Why Launchpad Teamed Up With Instaparty —  And How Together, We'll Revolutionize the Nightlife Industry

 

THE INSTAPARTY Q AND A: Launchpad President Mike Minihan and Lead Product Engineer Michael Newman

 

(Originally posted on www.instapartyblog.com)

On a fateful day in July 2013, Instaparty Co-Creators Liam Hayden and David Restiano met with Launchpad (www.launchrightnow.com), a company that evaluates, nurtures, and develops great ideas for useful consumer products. When they pitched their idea for their groundbreaking party planning app, Launchpad jumped on board to help make Hayden and Restiano’s dream a reality. We spoke to Minihan and Newman to find out about that initial meeting, what makes Instaparty stand out in a sea of “make-life-easier” apps, and how by working together, Instaparty just might revolutionize the nightlife industry.

What initially drew you to Instaparty, and why did you want to get involved with the launch?
Newman: Launchpad held a pitch meeting in NYC last July. We set a day and invited several groups to come down and pitch their ideas to us. Picture “Shark Tank,” but without the TV cameras and producers. The first thing that drew us to Instaparty was the aesthetics of what David and Liam presented. It was clear to me right away that they had put a lot of effort into how Instaparty would look, and also into the thought process of how it would work. David is a very talented artist and designer. That’s a great resource to have when developing a mobile app. Launching a product that looks good is a definite advantage. Think about when you scroll through the app store: The things that catch your eye usually have a clean, inviting, modern design. At the start of their presentation they showed some animation David had assembled to introduce the concept. This to me further demonstrated their creativity as well as artistic talent. Plus, they’re both really nice guys.

How would you describe Instaparty’s mission in a nutshell?
Minihan: Instaparty is a win-win for both patrons and establishments. It takes the back-and-forth logistics out of parties. It makes it way more simple to book a large party or a night out, and on the venue side, the Instaparty app streamlines a bar owner’s operations.

Has Launchpad worked with any nightlife businesses before?

Newman: Launchpad didn’t have much experience in the bar industry, and Liam’s experience would be critical. As a bar owner, Liam knows what bar owners are looking for and what tools will be useful to them. Liam also has many contacts in the industry which have been useful to gain feedback, as well as become early adopters and users of Instaparty.

What does Instaparty bring to the marketplace that no other app offers? In a sea of “make-life-easier” apps, why does Instaparty stand out?
Newman: The thing that makes Instaparty stand out is the “Insta.” Instaparty is really pushing the urgency in party planning. No more missed calls or emails. You can plan full events without ever talking to anyone. This is great if you’re a bar manager, and a truckload of supplies just arrived and you don’t have time to take a call to plan an event. It’s also great for social introverts who want to plan parties. Aesthetics also come into play here. Party planning can be a hassle, and even stressful at times. When you’re making all of those critical decisions, the information must be presented cleanly and in a logical fashion. The Instaparty app looks great. The custom icons are clean and really add to the User experience. I especially like the custom martini glass we use as a location marker in our maps feature — it’s really cool.

Minihan: If I want to book a vacation, I’ll go to a travel website like Expedia. If I need a ride, I’ll use Uber or Lyft. But if I want to book a party, chances are, I still need to make a bunch of calls to several places, wait for a response, figure out a menu, price per head, type of drinks, and so on.  It’s a headache, not to mention a massive time suck. With Instaparty, it’s not just about launching a new app, it’s about introducing a new way to do business for the bar and restaurant industry.

How or why do you think Instaparty will revolutionize the nightlife industry?
Newman: For Users, I haven’t seen any other apps that allow you to have full control over the event details, including the date, time, venue location, venue type, party duration, and what you’ll be eating or drinking. The urgency allows you to book parties on the spur of the moment or far in advance. For Venue Partners, the app is free to download and start using. Instaparty only takes a small percentage of parties booked. There are no monthly fees to be part of the network, and Instaparty only makes money if they do. Basically, there’s no risk. There are a bunch of other features included in Instaparty too: Instaparty Deals will increase the number of people who find out about weekly events and promotions. Bar owners will have the ability to push these deals out to the Instaparty network; they no longer have to do things the old fashioned way, like posting flyers in the bathroom. If they’re having a slow night, they can create and push a deal to the network right then and there. That urgency is so powerful. We’re thrilled that our partnership with Instaparty even caught the attention of Forbes.

