[App Fridays] Throwing a party? Get more clarity on headcounts and RSVPs with FlapApp

One of the golden rules of building a great product is to focus on one or two key problems and solve them well. While Facebook may have taken over social media, people are now overwhelmed by the variety of notifications they receive and do not act pro-actively on requests, invites and messages on social platforms.

Unbundling of apps is now a regular occurrence with Zomato,ixigo, Facebook etc doing so to focus on specific areas. FlapApp aims to tackle the pain point of co-ordinating and getting people together for an event.

What is it?

FlapApp aims to be a quick event planner, organiser and discovery platform. It allows users to manage personalised events and also discover public events. Users can create and manage events like birthdays or casual get-togethers with friends and family even on short notices and discover events such as concerts, exhibitions etc happening in their city or at the location of their choice. The app allows users to join, RSVP for events sent out to them to give the organisers and invitees an idea of the headcount they can expect for the event.

FlapApp was launched by Kirti Joshi and his team of four from Indore in February this year and are now close to 10k downloads. Their primary aim was to understand user behaviour and initially, they did not market the product but kept it among a small group of beta testers to improve the app. Kirti adds,“For almost two months after the product launch we did not add keywords to rank ourselves and tried to learn from a small set of users and kept on improving our product.”

Kirti has worked with corporates like iGatePatni, CSC and WM across different countries such as Germany, Paris and India for the last 12 years. He had worked on numerous applications for corporates and with FlapApp aims to target the masses. They are still experimenting with different monetization strategies based on user behaviour and have currently gone with in-app purchases and ads.

Other well-known event planners include Google Calendar and Sunrise Calender etc which are mainly used to schedule one-on-one corporate meetings but can be used for other events as well. Some people also use social media and messaging platforms such as Facebook and Whatsapp to send out invites for events. Coming to event discovery, there are platforms such as Events High, 10Times, Nearify, Outsy and Explara that are organising this sector.

Features

-FlapApp provides access to location of events on the map, and users can keep tabs on the RSVPs and add comments. Invitees can upload photographs and share it with their friend across different social networks.

-Users can view upcoming and past events and keep track and share cards or attachments to add context to an invitation.

- The app provides users reminders and push notifications for events and also allows people to notify and reschedule an event in case of last minute changes.

- The‘Quick Invite’ feature allows users to share events with non-app users but RSVPs and photo sharing are accessible only through the app.

What we liked

 The app has a pleasing user interface and provides a decent user experience. It has an appeal for millennials who wish to plan an outing with friends or family and do not wish to rely on chatting apps to co-ordinate through multiple group chats. It can also be used to schedule appointments or one-on-one work related meeting.

The ‘Quick invites’ feature is useful. The app allows users to select from a variety of possible events such as ‘pool party’, ‘farewell party’,‘anniversary’ and ‘birthdays’ etc. They can also include a short description and set different parameter such as date, time, venue, and select an end date for RSVPs.

What could be improved?

The user experience is good but is partly spoilt by in-app ads which are not contextual, instead random in nature. While we understand the need for ads as a source to generate revenue, the ad strategy can be improved. The public events section currently has a few events and is not as extensive as one would expect to facilitate event discovery.

YS verdict

While nothing can replace the warmth and thoughtfulness behind personally visiting or picking up our phones and calling a friend or relative to invite them for an occasion, the app provides a good alternative for the younger tech savvy generation who generally do not adhere to social conventions.

But considering the environmental impacts of printing thousands of cards and the effort needed in sending them out to people, digital invites are a good alternative and with time may be considered acceptable for all occasions. It will be interesting to see how FlapApp scales up and gets more users on board and different ways the app can be used for.

Website: FlapApp (The app is available on Android and iOS)

Featured image credit: Shutterstock

What do you think about this app, do let us know in the comments below. Also do check out other apps under our App Fridays and Pursuit of APPiness series.

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