“Get in Claimer, we’re going shopping.” This alert from the app Claim is one of many enticing notifications students receive, signaling the latest deals available for the week.
Claim is an app designed to create what its co-founder and CEO, Sam Obletz, calls “easy and affordable memories.” Launched at Harvard in January 2023, the app offers college students a selection of weekly coupons to discover new brands, starting with food options around their campus and eventually expanding to retail and online shopping. Each Thursday, students choose their weekly Claim, which comes with a dollar value they can spend at a brand and an expiration date to redeem it. Students link their Claim account to a credit or debit card so Claim can detect their purchase and reimburse them through Venmo.
In response to user inquiries about how the app makes money from essentially giving users free food, Claim explained in a March 20 Instagram post that brands pay Claim the amount that it sends to customers along with a small fee, which represents Claim’s profit. “You get cash back for finding things you love, and our partner brands get great customers. Win-Win.”
Initially, users could receive rewards and propose Claim trades with one another on the app across all of Claim’s partner brands. Now, users usually only receive Claims for places where they have not previously made purchases. In an interview with the Independent, Obletz explained that this restriction is an evolution of the app’s business model. This change simplifies Claim’s pitch to brands by positioning the app as a tool for attracting new customers rather than a system for repeat visits to the same brands.
Some users, such as Cameron Reckard ’27, have also noticed a decrease in the dollar values of their Claims over time. Reckard said that this trend, coupled with the restriction, has diminished his enthusiasm for the app.
“Originally, it felt like when you received a Claim, you would get something that would essentially let you go to that place for free,” Reckard explained. Noticing that his Claims are now lower in value, he added, “It’s harder to encourage myself to go there if I know that I’m still going to be spending money in the end.”
Obletz stated that the dollar values of some Claims have decreased “on a case-by-case basis” rather than as a general effort by the company to reduce benefits. He said the company has optimized its pricing strategy based on user engagement and brand feedback. “We’re trying to essentially figure out where market-clearing prices are and feed that feedback back to our brand partners,” he said, adding that as the company grows, it can “pull levers as necessary to figure out what’s going to get people excited and what’s not.”
As a startup, Claim continuously introduces new initiatives, which Obletz calls “experiments.” One such experiment, the Status feature, made its debut in December 2023. Users could gain Status by supporting a specific brand over time and could then send Claims for these brands to their friends, introducing them to new options. According to Obletz, the Status feature was meant to enhance the authenticity of shopping experiences by incorporating genuine user preferences. However, the feature did not gain the desired traction, and Obletz said Claim is now phasing it out. Obletz explained that the Status feature’s shortcoming was that it did not align with the app’s “core loop.”
“The core loop is, there’s the drop every Thursday. You unwrap your Claim, you make your choice, you go out and shop, then you get Venmoed, and you come back the next week.” With Status, however, Obletz found that “a lot of students were confused about what Claim was because we had essentially a separate loop going on.”
Within the core loop concept, Claim has introduced other experiments, including a Valentine’s Day drop where students had to visit Tatte Bakery and Cafe in pairs in order to be reimbursed for their purchases. Another experiment involved an unexpected item: rocks. While Harvard students were on spring break, many of them opened the app to find their Thursday Claim drop included just two choices—a Pet Rock or a Rainbow Rock—with $0 in value. Students reacted in outrage and amusement. “There’s no fucking way Claim just gave me a ROCK,” one student vented on the social media app Sidechat. “If you’re broke just say that,” another scoffed.
However, Obletz offered a reassuring hint about what lies ahead, stating, “People holding rocks may be excited about it in the future.” He described the virtual rocks as an experiment to gauge user reactions to a Claim that is not tied to a specific brand and lacks immediate cash value.
Despite the mixed reactions, some students are unphased by recent changes and experiments in the app. Wren Opperman ’26 was among the first students to download Claim last year and has remained a dedicated user throughout its evolution.
“I recognize I haven’t made money, but I’ve gotten $187 worth of food on Claim, and I have 29 friends,” Opperman said. “I have $7 to spend at Life Alive and $5 to spend at Bagelsaurus.”
As students have begun to explore the food options around their campus more extensively, Claim has expanded its reach to a variety of non-food brands. These partners include clothing brands such as Sadderday, For Others, and Urban Outfitters, as well as beauty and self-care brands such as Supergoop, Bask Suncare, and Curology. On April Fool’s Day, the app offered users a Lamborghini, Ferrari, or Toyota Claim.
Despite the added variety, even some Claim loyalists like Opperman do not approve of some of these new Claims. “I don’t like getting Claims like ‘Sadderday’ because they give me $7 to spend, and I can buy a $20 shirt that says, ‘It’s Sadderday.’ I’m not gonna do all that because I’m just not sad like that in the first place.”
Obletz recognizes that not all of Claim’s initiatives and experiments will resonate. But for now, his focus is expansion: Claim has spread to 56 schools across the country and is now targeting large campuses like the University of Michigan, UCLA, and USC. The company looks at several factors to determine where to go next, including the vibrancy of student organizations and Greek life and existing partnerships with campus brands.
As summer break approaches, Claim is also looking to bring its weekly drops off campus. Users will be able to set their location to nearly a dozen major cities in the U.S., such as New York, Los Angeles, and Chicago, allowing them to receive exclusive details tailored to their location. If users won’t be in one of these cities, they will have access to the retail and online shopping brands that Claim has partnered with nationally.
When asked whether Claim’s ambitions extend beyond college life, Obletz acknowledged the potential but emphasized the need for strategic growth. With a measured tone, he stated, “In the future, I would certainly say Claim has broad ambitions, but as a startup, you have to kind of be focused on the sequence and the path to get there. For us, that’s to stay with colleges and really become a valuable and powerful experience for college students.”
Lucas Cohen-d’Arbeloff ’27 (lcohendarbeloff@college.harvard.edu) has redeemed more Claims than the app’s CEO, Sam Obletz.
Han Nguyen ’27 (hannguyen@college.harvard.edu) is excited to redeem her Rainbow Rock Claim.