There was a lot to like about the pitch, but my reaction to the “rewards store” was “ugh, this feels like the incredibly manipulative and icky ‘reward catalogs’ we got whenever their was a youth fundraiser. It would lower my trust in the company. Can we just do cash?”

Apparently they could do that, but the sales team couldn’t conceive of the “rewards center” as being a turnoff. They either truly thought it added value or it was so central to their business model they couldn’t believe people might not want it.