NYC Apps at Spotify HQ: Lessons Learned from Building Shindig 1.0

Problem

Taste memory: What was the name of that drink?

Solution

Journal drinks in seconds Follow friends & taste influencers

Buy it!

Milestones

• Reach top 125 free Food & Drink apps in US– January

• Graduate Entrepreneurs of NY Accelerator Program– July

• Winner of Google & Microsoft Pitch event– October

• Shipped 15 versions / growth in key metrics– Jan-November

2 2.1 2.20.00%

5.00%

10.00%

15.00%

20.00%

25.00%

30.00%

35.00%

40.00%

45.00%

50.00%

11.60%

29.20%

43.30%

Monthly Active Users (MAU) by Version

Version of Shindig

% o

f MA

U

Design for utility first

Listen, be accessible

973-902-2134

Lessons

– Fun– Team zen– What “recipe” are you working off of? Is it concise?– Core power users– Version stuff early– Sleep on arch decisions– If refactoring is painful, it’s not being done regularly

enough– Read books, learn new tech, switch over if needed

Roadmap

• eCommerce- Impulse booze purchases, yeah!

• Offline use- Surprised how many apps don’t do this (ie. LTE in midtown, wtf)

- Social? Look to Graphs - Reason 1: I don’t trust apps that give blind recommendations

without a reason- Reason 2: Performance based on how much you traverse the graph,

not how much data you have (super fast)- Reason 3: Lets you make friends with cool ppl (like data scientists)- Finally is accessible for small startups- learn: http://www.meetup.com/nycneo4j

“Shindig is completely free, well-designed and just plain awesome.” – Editor’s Choice, 148Apps

Shindig.me@harryraymond @seenickcode