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Would like some feedback on this business idea

Idea threads

TheProcess

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Hi all,
The other day I was talking with some friends when I came up with a business idea. For context, I'm a college student.
I asked myself: "What is something that all college students want?".
They want to have access to parties and social events.
I thought, why not create an app that shows you the live parties that are near you. The problem, however, is that I don't know any coding or programming. I have a few questions I would like to ask:

1. First of all, is this a good idea? Something that can scale down the line? I personally think so. If it works at my college, it can work at others too.
2. How should I go about the coding of the app? Should I try to meet a student here at my university? Problem is, I don't know any coders. Should I go on upwork and hire someone overseas. No idea how much that would cost, and communication down the line can be a problem.
3. On my end, I'm going to contact the fraternities, sororities, night clubs, and bars in my area that I know a lot of student frequent often. I need to somehow incentivize them to get on board with using the app, with submitting when they are having a party, how many people are at the party, what's the overall dress code, and a feature that allows them to tell the users of the app, in live time, how awesome the party currently is. Perhaps I can simply start with some friends who are at frats and sororities.
4. Another thing I want to do is start a social media page around this app, in order to build it up by the time it will be released. I want to go door to door, ask my friends to do the same, put the club on social media...

What do you think Fastlane?
 
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Tourmaline

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It may be a good idea. I can't tell. I know some parties would not want to be made public. However plenty would want to be I imagine.

I would validate this cheaply by asking at least 100 people on your campus. I would also speak to club/venue owners about if they'd want their parties/shows to show up in the app too.
 

Rawseed

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I'm assuming your revenue will come from the bar owners and party throwers?

Or are you planning on building up the user base, then selling advertising?

Or both?

Why not start with a no coding solution where you ask local party throwers to pay you for a party listing?

You could use Mighty Networks or one of these no coding mobile app dev platforms:

 
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ZCP

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sketch out the flow and how you would monetize this. then make a simple MVP as stated above.
get some people using it on the list. then you can go / grow from there!
 

Champion

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Ofcourse it could work and be fastlane.

However, I think its going to take a lot of precise and professional execution to get this started.

Are you a very social person that attends a lot of parties or know somebody that is? That will be instrumental.

I think in the begining, you will have to host many parties and get people using the app to visit those parties.

Once you had some legendary parties and word spreads, you might have other hosts who are willing to offer their places for parties that are open to random people.

Im already picturing a project-x party happening because of this app lol
 

Rawseed

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I think in the begining, you will have to host many parties and get people using the app to visit those parties.

I think Elon Musk's first business was throwing parties.
 
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TheProcess

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It may be a good idea. I can't tell. I know some parties would not want to be made public. However plenty would want to be I imagine.

I would validate this cheaply by asking at least 100 people on your campus. I would also speak to club/venue owners about if they'd want their parties/shows to show up in the app too.
Great idea about validating it by asking people. I'm going to do that thanks!
 

TheProcess

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I'm assuming your revenue will come from the bar owners and party throwers?

Or are you planning on building up the user base, then selling advertising?

Or both?

Why not start with a no coding solution where you ask local party throwers to pay you for a party listing?

You could use Mighty Networks or one of these no coding mobile app dev platforms:

Hm interesting. Could you please elaborate on the selling of party listing idea. How would I go about doing that?
 

TheProcess

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sketch out the flow and how you would monetize this. then make a simple MVP as stated above.
get some people using it on the list. then you can go / grow from there!
What do you think is the best way to monetize this?
And when you say to get people using it on the list, I assume you're talking about the people who would hypothetically use the app if it existed right? So when I'm randomly approaching people and asking them if they would use this app, I write down the contact info of the people who say yes?
 
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TheProcess

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Ofcourse it could work and be fastlane.

However, I think its going to take a lot of precise and professional execution to get this started.

Are you a very social person that attends a lot of parties or know somebody that is? That will be instrumental.

I think in the begining, you will have to host many parties and get people using the app to visit those parties.

Once you had some legendary parties and word spreads, you might have other hosts who are willing to offer their places for parties that are open to random people.

Im already picturing a project-x party happening because of this app lol
I'm decently social, but some of my good friends are very social. I live in an apartment with a few guys so maybe I could host them here? what is an alternative?Also what is a project-x party lol?
 

ZCP

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@TheProcess what research have you done? what sweat equity have you put it? what competitive analysis have you done? what market analysis have you done? what are your next 3 steps?

read back through your posts ...... you are basically saying to give you a step by step with little effort put it yourself?
 

