An App That Helps You Be Social

[xsmbthu3hoa]

All,

Thanks for taking the time to comment, greatly appreciated. Let's tear this idea apart. I believe the use cases are endless, and I think I know how to differentiate my App from similar platforms (eventbrite/meetup). Our goal is simple - create real-life connections built through an experience.

Phone App Idea:

Simplistic design that is based on the swipe Left / Right platform (tinder, hot or not, many more). When a user opens the application, they are given a real-time local experience based on their current / past interests, experiences and social connection. They will see automatically if anyone in their social circle is connected to this experience, and choose to either join or pass.

Here is a basic walk-through explanation - using a basketball league as the sample.

USER POV

• User opens the App
• Basketball appears – you see you have mutual friends with a few of the people playing
• You swipe right to request to join basketball
• If accepted by the Basketball organizer / group, your fee will be processed automatically, and you will be checked-in to joining the basketball game happening that night / later that week etc.

ORGANIZER POV

• Someone can’t make it for tonight’s basketball game, you’d like to fill the spot and not cancel
• You post the simple logistics of your game – place, time, fee, compete level/description, activity picture and tag people who are participating / checked-in.
• Organizer is notified every time someone swipes to join their activity, organizer/group has the power to vote Y/N

Other sample use cases:

1. You want to plan a canoe trip with friends - use this app to quickly set-up the outting, invite your friends (sms, social media notification), get instantaneous check-ins / no go's from your friends. Built-in chat feature to help with other logistics.
2. You want to have a swingers night at your place - you can post the activity anonymously, see who swipes to join, and decide who you want to let into your activity. Built-in chat (video and text) will allow you to dig deeper if you choose, before accepting/declining a person for your activity.
3. You want to go to a local Beer Festivale. You see the activity pop-up, you share it with 3 of your friends, and together you purchase your event ticket through our app (similar to Eventbrite).

What I want to really know is: could you ever see yourself using this app?

 

[hayley368]

@xsmbthu3hoa SoMoLo

 

[xsmbthu3hoa]

@hayley368 This.

 

[chy]

@xsmbthu3hoa Whatever you do, you have to strive to make sure it could work with just one circle of friends or something similar. If you have an app that relies on everyone using it, nothing short of several figures of savvy investment and a bit of luck will give your app the critical mass it needs for its features to have value to users.

Its the chicken and egg that kills a lot of apps. Find a way to design it so that one circle of friends can hear about it and think "this is a useful piece of software for my friends and I to organise our events". Give them a piece of useful software and let them push it to their friends. But its way easier said than done.

I think there's potential for something like this, many people want to move away from Facebook but the convenience of planning events and communicating holds people back.

 

[xsmbthu3hoa]

@chy Thanks for your feedback. As i believe you know, my explanation was very high level / basic premise of what the app achieves.

When you dig deeper into the business model, there's features and revenue streams we want to introduce when we hit 10M, 50M and 100M users. But overall the App needs to be simplistic, and extremely easy to use. I don't think anyone's been able to achieve this, Facebooks taken a stab at it with events, meetup/eventbrite are more ticket sales and large scale events, but no ones really drove home local real-time experiences, where you want, when you want, with who you want.

You made a very interesting point - testing it. Step one is to understand the feasibility/market need. It seems everyone like everyone says its a decent idea, but am looking forward to people criticizing it to understand another POV. Plus, I truly feel like no ones really driven home, or perfect this idea just yet.

Step 2 is to build out our team / the actual app in its most simplistic form (barely any features). V1 will literally be more of a check-in app that I will test with my uncles sports league. He runs about 5-7 different sports throughout our region with 700 people. We will get them to install this app, and check-in to their sport events. When there's a need to fill a spot, my uncle will use this app to announce it. Maybe we'll add push notifications or something at this time...but really the goal is to keep it simple, get people using it, then collect and analyzing what's working, likes, dislikes and how they're using it.

Then we build from there. V2 has a bit of a different go-to-market strategy, more features, and a primary focus on colleges/schools.

could you personally see yourself using an app like this?

 

[amandal]

@xsmbthu3hoa I can go on Facebook right now (and most people do) and see what my friends are doing. It's where they already post photos, and plan events. I can click any photo or text or event and add a comment, like "Can I join you next week?"

Why would I go to this hypothetical app, which has none of my friends on it yet, and which requires me to pay a fee to play basketball with them?