Editor’s note: ExitEvent is a news partner of WRAL TechWire.

DURHAM,. N.C. – In some ways, the take-off of the social media engagement app Stealz happened by accident.

The founders came together to start a nonprofit organization to help school systems raise more money. In the process, they met owners of restaurants, bars and venues and learned of a key problem in marketing and growing their businesses. The busy owners of those establishments didn’t have the time, or the content, to take advantage of social media.

In many other ways, Stealz’s growth into Triangle-area McDonald’s, Applebee’s and Which Wich restaurants and hundreds of independently-owned businesses across the East Coast is by design.

The founders recognized the problem they could help restaurants and entertainment venues solve, and they solved it.

They do it in a way that both excites and mobilizes customers—offering points redeemable for freebies, coupons and discounts in return for patronizing, photographing and then sharing those photos through social media.

Different from daily deal companies or couponing apps, they charge businesses a subscription fee, averaging to about $45 per month. The restaurant or bar decides what deal to offer (1 point at local McDonald’s restaurants gets you a free McFlurry; 50 points equals unlimited refills of McFlurry for 24 hours).

And they use cutting-edge iBeacon technology—to collect the content and automatically tie it to the store or venue, and to woo customers in as they walk past.

But the early success of the app—45,000 downloads, 500 business subscribers and a handful of larger chain restaurant partners—is only the beginning for the two-year-old startup. The founders have two giant challenges to overcome—to attract users by the masses and to retain those users once they’ve downloaded the app.

The challenges aren’t unique to Stealz—according to June 2014 research from the app analytics firm Localytics, 39 percent of apps are opened 11 or more times and 20 percent are opened only once.

“Retention is tough,” says CEO and co-founder Jimmy Zidar.

So what’s the plan going forward? Read the full story at ExitEvent.