Rawseed

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Hm interesting. Could you please elaborate on the selling of party listing idea. How would I go about doing that?

Lol. I though you were "All about the process"
  1. First build up your user base by getting 1,000 of your local friends and classmates to download your app or sign up for your free party newsletter.
  2. Then go to local bar owners and/or party throwers and tell them that you have 1,000 local college students signed up. Ask them to pay you $100 to get their party listed on the hot events list.
Also consider using Substack to create a 'party newsletter' for free. No tech or app or money required. Substack
 
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TheProcess

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@TheProcess what research have you done? what sweat equity have you put it? what competitive analysis have you done? what market analysis have you done? what are your next 3 steps?

read back through your posts ...... you are basically saying to give you a step by step with little effort put it yourself?
Yea you're right. I'll go put in some work and do some research and update this post once I've done that.
 

TheProcess

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Lol. I though you were "All about the process"
  1. First build up your user base by getting 1,000 of your local friends and classmates to download your app or sign up for your free party newsletter.
  2. Then go to local bar owners and/or party throwers and tell them that you have 1,000 local college students signed up. Ask them to pay you $100 to get their party listed on the hot events list.
Also consider using Substack to create a 'party newsletter' for free. No tech or app or money required. Substack
Thank you so much. This is my first real business so I appreciate all the tips!
 

Jon L

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Thinking back to my college days, 25 years ago (dear lord, that's a long time).

I was pretty shy, and would not have wanted to go to a large, loud party. If I did want to go, they were super easy to find. Just walk down the street in Isla Vista (UC Santa Barbara), and you'd find 20 of them on a Friday night. I'm sure that is still exactly the same. Except that Halloween is different for sure now than it was back then. In '95 or '96, so many people showed up in IV for Halloween that several people died because they were pushed off the cliff overlooking the ocean due to overcrowding. The year after that, the police shut that down.

What I would have paid for, maybe even $5 per weekend (one time use) would be a list of smaller parties for people like me. You'd need to do a good deal of legwork to track down these kinds of parties. Flyers, all over the place, knocking on doors, etc. But, you wouldn't even need an app for this. A simple excel spreadsheet, emailed to your subscribers, would suffice. The fact of knocking on doors would probably get people thinking in the direction of using your service. 'Hey, I'd like more friends, I'd love to host a party.' They may not have even done that without your service.

Hosts would describe their party, and would be offered the option of putting their address on it ... parties with addresses would be open to the public. Ones with just emails/cells/etc would be closed to people they interview.
 
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Rawseed

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Haha no, I think that was Tony Hsieh from Zappos!

Lol. Maybe, it was both of them. I should have been throwing parties in undergrad instead of the lame jobs I had. Intramural referee and security assistant.


 

Mr.Business

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First of all, is this a good idea?
I think the issue might be with security. you never know who can show up and with what intentions. We had a birthday party for one of my friends that ended with a fight, broken glass and blood on a wall ;) because the word has spread through dm's.

On second thought, a lot of nightclubs in Toronto use MeetUp as an advertising platform for their venues. Such as "networking plus nightclub" or "lounge plus club"
 
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100k

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You don't need to create one.

Just buy one and add value.

In this case the value would be the social network effect.... the more people that use it, the more events on the app, the more events on the app, the more people that use it that click on ads.


You'll need to go do some legwork and convenience a couple of major event organizers to EXCLUSIVELY put their event details and booking for their events via your app. And in return maybe you'll help them promote the event or sponsor their event by paying the entry fee/1st drink to those that attend & showed up because of your app.

That would put your app on the "map" locally.

Or find some other unique market entry strategy.
 

100k

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What do you think is the best way to monetize this?
And when you say to get people using it on the list, I assume you're talking about the people who would hypothetically use the app if it existed right? So when I'm randomly approaching people and asking them if they would use this app, I write down the contact info of the people who say yes?

You should first approach the club owners and the event organizers. Get them to some super exclusive deal not found elsewhere.

THEN go to the public and tell them, "Hey you planning on a partying this weekend? There's this awesome party / event happening at XYZ club, its going to be off the rockers ... Take this flyer and share it with your friends."

And your flyer can have info about the exclusive event and the BENEFITS they'll get from pre-booking via your app. Maybe they'll get free entry and save $10, maybe they'll get a drink for free, maybe they can buy 1 ticket & get 1 free, or if they get 2 friends to buy a ticket via the app they get their ticket for free.... doesn't matter.

The important thing is, that you first work out a deal and then offer an EXCLUSIVE BENEFIT to those that use your app.
 

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