the bridges that connect every community together as one.
If you’d like to get in touch with anyone on our team directly, send an email to thechase@ryzerewards.com and we’ll get it to the right person.
Things We’ve Learned So Far
Enjoy the Process
We need to be intentional about making the journey itself enjoyable and worth doing in its own right. Hard work is important, but all work and no play makes Jack a dull boy.
Avoid Surprises
When it comes to our business health, progress, challenges, roadblocks, and what may happen next, we should work hard to avoid surprises. Surprises are great for birthday parties, less so for board meetings.
Make ‘Hell Yes’ Decisions
In most decisions and hiring especially, if there are doubts, the default answer is no. For big, consequential decisions that aren’t easily undone, we need to be making hell yes decisions that inspire total confidence.
Act on the Freedom to Please
We have the power and influence to make our users, merchants, and partners’ days great. We should do this and use our best judgement to make commitments we can uphold.
Give Heroic Effort
Fortune often favors the bold so we need to have a bias towards action. There is no I in team, but there are five in ‘Individual Brilliance.’
Be a Good Egg
Be friendly, be gracious, help and encourage others. Win or lose, we should be known for doing things right and treating everyone well.
Little Things Matter
We must pay attention to detail. Making a habit of double-checking, being proactive, over communicating, and being mindful of those around us is a simple way to show we care. Caring is important.
Always be Learning
There is so much we can always learn or nurture a deeper understanding of. For our partners, users, customers, and merchants, we need to be leveling up weekly.
Chase Your Goals
We all need to have a destination in mind, not be mindlessly drifting or worse, letting someone else set our course. Professional, personal, social, whatever; for the things that matter, we should reflect on our goals often and chase them down daily.
Share the Wins
We are doing something really, really hard. When we win, we must take care to teach each other how, document our process and story for the future, and celebrate to enjoy the moment with those who help us get there. Then we’re on to the next one.
How We Work
Remote and Scrappy
We’ve been building Ryze as a mostly remote team with pseudo HQs moving from library study rooms, to coffee shops, to co-working spaces in Columbus, OH where two of our co-founders, Phil and Tom, are based.
With our third co-founder John in the RTP area of North Carolina and a host of freelancers and contractors we work with spread across the US and Europe, we’ve embraced remote work as the best way to enable quick progress with great people.
We bootstrapped our first versions of Ryze and literally did the whole move back in with the parents thing. We’re a scrappy little bunch (and two of us are still living with the ‘rents).
More Info and Open Positions
If you’re curious for more information on Ryze or want to check in on open positions, we encourage you to visit our company pages on Angel.co or LinkedIn.
Start Earning Seamless Rewards Today