Three young entrepreneurs from B.C. are looking to make their mark in Vancouver’s nightlife scene by releasing an app that provides club goers with real-time information on local nightclubs and bars.
The app, called “Nightbound,” was released on Apple’s App Store Feb. 1.
“Nightbound is, on the basic level, a crowdsourcing app,” founder Matthew Gu said. “People at the venue update what they see, and instantly, people who are trying to go out can benefit.”
The kinds of information users can input into the app include line wait times, how busy the venue is, and gender ratio.
Development of Nightbound began December 2013 after Gu teamed up with Rahul Jiresal, a University of British Columbia (UBC) computer science master’s graduate, and Deepak Azad, a graduate student at UBC.
Jiresal said the trio conducted numerous interviews with club goers and the owners of the nightclubs themselves as part of the development process.
“After the initial interviews, definitely we thought that there’s a lot of potential,” Jiresal said. “People really need real-time information about nightclubs.”
Nightbound saw about 1,300 downloads and 20-25 per cent of its user base actively using the app just three weeks after its release, according to Jiresal.
“The design of the app, as I’ve been told by many users, is very slick,” Jiresal said. “They like it and they think that it gives just the information they want and they don’t have to click through a lot.”
Gu said opinions about the app were somewhat diverged among the club owners. Some were hesitant to take part in the app’s development due to the fear of potential customers straying away from their venue if the app portrays them negatively on a given night.
“What I try to explain to them is that the industry revolves around customer loyalty and satisfaction,” Gu said. “Especially if it’s your first time going to a venue, you’re probably never gonna go back again and you’re never going to refer any of your friends if you get there and it’s empty, so not only did they just lose one customer, but all the connections you have. So I tell them, ‘I’d rather you lose that customer for that one day, but have them come back another day when you have a better scene.’”
The developers are now collaborating with venues to implement a new feature called “Deals,” where users can redeem coupons for drinks and covers.
“We’re also incentivizing users to come out earlier on, so the deals that we’re offering revolve around, say, ‘come here before the venue’s 40 per cent full and you get two drinks,’” Gu said. “So [the owners] kind of benefit as well from having a slower night and having people come in.”
Gu said the app only provides information about venues on Granville Street in Vancouver for now, which has about 10 nightclubs side-by-side. He said Vancouver’s nightlife scene is relatively easy to moderate because of its small size and the developers would look to expand the app moving forward.
“After Vancouver, we’re going to try to expand into the east coast,” Gu said. “I think definitely Ottawa’s on the route.”
The Android version of Nightbound is expected to be released later in March.
