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The Evolution of MEET
The sections below outline the evolution of MEET - an ephemeral messaging app to plan & coordinate meeting up. I would mock up designs in Sketch and link them together in Flinto (a prototyping tool) to get feedback from roughly 300 college kids across 3 colleges over 9 iterations to finally get to the MEET app!
Context
In January 2015, I joined my flatmate Ryan Valles, an Entrepreneur in Residence (EiR) at Accel Partners as a Director on his stealth messaging startup Limitless Venture Holdings, Inc. We started with a blank canvas and wanted to build something in the messaging space given that messaging apps had started getting to a billion+ daily active users.
Target Market
We decided to settle on teens & college kids as the ideal target market given their likelihood of adopting new apps. All very large social apps in the last couple of decades started first by teens and college kids adopting them first before becoming mainstream.
Problem Statement
We started with a blank canvas but with the overarching idea of building something within the messaging space. After conducting multiple interviews with our target market of college kids; we identified planning & meeting up as a problem to solve for. WhatsApp was the most popular messaging app amongst teens & college kids at the time. In addition to P2P (Peer-To-Peer) chats, WhatsApp Groups were being used extensively when it came to a large number of users. WhatsApp groups were often used to plan and coordinate meeting up and once the meet-up had concluded, these groups got very spammy and participants weren't sure whether to exit the group or continue to be a part of it for future meetups. In addition, WhatsApp Groups weren't quite built to facilitate the planning & coordination of meetups.
MEET
After conducting deep user research with 300 college kids across the 3 colleges of Jyoti Nivas, Mount Carmel College (MCC), and Christ University and over 9 iterations (please see the screens I designed to test the concept below) - we settled on building MEET - an ephemeral messaging app to plan & co-ordinate meeting up & events across common categories detailed below.
The Elements of MEET
1Discover & Plan
The first part of the app was about discovering a Meet across multiple categories, such as:
1. Meals
2. Drinks
3. Movies
4. Deals
5. Custom
2Chat & Co-ordinate
Once a Meet had been set up, participants could chat about the Meet and see the status of everyone's RSVPs.
Attendees could even book cabs (via integration with Uber) to the Meet.
3Location Tracking & ETA
15 minutes prior to the Meet, all confirmed attendees' tentative location and the time to the destination would be visible to all other attendees eliminating the need to check this constantly.
Element 1: Discover & Plan
This was the first element of MEET that we built based that allowed us to integrate with other third-party apps to populate our home feed with pre-existing Meets. Users could pick Meets across multiple categories (Meals, Drinks, Movies & Deals) to start off with or could create their own Custom Meet by clicking on the + button.
1. Meet Home Screen
Users could create a Meet in:
1. Meals
2. Drinks
3. Movies
4. Deals
5. Custom (by clicking the + button)
2. Meals Screen
On location preferences, Meal would show Meal options with:
i. Cuisine
ii. Rating
iii. Price for Two
iv. Ability to Call the Venue
...clicking a Meal Card would open up the Menu
3. Movie Screen
On Movie theatre preferences, Movie would show Movie options with:
i. Genre
ii. Rating
...clicking a Movie card would open up the Trailer
4. Deals Screen
Based on location preferences, Deals would show Deals options with:
i. Name of Venue
ii. Category
iii. Rating
iv. Price (and discount)
v. Ability to Call the Venue
...clicking a Deals Card would open up the Full Deal Screen
5. Drinks Screen
Based on location preferences, Drinks would show Drinks options with:
i. Type of Outlet
ii. Rating
iii. Price for Two
iv. Ability to Call the Venue
...clicking a Drinks Card would open up the Menu
6. Custom Meet
The + button would create a Custom Meet.
Users could then:
i. Set a Title
ii. Invite Friends
iii. Set Time & Date
iv. Set Location
7. Invite Friends
Once users had selected a Meet or created a Custom Meet, users were shown a list of contacts from their phonebook / social media platforms they could invite to the Meet
8. Select Date & Time
For certain type of Meets, users had the ability to define the time of the Meet.
Element 2: Chat & Co-ordinate
This was the second part that we tested where we gave all attendees the ability to chat back & forth regarding the specific Meet up.
Element 3: Location Tracking & ETA
This was the third and final leg of the app that got the most traction in our early testing. Because all attendees knew who the other attendees were, they were okay sharing their exact location; but if they didn't want to; they could even choose to hide their exact location and only let others know their Estimated Time of Arrival (ETA) to the Meet.
Uber Integration
With one click, users could book an Uber from their location to their Meet
Location Tracking & ETA
Based on individual preferences, users could let fellow attendees know their exact location OR their Estimated Time of Arrival (ETA) or both.