Distribution struggles with an app business

[TianMeh]

Hi there fellow entrepreneurs, happy holidays!

I'm a 20 year old dude from Slovenia and I'm struggling on this beautiful time of the year:
So here is my story real quick:
At the start of 2023 i got an idea for an app/web business, I thought it was brilliant. I started building the app with two friends in January along working a job as a developer. Our plan was to build the first usable version by the year's end. Fast forward to today, the friends left me in the summer but I still managed to release the app a little more than a month ago and it has around 70 downloads now.

The purpose of the app is to solve this problem:
Imagine you arrive on holiday/into a new city and want to go to a party. You probably don't know where to go.
Sure you can search Facebook, websites, forums etc. but if you've had that problem like me, you probably know it's annoying, time consuming and usually unsuccessful

So you would open the app, select the city, the genre you want, let's say techno and just like that you have numbers of techno parties and options to choose from and based on your music taste. Then you can easily buy tickets through the app, and that's where I plan to make revenue.

Quite a big problem I'm having:
To achieve that the parties are on the app, the party organisers have to post them. But it's not worth it for the organisers to post them if there are not many users on the app.
So far I've been posting all the parties to get the initial downloads but I'm all over the place and don't know how to continue so the app grows, do I post as much parties myself as possible & focus on getting users first & then contact organisers or do i try to reach out to organisers now or..?

Any criticism/recommendations/anything is very welcome.

 

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[TianMeh]

Hi there fellow entrepreneurs, happy holidays!

I'm a 20 year old dude from Slovenia and I'm struggling on this beautiful time of the year:
So here is my story real quick:
At the start of 2023 i got an idea for an app/web business, I thought it was brilliant. I started building the app with two friends in January along working a job as a developer. Our plan was to build the first usable version by the year's end. Fast forward to today, the friends left me in the summer but I still managed to release the app a little more than a month ago and it has around 70 downloads now.

The purpose of the app is to solve this problem:
Imagine you arrive on holiday/into a new city and want to go to a party. You probably don't know where to go.
Sure you can search Facebook, websites, forums etc. but if you've had that problem like me, you probably know it's annoying, time consuming and usually unsuccessful

So you would open the app, select the city, the genre you want, let's say techno and just like that you have numbers of techno parties and options to choose from and based on your music taste. Then you can easily buy tickets through the app, and that's where I plan to make revenue.

Quite a big problem I'm having:
To achieve that the parties are on the app, the party organisers have to post them. But it's not worth it for the organisers to post them if there are not many users on the app.
So far I've been posting all the parties to get the initial downloads but I'm all over the place and don't know how to continue so the app grows, do I post as much parties myself as possible & focus on getting users first & then contact organisers or do i try to reach out to organisers now or..?

Any criticism/recommendations/anything is very welcome.

Idk if anyone is reading this but I just got over 100 downloads in a day and the day after around 80, and I'm not marketing. I don't know what happened but now i have a shit ton of stuff to fix and figure out how I'm going to make sure there are as much parties as possible on the app. I also hope this is a sign of productocracy as @MJ DeMarco would say

 

[FastNAwesome]

Congrats on your success so far!

Do you know any club promoters?
If not, I'd suggest meet some.
If you do - then talk to them.

I'm not into clubbing anymore,
but while I was, my friends who were promoters
wanted to get as many visitors as they can.

So I think they could be interested even if your app
doesn't have too many downloads now.

Perhaps just make it simple enough for them to post an event.

Also, there's a lot of recurring events, e.g.like dancehall night or such.
So that would be set and forget for promoters, but then maybe there should be
a prompt for them each week to confirm event is still going.

So that your app stays current, because that's what would make it valuable to begin with.
(That's now a programmer in me thinking up features

Just my view...

Best of luck, and welcome to the forum!

 

[TianMeh]

Congrats on your success so far!

Do you know any club promoters?
If not, I'd suggest meet some.
If you do - then talk to them.

I'm not into clubbing anymore,
but while I was, my friends who were promoters
wanted to get as many visitors as they can.

So I think they could be interested even if your app
doesn't have too many downloads now.

Perhaps just make it simple enough for them to post an event.

Also, there's a lot of recurring events, e.g.like dancehall night or such.
So that would be set and forget for promoters, but then maybe there should be
a prompt for them each week to confirm event is still going.

So that your app stays current, because that's what would make it valuable to begin with.
(That's now a programmer in me thinking up features

Just my view...

Best of luck, and welcome to the forum!

Oh wow a reply

No, unfortunately i don't know any club promoters, for now two organisers have signed up and both posted their parties. One asked me if I would be interested in any collaborations but I just got overflown with problems when the users showed up. It's just all so confusing and I'm struggling to choose what to do, should I promote/make some posters for example and collaborate with the organiser or should i develop and fix stuff...

Will look into the club promoters and ask my friends who go out more often... Thank you for the suggestion.

Yes, I'm trying to make it as simple as possible to post it. At first it was only possible through the app, but one promoter said they would prefer posting on the web using their desktop, so i developed that.

The next fun thing is, I stress 24/7 if everything is okay, if everything is working, that I could do something better etc. and it just wears me out mentally.
Fine thats enough whining from me

Will take your advice regarding promoters and the feature. Thank you a lot for nice wishes and taking the time to answer!

 

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[FastNAwesome]

You're welcome

When developing apps for clients, I noticed one of frequent mistakes is too many assumptions,
and too few feedback.

So yes, if you need promoters on this app, it would be good to connect with them.
That way you can get feedback and suggestions, and also ask them questions.

Another mistake I've seen - too many features at once.
With less features starting out, you may be better able to handle it.

 

[TianMeh]

You're welcome

When developing apps for clients, I noticed one of frequent mistakes is too many assumptions,
and too few feedback.

So yes, if you need promoters on this app, it would be good to connect with them.
That way you can get feedback and suggestions, and also ask them questions.

Another mistake I've seen - too many features at once.
With less features starting out, you may be better able to handle it.

Wow, haven't thought about that... May be useful to get as much feedback, otherwise I'm just guessing, as you've said.
Will take the advice, finish the basic stuff and focus on meeting/getting organisers and promoters onboard and then go on from there.

Thank You for the advice, means a lot
If I can return the help somehow, do tell.

I wish you amazing holidays and an even more awesome new year! Will post updates

 

[FastNAwesome]

Wow, haven't thought about that... May be useful to get as much feedback, otherwise I'm just guessing, as you've said.

Yes, you would be surprised how much further getting feedback can actually take you.
Which doesn't mean you need or should say "yes" to every feature request.

And after all, if you're expecting to earn from your app,
might as well talk to your prospects.

I wish you amazing holidays and an even more awesome new year!

Thank you so much. Likewise, have an awesome and successful '24!

 

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