

Looie.co – Find serviced restrooms on demand - dreamdu5t
http://looie.co

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scott_karana
I wasn't sure if this was a joke when I saw the title, as something similar to
this was the premise for the "Seinfeld reunion" episode of Curb your
Enthusiasm.

> ...George Costanza...made a fortune by devising an iPhone application called
> the iToilet, which directed the user to the nearest decent public toilet
> anywhere in the world

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seinfeld_%28Curb_Your_Enthusia...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seinfeld_%28Curb_Your_Enthusiasm%29)

However, private restrooms like proposed here don't sound like too bad an
idea! I suspect there will some people who will be willing to pay for them.
:-)

~~~
notahacker
Who's providing the serviced restrooms... private homeowners? Is it AirPnP?

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justboxing
Countries like India very badly need something like this. I grew up there, and
back then -- and I am told not much has changed since then -- public restrooms
were far and few between. Even the ones that existed were so unhygenic and
dirty, I would torture myself and try to "hold everything in" till I could get
home or to a friend's place.

I would definitely pay for something like this if I were in India and they had
it there.

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m52go
Just took a 2-week trip there--with a 1-week road trip--and I second this a
thousand times.

Especially for tourists, it's SO worth paying for. It's a matter of staying
well on a trip you've already paid thousands of bucks for.

Don't hesitate to charge.

EDIT: I see you're not hesitating to charge. Excellent!

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Yalqaysi
Hey folks, Looie founder here.

Lots of interesting points. In NYC there's a dilapidated restroom
infrastructure for the city's 10 million inhabitants and 50 million annual
tourists- Looie gives them a clean, safe and comfortable alternative.

For the keyfob thing most people don't get, it's for two reasons. We're going
to be in everyone's keychain - which is an awesome place to be. We'll also be
there when your phone is dead - just in case.

DKnoll, good points on branding. Looie is a character - kind of like Oscar
(health insurance) or Casper (mattresses). We hope it's a brand name that our
users will grow fond of. One day we hope people will be asking for the "Looie"
instead of restroom. The term is also more light-hearted than "restroom" and
more accurate than "bathroom". Going to the looie doesn't have any of the
negative associations that weigh down the existing terminology.

@VQC - really cool stuff. We had to get our hands dirty and demonstrate to
businesses our value add. Now we're at the point where they tangibly
understand what hosting a Looie does for their business.

As for pay toilets being illegal - it's an incredible history of why things
are the way they are. Here in NYC, the Municipality has only introduced three
pay toilets in the last 9 years or so. It's a serious public health issue in
the city - that's why we're working like animals to fix it.

Cool stuff.

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vqc
I created a similar app a while back called Clnli. The idea was to create a
network of bathrooms by partnering with restaurants, small shops, etc. that
already do a good job of keeping their bathrooms clean (Starbucks, froyo
places, hat stores, etc).

Users would pay a weekly/monthly/yearly fee (non-renewing, good for travel) to
get access to the network and they would be able to unlock bathrooms directly
from their phones. No need to ask for a key.

Stores would get paid on a monthly basis for keeping their bathrooms clean.

The primary problem was convincing stores to join the network. I talked to a
very very large number of store owners and managers in and around downtown San
Diego. The value proposition to the store owners just didn't seem high enough.
The idea of charging people to use bathrooms didn't sit well with some owners,
and others flat out refused to open their bathrooms.

My starting market was parents with young kids. That market seemed quite
receptive to the idea.

I hope Looie is able to pull it off. I still think its a great idea.

EDIT: Having to use a separate access key seems meh, when we all have cell
phones. Clnli integrated with lock systems like
[http://resortlock.com/](http://resortlock.com/) and displayed a code in app.
Using BLE/NFC would have been even cooler.

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GFK_of_xmaspast
Pay toilets are and have been illegal in parts of the United States.

~~~
vqc
They are, and many cities have rules requiring restaurants to maintain
publicly accessible bathrooms.

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DKnoll
It's an interesting concept, but I don't get the need to have a physical
device.

You're catering to people who are looking to distance themselves from the
reality of bodily function by finding them what you describe as the 'cleanest
restooms' (bit of a misspell in the copy, by the way) but also expect them to
carry a non-discrete keyfob everywhere they go, that through your label and
it's purpose they will associate only with excrement.

I'm just an armchair social psychologist but I feel like your branding should
be far more discrete. The branding should be associated with cleanliness, not
a euphemism for toilet, which conjures unclean mental imagery.

Use NFC on a phone, or RFID on a card that can be placed in the wallet and a
name like (here's my best marketing consultant impression) 'Pristn' to give a
more positive image when your name is read. You will not disrupt people's
shame in their bodies, unfortunately.

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shenanigoat
Great idea but please change the splash image. I get that she's disgusted but
I would rather see what I like (clean bathroom) than what I don't like (lady
that probably stepped in something awful).

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orthoganol
I think it's just a matter of time before we go through every possible
permutation of integrating thing x into the sharing economy.

As someone mentioned, maybe for the third world this would work... otherwise,
it is, of course absurd, as well as an actual idea of George Costanza as
someone pointed out. I'd pivot this for the third world if you want something
more feasible.

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xoail
I think the problem they will run into is in expansion. If I need to go, I
need one closer to me asap. I hope they partner with local businesses and
incentivize them to keep restrooms clean and tidy.

Countries like India could really benefit from it. I always imagined a lock
like Lockitron with a subscription based app to unlock clean bathrooms nearby.
Leave reviews. I think this would become something funny and useful.

~~~
joelrunyon
The lockitron integration is actually a pretty efficient & interesting
integration idea.

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BillinghamJ
Funnily enough, I worked on a similar app a while ago called Restroom Rater -
[https://restrooms.io](https://restrooms.io)

Though it was more like Foursquare/Yelp reviewing for public restrooms rather
than paying to use private ones.

We ended up targeting handicapped people as a market who had an actual
legitimate problem which we could help to solve.

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notahacker
Disabled people in the UK can access a similar service (locator app + master
key) supported by a disability charity for a nominal fee
[http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/blogs-
ouch-22602836](http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/blogs-ouch-22602836)

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pdq
This reminds me of Airpnp [1] from 2014.

[1] [http://thenextweb.com/apps/2014/03/04/airpnp-its-like-
airbnb...](http://thenextweb.com/apps/2014/03/04/airpnp-its-like-airbnb-but-
for-toilets/)

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nosuchthing
The best things in life are free... so how do we monetize them?

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caf
Crohns and IBD sufferers would be right into this.

