cheers! drop us a line at hello@thecityswig.com if you've got any suggestions for us and maybe we'll run in to you in the fan doing some... "market research"
We have a back-end where bars are able to claim (and verify) that they own/manage/work at the establishment. then they can update their own prices. we are working with grocery and convenience stores to get a spreadsheet of prices that we can parse.
frankly, I never thought bars would keep their third-party profile pages updated, but we've been pleasantly shocked that they do!
free advertising! We have a lot of people who look at the site, and it is incredibly difficult to find drink deals online in one place (at least in Virginia), so people go to the places that are listed on our website that have the best deals. If you're not on the website, our users might overlook your bar. Seems like a good enough incentive to me. We will also market the ability to directly contact the bar's core crowd via push notifications and SMS when that is ready by the end of the summer.
god, we already know enough about hipsters living in Richmond.
in all seriousness, thanks for the input! we will be the first to admit that what you see now is not what we want the final product to be.
alcohol/$ is generally what we sort by. not sure how you are seeing the 50 mL airplane bottles, I'm not getting any when I play with the sort options. what were you looking at specifically?
I see now. Sorting by "Cheap" gives me airplane bottles.
Additionally, the subtle difference between "Cheap" and "Best Value" doesn't quite justify making a new sort option -- to me, they're essentially the same, since whoever can afford a $1 shot can also probably afford a $2 fatty mug.
"Cheap" and "best value" is a subtle difference right now. But we're moving toward keeping track of the average market prices of items... and then "best value" becomes those offerings that are most reduced from the average.
send us an email at hello@thecityswig.com! we always love to hear from yall.
the problem with virginia is the ABC regulations. we are looking to expand outside of the state soon - maybe DC, charleston SC?
Native apps with location-aware deals are on the way (we hope to even collect data on what you like to drink via webcams mounted directly in your fridge or facial recognition at bars themselves. are we kidding?!?!)
I agree. Sitting in a 90-degree apartment without power while working on our mobile platform is not the most code-friendly environment.
On a different note, establishments will soon (possibly this week) be able to edit their establishment listing from mobile. We're also trying to get user feedback on specials so we'll know which prices are out of date in case the bars forget to update them.
This may be a case where paying a buttload of money for a domain name will get you a buttload of velocity. Who needs an easy to remember domain name more than drunk people?
You are actually spot on with a lot of problems we are encountering (and solving!) right now. we hope apps & push notifications will help spread the idea.
the auction deal is interesting too... but we hate the Groupon model. maybe giving the local businesses more control is a step in the right direction?
Perhaps so. The point here is that there is a tie-in between wanting cheap drinks and being part of a crowd. The bigger the crowd, the more bargaining power you have. Also it helps folks get out and meet each other. So instead of just beer, they're guaranteed to go to a place that has a lot of activity.
Lots of ways to do this, I think.
Thinking some more about traction, I would try playing the social angle if at all possible. And I don't mean Facebook, I mean the idea that college kids want to be part of a group full of other college kids. They're very social. If you had some way of telling who was going where (or who was already drinking where) you could ping people who've used the system in the past with current opportunities. Stuff like "Hey, it's $2 beer night at Joe's and 42 people are there right now. Interested?"
Like everything else in the startup universe, this is going to be a process of hypothesis and experimentation. I've personally found that getting people to toss out ideas that sound cool is very easy -- and useless. It's really a matter of having the market validate ideas, not HNers. Here's hoping you don't have to iterate a large number of times.
For your use case, people use Facebook and word of mouth. College towns are social enough and close in proximity enough they don't need these sorts of apps. VT is my alma mater and I guarantee you I would have not used an app to tell me where to drink.
Once you have enough friends Thursday through Sunday morning just tend to happen. Social apps is definitely the wrong way to think about it.
We're not about trying to replace the experience of word-of-mouth drink specials. We just want to make that happen even easier. In larger cities it is difficult to keep track of drink specials for all of the bars (especially when they change so often), and many times I find specials on the site that I didn't know existed or have changed from what I thought they were. When you go out with friends, you usually go with a small group because it is hard to plan otherwise, why not make it easier? Also, your use case doesn't apply to grocery store or liquor specials...that I know of.
Maybe so. I guess I don't drink enough to adopt software that saves me a couple bucks on a drink. When I buy alcohol in a store I go for convenience unless I'm buying single malt scotch. And if I'm going out with friends I choose atmosphere and selection over price. Just my input. Good luck.
Exactly. These college towns are often so small that a whole app for people to save a few bucks would most likely not be incredibly popular. Then again, I'm not much of a drinker so my point of view might be a little bit skewed on this one and the target audience might provide a genius business model. I guess we'll see.