Minihan: Like Mike said, Instaparty will revolutionize the industry in two ways. Not only will Instaparty improve business operations for bars and restaurants with the party planning feature, it will allow them to reach larger swaths of patrons through the Deals feature. The Deals that a bar creates have the potential to draw in completely new customers. Bored on a Wednesday? Rather than checking individual bar or club websites for specials, the Instaparty app will show you, in an instant, which places are offering a promotion that night.

Three things that hinder innovation

By Michael Newman, Lead Product Engineer, Launchpad

The other day, while wandering down the aisle looking for cleaning products, I stumbled across an amazing contraption:  Clorox’s bottle with Smart Tube Technology.

No Way!

As you can see, it’s a nice little innovation consisting of a tube that runs up the bottle allowing you to “spray every drop”.

Clorox Clean Up Uses Smart Tube Technology

This is a huge leap forward from the days where all we had was a little tube dangling down inside the bottle. 

When the bottle got low on liquid and you wanted to spray down toward the ground, the spray failed miserably. It would just foam and dribble down your hand. 

When this happened, you would have to take off the spray head and re-orient the little tube manually in order to continue spraying until the cleaning solution was actually gone. Now, with this (seemingly) simple, yet incredibly effective innovation, you  don’t have to adjust a thing!

The question is: Why didn’t someone think of this a long time ago? Other than having your idea carried off by a hawk there are three things that consistently challenge product innovation, no matter the industry:

1. Technology  - does the technology and process exist yet?
2.  Cost – Once the technology exists can you manufacture products at an appropriate cost to   make it viable in the marketplace?
3. Market Demand – Will consumers see the value in the product and make a purchase?

Technology:

As a product engineer, I can tell from analyzing the bottle’s design that from a manufacturing perspective, this is a pretty complex thing to mass produce.  The tube originates on the outside of the bottom of the bottle. It then winds up and enters the bottle near the top so that it can connect with the internal plumbing of the spray head. Based on my experience with plastic molding this took a fair amount of R&D to figure out how to do this in a high volume manufacturing setting.

Smart Tube Cost:

The old dangling tube is the industry standard for  most spray bottles. That technology is undoubtedly affordable given the sheer volume  produced every year. It’s what everyone was using, it’s what everyone knows, it’s cheap…  why change it? Clearly someone at Clorox believed that there was a better way to do things, and took a risk. Which brings us to the third leg of the innovation race:  

Market Demand. Now that a new fancy bottle exists, can the more expensive Smart Tube technology compete with cheaper options?

WDITOT?

Yes, because being able to use every last drop without having to disassemble the bottle is a an obvious incentive to buy this newer design. The innovative tube instantly adds value in a meaningful way to the consumer.

 

Clorox has created a great innovation and delivered to the market a prime example of a “why didn’t I think of that?” (Also known as “WDITOTs”, social media is full of these kind of life hacks, or genius ideas that make your life better).

 

In fact, there is a very good chance that the Smart Tube was thought of before, but the product wasn’t yet ready for the marketplace.  There’s no such thing as a no-brainer. You need the right technology, at the right price, for the right audience before even the best innovations will stick. I can’t wait to be dazzled by the next WDITOT.

Build a Prototype

By Michael Newman, Lead Product Engineer

A good idea for a new product is always an exciting first step. The next important step is to figure out how to translate that idea into a real thing. A prototype is the way to do that. It doesn’t have to be a work of art, but it should be more than a sketch on a napkin. Through prototyping, an idea’s  weaknesses and strengths are brought to light which helps a designer decide whether or not the idea is worth pursuing or not.  Think of the stages of an idea development as the following: a thought, a sketch, model, parts, assembly, and finally functional product. Each stage is more powerful than the previous.

