The need for a ticket out of the house hasn’t changed since my parents were my age. I along with millions of parents in the U.S. with young children yearn for social interaction and a fun time out with friends. In a study I conducted, 1-in-3 parents said they would prefer to get out of the house and go out with friends at least twice a month.
A friend and I wanted to change this, so the exploration began.
We wanted to create desirable, viable, and feasible solution that solved this problem. This consisted of quantitative research efforts to challenge our assumptions (e.g., How often do people go out?, When they can’t go out why can’t they?, How much do they spend when they go out?, etc.). And quantitative user testing of illustrative solutions along the way to get feedback.
The goal was to prove that we were on to something. That the unreliable, sometimes clunky solutions today could be improved upon.
I conducted social fake door tests to capture more insights on desirability.
I created an end-2-end experience and journey map to capture feedback from potentially users.
I worked with industry experts and engineers to understand the competitive set and defensible solutions that could differentiate this offering.
I met with investors to learn ways to improve the model, the offering and / or the functionality.
My co-founder Ryan and I we're side-hustling and co-leading the development of the idea over the course of many years.
My reponsibilities being:
Respecting, appreciating and being curious about differences related to working with others: committed to developing inclusive solutions
Humility, resilience...a learners mind; Thriving in creating structure from ambiguity
Bringing a future-facing perspective and deep industry expertise to influence and shape focus areas for exploration
We created a digital "font door" and brand. The solution was an app experience where groups of friends paid in-advance of events they were going to together. That pre-pay was equivalent to them making a committment to attend the event. The solution also solved for proposing the next meet-up (another pain point) and feeling OK about spending time away from your family.
We used instragram advertising to capture signal on if consumers would be interested in this by tracking click-thru rate (CTR) and "conversion" (follows of our Instagram account).
Due to life's other priorities (ironic, right?), we paused exploration on this concept.