When it comes to enjoying a night out, it’s less about what you are doing and more about who you are doing it with. While platforms like Meetup and Eventbrite focus on the activity itself, Postcard makes sure you are surrounded by the people you want to be around. With their live heat-map displaying where your friends are in the city, Postcard lets you identify the hottest place in town. With multiple features and room to grow, Postcard is the future of social decision-making.
AlleyWatch chatted with CEO and cofounder Danny Matthews about the Startup and what is separating them as a Startup.
Tell us about the product or service.
Postcard is a consumer driven venue discovery platform that uses realtime social content to determine the hottest spots in NYC at any moment.
How is it different?
Social media is the biggest driver of millennial influence. Postcard determines a venue’s popularity (in realtime) by accounting for peer-to-peer content being shared across all available platforms.
What market are you attacking and how big is it?
We are targeting the hospitality / venue discovery industry. With 3M people in NYC between the ages of 18-36 years old, 30k individual hospitality venues in NYC there is a definitely a big market. Additionally with a total of $18B spent at these venues annually amongst this demographic, there is a lot to work with.
What is the business model?
Postcard partners with venues to give customers access to off menu items, offers, and mobile ordering. These items can be ordered through the Postcard app and sent directly to our mobile printer set up at the venue. Postcard takes a commission from the venue on goods sold through the platform.
What inspired the business?
This:
Current options for venue discovery are outdated, dishonest, or contain limited inventory. Consumers are relegated to rely on a basic google search who’s post ranking is laughably outdated. (Image from May 2017)
Why is there a need for a platform like yours catered towards millenials?
Social media is widely used by millennials but social media platforms fail in local discovery because they are not built to address that need. However, the content from these platforms is readily available. Postcard unlocks the value trapped in social content and optimizes it for local discovery.
What are the milestones that you plan to achieve within six months?
Postcard’s beta closed at 95,000 users, we would like to see our audience grow past a quarter of million people before the end of 2017.
What is the one piece of startup advice that you never got?
Don’t build the second part until the first part works.
If you could be put in touch with anyone in the New York community who would it be and why?
Founders who have failed. From my own experiences, I learned more from my failures than my successes. Failures teach stronger lessons, plus it makes failure seem less lonely.
Why did you launch in New York?
New York has what seems to be an infinite number of food and nightlife establishments. However, New Yorkers have an insatiable desire to share their experiences. Highlighting consumer experience through available social media gives New Yorkers access to the information needed for them to have confidence in where they are choosing to eat or drink.
What’s your favorite restaurant in the city?
Faicco’s
