Who doesn’t like a celebration? However, the lifeless bar scene on a weeknight is reason enough for us to push any form of merriment to the weekend. To put an end to this ordeal, there is a new mobile app in town called BarUp.
The aim of this app is to notify users about the happening ‘Bar of the Night’. With BarUp, you no longer have to dread walking into an empty bar on a weeknight to get your much needed brew!
Meet the Co-Founders!
BarUp was started by dead-weeknight-bar victims Jimmy Aird, Alex Chin, Brett Cooke and Tyler Hathaway. They all live in the Boston area and met while working together at a start-up downtown. The team is proud of the fact that so far everything was built in house and has been self-funded.
Know More About BarUp!
This app was introduced with a vision to help people get a weekend like bar atmosphere on a weeknight. BarUp chooses one bar each weeknight in Boston. The nightlife in Boston during the week is pretty much non-existent, with only a few people in each bar. The app crowd sources nightlife by picking one bar and trying to fill it up. This helps in giving the pick of the night a weekend like atmosphere.
“We are young adults in Boston, so we enjoy going out. We used to go out occasionally on weeknights, but it was too difficult finding a good bar. There were no bars that were fun and energetic so we wanted to solve that problem”, adds the team.
The team wants city folks to have the opportunity to go out, no matter what day of the week it is. They want everyone from college seniors to professionals to have the chance to completely let lose even on a weeknight.
On Challenges Faced So Far!
Building the app and following up with it is was the team’s biggest challenge. Also, with no real funding, it was hard to build their community with guerrilla marketing and social media. This challenge was important for them to overcome as their product is really the people in their community.
On Competitors & Expansion Plans
At the moment, BarUp has no direct competition in Boston. Tablelist is one company that does compare close. However, they run the Boston club nightlife scene whereas BarUp focus on bars.
The app is due to launch in Washington DC this spring. They soon plan on expanding it to other cities. Also, the next city to launch BarUp in will be decided by crowd-funders and the team will soon be launching a campaign on Indiegogo.com. If you want to end the tortuously boring weekday nightlife in your city then this is your chance people!
In terms of the product, the team is about to release an updated product with more features. The mobile app will remain really simple, but will come with many added features that the users have recommended.
On Target Audience & Plans of Monetizing
College students above permissible drinking age and young professionals are ideal target audience of the app. However, there are no restrictions as people of all ages already make up the BarUp community.
As far as monetizing goes, it is not top priority for the team. “Bars are offering us money, but for now we are focusing on the community. We just want to have fun and build our user base”, adds the team.
To download or to know more about BarUp do visit: http://www.barupapp.com/
