Sal Principato first started thinking about launching TrivNow, the latest app in local trivia gaming, doing what he loves: playing trivia with a group of friends.
Each time a live host called out a question to answer in the bar, Principato realized how tedious it was to get up every few minutes to submit a paper answer and interrupt conversations with friends.
"I can send a message across the entire planet, but I have to run up a piece of paper," he said. "I remember asking the host, 'Why is this not digital?' And he said, 'Well, what are you going to do about cheating?' And that was when I started putting more thought into it."
Princiato wants to bring trivia back with TrivNow by attracting consumers to local bars and restaurants to play. The game doesn't require a physical host, and it provides digital answers, reduces the chance of cheating and offers up to $10,000 in prizes each month. Every Tuesday from 7 p.m. to 9 p.m., consumers can visit participating venues, download the TrivNow app and play with others across the platform---not just those in close proximity to them.
Unlike other trivia apps out on the market, TrivNow can't be played anywhere, but brings people back to their regular watering-holes and eateries to form a community, while also supporting local businesses, Principato said. The Alpharetta-based startup officially launched last month and already has several thousand downloads on iOS and Android, Principato said.
"The cool thing for the bars is that they were never ever to have that powerful of a marketing message by themselves," he said. "By forming this community and having everyone play together, it’s allowing these bars to truly get a strong marketing message to their patron."
Each trivia night at participating venues, 36 questions across six different categories will be asked at 7 p.m. and 8 p.m., Principato said. Players will have the opportunity to play by themselves or in teams and wager points for each prompt. All questions are multiple choice and sometimes include images or gifs to make the game more lively.
"The images and the gifs really help with creating conversation at trivia night and that’s what trivia night is ultimately about," he said. "When you ask people why they go, they’re going because they want to hang out with friends. We feel by having a cash pot like we are and removing the isolation feeling of just playing with people at a single venue, by having everyone play together, it just elevates that experience. It makes it more exciting."
While TrivNow eliminates the need for a physical host, the app requires players to commit ultimate trivia taboo: use their smartphones. Walk into any regular trivia night in a restaurant or bar and you'll hear a host announce that smartphones are banned in order to avoid cheating and keep the game honest. But TrivNow goes the extra mile and is designed specifically to eradicate any opportunities to cheat.
More points are awarded to those who answer quicker, Principato said, and there are no ties with TrivNow; the app is capable of deciphering how many seconds it took a group to answer a question up to six decimal points.
"Because we’re in a digital environment, we can keep track of answer speed and award more points to people who’ve answered quicker," he said.
But that's not all. TrivNow also tracks users who've exited the app during a live question or arrived too late to a prompt and flag them for cheating, Principato said. The question writers for TrivNow have also considered cheating when crafting questions, he said, and typically come up with prompts that aren't so easy to plug into Google.
"Whenever there’s an active question, if you were to minimize the app to search, you only have 30 seconds to answer it, but if you were to minimize the app during an active question for too long, you will get disqualified from the question," he said.
Currently, TrivNow is available at more than 50 venues on the East Coast and several restaurants in Atlanta. In addition to restaurants and bars, Principato said he's noticed nontraditional trivia venues such as bowling alleys, hookah bars and even the city of Roswell are interested in implementing events with TrivNow.
"We’ve been able to attract businesses that wouldn’t traditionally want a hosted show," he said. "The live hosted shows, there’s usually a lot of noise going on. So bar owners don’t want to isolate people who don’t want to be there for the trivia, so by having our event, everything on the phone, the app, you don’t have to worry about a host screaming over the microphone. We’ve been able to attract some interesting locations."
