A company that once put appreciation into pocket watches now puts it into software. Its most interesting wager is that a thank-you works better when people can see it, choose it, and sometimes keep it.
A $500 award can still miss the people who deserve it. Nectar is building a business around a different idea: let colleagues notice one another, then give that appreciation somewhere to go.
The consumer app had more than a million users. The better business appeared when employers kept asking for something else: a way to turn everyday appreciation into a system people would actually use.