
Down to Lunch Founders Pursue Less-Traveled Path to App Success - digital55
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/21/technology/personaltech/down-to-lunch-founders-pursue-less-traveled-path-to-success.html
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polm23
I recently did some research on sites like this and one of the oldest ones I
found was "Yo You Want To" from 2009. It was basically the same as the others,
but what was really interesting was finding analysis of why it and all the
similar services since haven't made it by the founder in a comment:

Nikhil Nirmel · Lawdingo Founder

I, too, started a site like this for college kids back in the day (perhaps the
first one. See: [http://columbiaspectator.com/2009/11/04/columbia-students-
sa...](http://columbiaspectator.com/2009/11/04/columbia-students-say-yo-new-
meet-site)). This idea doesn't work. The primary reasons are:

1 - there's not sufficient motivation among people (let alone busy college
students) to meet for platonic reasons. Either there's a prospect of clothes
coming off, or there isn't interest.

2 - It requires, right out of the gate, a high proportion of students to be on
it. It does the app not good if it has ten thousand users spread across 1000
schools.

3 - The time-based expiration means that there has to be huge number of
requests posted; a lull in activity will mean there's no content, thus
discouraging future activity.

4 - No good way to monetize. No virality since.

5 - And perhaps the biggest problem: even if all of these things were solved,
it doesn't add more utility that mere messaging or group messaging.

[http://techcrunch.com/2015/10/30/google-asks-if-you-are-
down...](http://techcrunch.com/2015/10/30/google-asks-if-you-are-
down/?fb_comment_id=950961164964557_954475077946499)

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danso
Wow, talk about a product that is not on my radar. Right now, I'm too
geographically constrained to find it useful (it takes too long to casually
meet up with friends), and in New York, we all just group texted each other. I
guess this is nice in comparison to mass text/email (I'm speculating since I
don't have the app) in that when one person replies "Yes!" or worse, "No", not
everyone has to get that message. And right now, Facebook Events seem too
formal a mechanism for setting up casual meetups. I could see that
differentiation making a product...but how did it reach a critical mass?

It's funny that the article mentions that the app can be used for invitations
to a variety of events, _" even a church service"_. This sounds like the kind
of app that would seemingly have _originated_ from a church community. A lot
of people go to megachurches for the daytime social networking, and stay loyal
through small groups (Bible study, recreational sports, etc)...while it's
often joked that this serves as a dating service for Christian singles,
there's a lot of eagerness for platonic casual meetups, or just wondering if
anyone is going to go to Wednesday night service this week. If a pastor
recommended his 10,000 congregants to use an app to best stay in touch...I'd
think that its adoption would spread very quickly...and the church-going crowd
is still a big sector in America.

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draw_down
I guess other people enjoy this style of socializing, but I like to know at
least the day before if we're supposed to hang out. I get annoyed when a
friend texts me "hey let's do this thing right now", or in an hour or
whatever. I already had an idea of what I was going to do that day, and it
messes that up.

~~~
colmvp
On the flipside, that is what makes me feel old.

In my teens/20s, my friends/colleagues and I would just go casually someplace
to hang out after work/school without planning squat. (After class) Hey, let's
go to x's house and chill. (After work) Everyone, let's go to x bar and unwind
for a few hours. Now? I can't remember the last time I could casually say to a
friend to hangout tomorrow. Practically everyone (save one's SO) seems like
they need a few days to weeks notice in advanced. It's not an exaggeration to
say that sometimes I have to book people 2-4 weeks in advance just to have a
coffee/lunch! All I have to say is thank god for meetup.com which fills the
space in between.

~~~
nostrademons
I had the same experience when I hit my 30s. I think it's because peoples'
social networks expand through their 20s, and there's a bit of a social arms-
race once peoples' calendars and social circles start to fill up. It's often
considered rude to say "Somebody invited me to something else and I'd rather
hang out with them than you, so I have to cancel", so most people take a
first-come-first-serve approach to accepting invites. That means that each one
of their friends needs to schedule before anyone else gets to them, so
peoples' calendars fill up increasingly far out.

And then they get promoted, get married, and have kids, and they don't have
time to hang out at all...

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CameronBanga
I've seen this app come up on the App Store search page, took a look and
didn't get it. Just gave it a download based on this story.

Maybe I'm just old (28, a couple years older than these guys). But I don't get
it. And I'm very much over this "growth hacking" trend. Asked for contacts, I
said sure, figuring I'd see if anyone I knew actually used it. I'm now being
prompted to share the app with everyone I know on every view of the screen
(and it tells me how many friends they have on the service, which just feels
weird to me).

At least the growth hacking will aid the inevitable "pivot", where they go
Sync.me and sell all that contact book data.

I know I'm just being bitter and jealous. But the app doesn't even support the
iPhone 6 screen size! It's literally a hand few of views! Like, how does the
New York Times do a full expose on this? Like I wish I could offer to do the
UI layout fixes for free, just so I could be less embarrassed that this is one
of the top apps available today in my industry.

~~~
galistoca
Have you ever thought about the possibility that NYT wrote about it because
it's one of the most popular apps nowadays? Snapchat UI used to be super
ghetto too. When you provide something that resonates with people, nothing
else matters.

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azinman2
I built exactly this app (functionally, but even used "down" in our vocab) in
2003 for a class project called Nitester using the web and an AIM bot. If only
I had the drive then to push it further rather than jump to the next project
:/

[https://cseweb.ucsd.edu/~wgg/CSE118/presentations-2003.html](https://cseweb.ucsd.edu/~wgg/CSE118/presentations-2003.html)

~~~
galistoca
> I built exactly this app (functionally, but even used "down" in our vocab)
> in 2003 for a class project called Nitester using the web and an AIM bot. If
> only I had the drive then to push it further rather than jump to the next
> project :/

Do you seriously think a web based, AIM bot from 2003 is "exactly the same
app" as a mobile, iOS, push notification based app of 2016? Your takeaway from
this shouldn't be thinking you would have succeeded if you had the drive and
kept working on it. There are probably at least tens of thousands of other
people who tried solving the same problem, counting myself. I honestly have no
idea how this took off because I've seen so many apps that tried to do the
same thing and never took off, but these guys did. So I give them credit for
the execution.

~~~
azinman2
I rarely would say things like I built the same thing, and yes web/mobile are
very diff but given the context it effectively was the same thing at that
time.

I actually had never seen anyone do anything quite like it since until now --
what are these other ones?

Social is very tricky -- network effect is everything, and the founders
ability to time and push that out is a combo of luck and skill. Just looking
at the history of chat services is a clear demonstration of that.

Thus I'm not saying nitester was guaranteed to be successful, but the concept
was the same, the context was good (I was in college and Facebook didn't exist
yet so social was open), and I had the friend networks and already threw big
parties/raves. I just regret not giving it a bigger shot. It did help me get
into MIT for grad school so at least something good came out of my laziness :)

~~~
galistoca
If you are asking "where are these other ones" you probably need to do some
market research. There are many many many others that are much more "exactly
the same" as this than yours. You can start here:
[https://www.producthunt.com/tech/down-to-
lunch](https://www.producthunt.com/tech/down-to-lunch)

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sig_chld_mike
I don't recommend that founders pose for photos in their office in their bare
feet (and while eating!). Yuk.

