Groups from Who's That
p/groups-from-who-s-that
Grab 2 friends and get drinks with new people.
Sam Davidson

Groups from Who's That — Get drinks with a new group of friends.

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Parker Thompson
How do you guys plan to monetize long term? It looks like you get them to pre-purchase a drink up front. Is that a sustainable model (what do the economics look like) or do you have other revenue streams in the future?
Sam Davidson
@pt Prepaid drinks are a value add for users, they eliminate worries about flaking and are 100% aligned with the end goal. Since we’re able to funnel groups into bars and drinks don’t cost them much, our margins are high. Real life goods (particularly drinks) tend to be a lot easier to sell than premium memberships, which will never be cool in the dating space for twenty-somethings.
Sam Davidson
@pt That said, we're in the center of $24b US nightlife industry and think there are other, better ways to monetize. We're exploring a few of those and would be happy to talk more privately!
Parker Thompson
@samdavidsonii How much of that do you feel like you can capture driving business into these establishments? Most of that revenue will be off of drinks/food/etc with small margins. Are you bringing in new participants or higher value participants? Once you grow the core business, would you intend to move into other areas that increase your revenue per customer?
Parker Thompson
@samdavidsonii How much of that do you feel like you can capture driving business into these establishments? Most of that revenue will be off of drinks/food/etc with small margins. Are you bringing in new participants or higher value participants? Once you grow the core business, would you intend to move into other areas that increase your revenue per customer?
Sam Davidson
@pt I feel like we can capture quite a bit of that value. Currently, when my friends are sitting around Friday after work trying to figure out what to do that night, they take a guess about where they’re most likely to meet new people and have a good time. If we remove the guess work, show you other groups of friends going out, and you decide where to get drinks with them and what your first drink is, all on our platform, and we send you through the door, that could be quite valuable.
Parker Thompson
What is the main use case for the app? Is it for individuals, or groups, and are they looking for friends, dates, etc? And how often do users come back to the app after they've tried it? Is this an occasional use app, or for regular use?
Sam Davidson
@pt The main use case is groups of friends going out for drinks, looking to meet new people and have a more exciting night than usual. Most users are single and might be interested in dating someone they met, if all goes well. (Although, some are engaged and just looking for a fun night out with friends - http://bit.ly/WTbostoncom). The groups/going out with friends paradigm makes Who’s That more of a natural, regular use case than most in the space. We’ve had many groups of friends go out multiple times. 42% of users are active weekly and screen views are growing 83% month-over-month. Obviously a network effect business.
Marvin Liao
Whats the initial customer base segment using this right now? I assume its mainly urban based males 18-35 or something?
Derek Minter
Anything differentiating you from Grouper? (www.joingrouper.com/)
Sam Davidson
@derekminter Yes, Grouper's done an awesome job and we're fans, but they send you out on a totally blind date. You also don't have any control over where you go. In order to make Who's That something you use all the time, we gave all the control to our users about where they go and who they get drinks with. We also may be able to make the first round of drinks completely free for users soon!
Brian Sachetta
@samdavidsonii @derekminter Grouper was actually one of the main reasons why we built our product. I had been on a bunch of groupers and found that more than half the time, the girls I got matched up with weren't of interest to me. Lots of times the bars they send you to are lousy too. Like Sam said, we think having control over who you go with and where you go is crucial for user satisfaction and retention. I still go on groupers every once in a great while but to be honest it's not worth the money.
Ben Basche
Very cool take on group dates