FLASHBAR
This project started during the NYC Startup Weekend (Food Edition) event, where more than 150 individuals came together for three days to brainstorm, test, and solve challenges currently existing in the food & hospitality industry. The intention was for people to go in with an idea they wish to test and come up with a concept solution or MVP at the end to present to a panel of industry expert judges. Top three groups receive coaching from select judges after the event and one of the three is guaranteed entry into the FoodX Accelerator Program. To our delight, our team placed second in the event!
Problem: Customer flow in many bars/restaurants remain unpredictable and owners struggle to attract customers during down time.
Solution: A mobile app that lets bar owners/managers push out real-time promotions instantaneously. These “flash” sales are group activated and will go into effect when a pre-specified number of people have claimed the deal, allowing your customers to generate buzz and creating a "gamified" experience for users.
TEAM
I teamed up with five other individuals to work on solving this problem. Our team had a very diverse skill-set that made up of a few developers, a nurse, a MBA candidate, and myself.
Team Members:
- Cathy Deng
- Peter Huang
- Ian Kwok
- Adnan Mia
- Ryan Murphy
- Ashley Wu
MARKET RESEARCH
Our market research consisted of two target audiences; bar owners and their potential customers. Given the time constraints, our strategy was to create a survey and blast social media to validate our consumer market. This allowed us to focus most of our time going out to the streets of NYC and interviewing bar owners, managers, and bartenders. Some of the questions we asked were:
Consumer:
- Age, demographics, and frequency in which you go to bars.
- When you go out, how many bars do you on average go to?
- Rate the importance of these attributes and how they affect your decision: atmosphere, price range, age range, gender ratio, crowdedness, alcohol selection.
- Do promotions affect your decision on which bar you go to?
- How many people are, on average, with you when you go to a bar?
Bar Owner:
- Walk me through your current process of marketing and attracting customers, if any.
- Which medium is the most effective and why?
- How much time do you spend/are you willing to spend on marketing?
- Do you have a purchasing order (PO) system in place, and what kind of information/data does it give you?
- What is your experience with mobile apps?
During this process, we were very careful not to ask any leading questions, and made sure the interviewee was in the dark about our actual solution. From our market research, we confirmed the problem and further validated our solution. User personas were created to drive the vision and user experience of our product, FlashBar.