If you are working on a physical product there are easy ways to make prototypes. You can use PlayDoh, or polymer clay if you want to mold or sculpt a simple idea. 3D printing is pretty tangible now, even if you don’t have the tools yourself. There are plenty of resources out there. Sketchup is a simple 3D modeling program previously owned by Google, http://www.sketchup.com/products/sketchup-make.  Shapeways  http://www.shapeways.com/ offers many ways to design and print items in many materials and even offers a market place to sell them.

Remember, the idea here is to work out the concepts, so things don’t have to be exact. If for example the intention is to make something eventually from metal, use a suitable plastic now and switch after you proved the concept to keep costs low.

Does your idea need electronics to work? Adafruit Industries is great resource for more intense electronics prototyping.  http://www.adafruit.com/

If you need a simple microcontroller to control your device or product try an Arduino http://arduino.cc/. Radioshack has even beefed up their selection of basic parts that are useful for making prototypes.

Head to the local hardware store or even look around the house for items you can use. Look for something that’s similar or close to your idea, take it apart or adapt it to your design.

Even if your idea isn’t a 3D object, if you have an idea for a software, or mobile application, you can build a prototype for non-tangible products, known as a wire frame.   

A wireframe is an artistic rendering – something as simple as using MS  Paint to draw some quick sketches and then transferring your sketches to Powerpoint to pull the whole concept together. It’s even easy to simulate functionality by creatively linking pages with different objects and text in the app. You can use a program like Pencil Project. http://pencil.evolus.vn/ This is a great tool for developing ideas for the Android and iOS platforms.

There are also plenty of other utilities available:

·          http://theappentrepreneur.com/54-amazing-wireframing-tools-apps

·         http://mashable.com/2013/04/02/wireframing-tools-mobile/

Any basic search will reveal the many, many options out there.

Some of these are just graphic tools: you just manipulate icons to look how you want them too in the app. Others can actually be programmed if you know how to do that and can actually function as intended. The above list is no way inclusive, but shows how there are many resources out there for an eager inventor The main objective behind a prototype is to demonstrate that the concept works.

The farther you progress through the stages of development, the more detailed and focused the idea becomes and the more powerful the idea could become preparing the stages that lay ahead.

Product Development: Art or Science?

By Michael Newman, Lead Product Engineer, Launchpad

Is product development an art or science? It’s both, and the process can’t be complete without touching on both aspects.

Product development encompasses many different activities and disciplines and it takes both creativity and calculations to create a product.

Your smart phone looks and feels like it does because an industrial designer envisioned it. Industrial design is essentially responsible for how something looks.  It’s the reason your cellphone looks the way it does: the curved edges, the way it comfortably fits in your hand, and the reason why buttons are where they are.

Industrial design marries art: designing something that is visually appealing and ergonomic to use, with science: having an understanding of what is feasible so that designs can be realized and produced. Once an overall concept of the device is conceived, a team of engineers then figures out how to elegantly place the batteries, circuit boards, connectors, buttons, cameras, speakers, and screen inside so that everything fits, functions, and most of all can actually be manufactured in mass quantity.

Once the aesthetics are conjured, applied science then determines how the phone software functions and defines how your cellphone communicates with the cell towers, relays your text messages and allows you to check your social media feeds.

A saw-toothed jet engine reduces engine noise.

And sometimes aesthetics marries engineering in a beautiful way.  You may have noticed on newer jets, the futuristic-looking saw toothed shape on the back of the engine. The reason for the shape is not because someone thought that engines were boring and need to look more visually appealing.  

This feature actually reduces engine noise by more efficiently mixing the hot engine gases with the cooler fan gases reducing turbulence and effectively making the engine quieter. These features look like they do because their design is driven by equations and the physics of fluid mechanics; however the result is a very visually appealing.

Overall, advances in science will allow sleeker, more compact, more efficient, safer designs while designers will push the advances in science as they pose the “wouldn’t it be cool if…” question.