In a city celebrated for its tech and nightlife, several startups are blending both to make having fun their business. Here are four new apps you should check out, made in Austin by fun seekers old and new.
You’ve heard of them before, but probably under a different name. Do512 launched in Austin in 2006, but the company’s network has a moniker for every market. That’s because DoStuff has positioned itself as a go-to source for local fun over the years, specializing in concerts with local flair by partnering with key entertainment producers in the 16 cities it serves.
So what’s new now? The company just launched its first mobile app, a move CEO Scott Owens said was about execution over speed.
“The event recommendation space is absolutely littered with failed and failing startups,” he said. “I’ve seen apps with $30 million in VC funding launch and fail.”
That sets the bar pretty high. DoStuff rolled out an app that feels polished and intuitive on its first release, making the most of the native mobile app platform with features like a map view, seamless scrolling and sharing from a clean and virtually endless list of concerts you might actually want to see.
Looking for more ideas? Tab over to the Discover pane for thoughtfully curated recommendations of film screenings, best-new-bar roundups and a restaurant of the week. It’s all written by real humans at DoStuff, and there isn’t a dull pick in the bunch.
DoStuff even nails what’s arguably the most important part of making a successful nightlife app, which is to not skimp on the social aspect. You can share events on Facebook with friends as you find them.
“Already, we’re seeing three times the weekly engagement on a per user basis with the app versus the web,” he said. “That’s a testament to how the DoStuff App is better serving users in their everyday lives, and we haven’t even scratched the surface with what’s possible.”
DoStuff is poised to launch in four new markets and adapt their iOS app to Android before the end of this year. They’re also expanding the 15-person staff in their Austin headquarters to support the growth.
If DoStuff helps you get out to find the fun, TabbedOut helps you get home or on to the next bar without the hassle or headache of closing your tab. It might even get you better service or freebies.
Here’s how it works: Download the app, enter your credit card info once and head to a bar that uses TabbedOut with their Point of Sale system (you can use the app to find them, and there are plenty in Austin). When you start ordering, tell your server you’re using TabbedOut to pay your bill. They’ll ask to see a code on your phone, and you’re all linked from there.
There are benefits for everyone involved. You don’t have to worry about closing your tab or losing your credit card, and you can see your bill adding up in real time, making it easy to avoid being overcharged by mistake. You can even summon an Uber from within the app.
The deal might be even sweeter for bars and restaurants, who can identify regulars who use the app, collect honest feedback from customers and use freebies and discounts to reward and engage patrons.
The feedback part is big because bars and restaurants are at the mercy of anonymous reviewers on sites like Yelp and TripAdvisor, public forums where one user’s therapeutic rant can be costly to a business who has limited options for addressing the issue. On TabbedOut, you can tell the bar’s management when your service sucks, allowing them to follow up with you for more info and offer a discount on your next visit to make it right.
The Who's Hungry? team at Longhorn Startup Lab demo day. Pictured from left: Alejandro Silveyra, Yousef Okasheh, Gilad Oved, Zach beasley and Sungwon Chung. Photo by Mike Holp.
For everyone who’s endured the cycle of making group meal plans via text message, from “I don't care wherever you want to go” all the way through “where you at,” a new app called Who’s Hungry? is here to make life simpler.
Fire up the app, set a time to meet, choose three options among nearby restaurants and invite some friends from your contacts. Then things get smart: The app prompts your friends to vote on a place, and 20 minutes before the meeting time, voting closes and a map displays everyone’s location relative to the destination.
It’s quick, it’s easy and it’s democratic. And best of all, there’s hardly any typing.
Yousef Okasheh created the app with other students at UT Austin, culminating in the Longhorn Startup Lab demo day, pictured above. The app’s been bootstrapped since the beginning, but is seeking brand ambassadors and funding to market the app to new users on college campuses.
“We really want to hire some developers to speed up our iterate-and-test cycles,” Okasheh said. “Once we get around a thousand downloads and a few hundred active users, we’ll be able to refine it to the point where we want it. We really just need data and feedback.”
The app recently scored some funding for a co-promoted campaign on campus with Austin Coding Academy.
Pow Wow is an app that combines the interests-based camaraderie of Meetup.com with the real-time creation and discovery of Twitter, for those of us who need to get in on a game of Settlers of Catan, like, now. Their motto? “Find your tribe.”
When 28-year-old co-founder Bob Sherriff pitched the app during Austin Startup Week, he told the crowd it was made with the post-college crowd in mind. In other words, his tribe.
“It gets harder to meet people after college,” he said. “But I showed it to someone on a college campus and pretty soon we saw this big spike in users.”
Pivoting to the college crowd hasn’t been the only adaptation for Pow Wow in the two weeks since the app launched, Sherriff said. His partner, Will Parks had to talk him out of making the maximum lead time for events 20 minutes. Now you can plan meetups for later the same day.
Sherriff said Pow Wow has been so unexpectedly popular for summoning impromptu meetups on a few northern college campuses—for everything from Red Sox games to the three users who recently used it to meet up for doing laundry—that the company’s next move is to pick another college and focus all their efforts on building engagement there before scaling outward.
You can download the app now, but don’t be crestfallen if your clan is slow to form. Users looked scarce in Austin when I first booted up the app during Sherriff’s pitch. But don’t expect that to last.
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