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Some things to think about - not necessarily true, but just a brain dump: >I'm building a mobile app to create and share social events with your friends. A soc

Some things to think about - not necessarily true, but just a brain dump: >I'm building a mobile app to create and share social events with your friends. A social event would be going to the bar, house party, or meeting up for coffee. You can fill out a simple form (event name, description, date, time) and post to a feed for your friends to see. Your friends can notify you they're going by pressing the "attend" button. Have you tried selecting people you want to hang out with at a bar and sending a text message to them that says "Hey, we're going to bar X at 5 if you want to tag along" to validate the concept. >Now I'm trying to get my first users. Yesterday was my first day. I made a spreadsheet of everyone I can message that live in my target area. My list is 82 people. Yesterday I contacted 24 people and got one person to sign up, I was hoping to get five. But most of the people I messaged didn't even respond. Instead of contacting the 24 people to ask them to sign up, tell them you're going to have coffee at place X. Basically, use the spreadsheet as your app and validate the concept. Generally speaking, if people are not coming for you, they're coming for someone else: the crazy guy, the wicked smart girl, the hot one, or the one who's always funnier when drunk. If you're none of those, your job is to set it up and do a "casting" of people who go well together, and do so in a certain context. Someone will invite you and you'll say "I don't know...". They'll say "X and Y will be there, too" and that may change your mind because X knows more than anyone on some esoteric subject you love, and Y is just so much fun to hang out with. Sooo... Maybe you want to focus on the Person/Venue/Clique fit and the application automatically invites the right people when you're going to the right venue. The right people for the right venue, but also the right people who gel together in that venue. I wouldn't invite Y to a bar because he doesn't hold his liquor and acts douchey, so the application embeds that in its graph. See Person/Venue/Clique fit below. - There maybe an asymmetry in that people are more interested to know what you're doing than to let you know what they're doing. Unless there is a vanity component in there. - Is it a broadcast or personal invites? If it is a broadcast, maybe I don't know how you feel about me and feel I'd bother if I came. Me: "Hey! I saw you beaconed earlier". You: "Uhmm.. Sure!". - Platform fragmentation: how is your beacon broadcasting? Do I have to have the app installed to know where you are, or does it broadcast to Instagram, add a WhatsApp status, post something on Facebook? or text message [supposing it's invite/private] and Twitter or similar if it's not. - Maybe there's "diffusion of resposibility" going on. If you invite me personally, I'll feel much more compelled than if I see it on a broadcast because I might think surely other people might join you and you'll be fine. If everyone has that thought, nobody will show up. - Person/Venue/Clique Fit: Person A is cool with Person B and Person C, however, Person A would hangout with Person B in venue Y, but not with Person C. Person A would also hangout with Person C in venue Z, but not necessarily with Person B. It can be for a variety of reasons: perception, image, precedents, etc. Regulars Person A meets in a venue might not appreciate Person B for example. Usually, when a person goes to a venue, there's a small set of people they want to be with at that venue. - People might have "spots" they don't want other people to joing them at.

ryansam 6y ago
These are a lot of the challenges I know I'm going to have to figure out. I'm screenshotting this because it's actually a really good explanation of what I need to be working on. I just launched and I couldn't cover all these problems right away in my MVP, but I plan to cover all of them in the future. Thanks!
- Jugurtha 6y ago
  You don't need to cover all of these problems either in MVP or later. What is the "dance" that leads to a great "event"? Broadcasting location is a feature of all services. Broadcasting the right event to the right people is something that is not a feature of any as far as I can tell. So, what is the social dance? Doesn't it go like "I'm going to bar X, who shall I call/text? If I text Y, then I won't text X because they get into heated debates and derail the evening. Plus, Y is usually busy this time of day". Or you're with someone "Let's have a drink. [other person]: this is Z's neighborhood, mind if I text him to tag along? He's cool[you don't know Z, but your friend vouches for him]" Isn't paying attention to these details that leads to a good event? The event (vibe, time, place, optional description, people) must fit. And then you can tweak these levers: if I set a vibe and I don't care about time and place, which people will I invite? If I set a list of people, which combinations of vibe, time, and place would be good? What am I optimizing for? Good time, or number of "attendees"? Is it destined for a context where I know the attendees, or am I just throwing a big party and everyone is welcome, as long as they are in the circle of people I trust. This needs to be super, super simple to set up. As simple as texting someone. Maybe a simple use case is for events that are happening right now, then refine to scheduled events. Cold start: I click on the app. I enter a description "Going for drinks at Foo" in the field. The app displays list of contacts to invite. I check three or four. Hit send. It sends them a text message (they don't need to have the app) with a signature "Sent with Social Dance" or "Sent with Inner Circle", or let's be douchey "Sent with innrcl". What the hell is Social Dance? The application then remembers that context (vibe, time of day, "drinks", Foo [place], people you invited, location) for subsequent recommendations. You train your application like that so it'll recommend you set up events. Later, you can have a map with different possibilities "Watch tonight's game at the Foo Bar" or "Listen to X playing live at Tak the Bar". Click, it'll prefill a list of people to invite. You check it, if it looks good, you go for it.

ryansam 6y ago

These are a lot of the challenges I know I'm going to have to figure out. I'm screenshotting this because it's actually a really good explanation of what I need to be working on. I just launched and I couldn't cover all these problems right away in my MVP, but I plan to cover all of them in the future. Thanks!

Jugurtha 6y ago
You don't need to cover all of these problems either in MVP or later. What is the "dance" that leads to a great "event"? Broadcasting location is a feature of all services. Broadcasting the right event to the right people is something that is not a feature of any as far as I can tell. So, what is the social dance? Doesn't it go like "I'm going to bar X, who shall I call/text? If I text Y, then I won't text X because they get into heated debates and derail the evening. Plus, Y is usually busy this time of day". Or you're with someone "Let's have a drink. [other person]: this is Z's neighborhood, mind if I text him to tag along? He's cool[you don't know Z, but your friend vouches for him]" Isn't paying attention to these details that leads to a good event? The event (vibe, time, place, optional description, people) must fit. And then you can tweak these levers: if I set a vibe and I don't care about time and place, which people will I invite? If I set a list of people, which combinations of vibe, time, and place would be good? What am I optimizing for? Good time, or number of "attendees"? Is it destined for a context where I know the attendees, or am I just throwing a big party and everyone is welcome, as long as they are in the circle of people I trust. This needs to be super, super simple to set up. As simple as texting someone. Maybe a simple use case is for events that are happening right now, then refine to scheduled events. Cold start: I click on the app. I enter a description "Going for drinks at Foo" in the field. The app displays list of contacts to invite. I check three or four. Hit send. It sends them a text message (they don't need to have the app) with a signature "Sent with Social Dance" or "Sent with Inner Circle", or let's be douchey "Sent with innrcl". What the hell is Social Dance? The application then remembers that context (vibe, time of day, "drinks", Foo [place], people you invited, location) for subsequent recommendations. You train your application like that so it'll recommend you set up events. Later, you can have a map with different possibilities "Watch tonight's game at the Foo Bar" or "Listen to X playing live at Tak the Bar". Click, it'll prefill a list of people to invite. You check it, if it looks good, you go for it.