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People, especially college students and young professionals, come from far and wide to settle in Boston. Although being in a new city is exciting, it can also be overwhelming. With so many things to do any night of the week, zeroing in on an event that you’d actually enjoy can be hectic for even the most seasoned Bostonian.
Fortunately, a startup led by Northeastern students will soon let you filter out all of the extraneous activities that wouldn’t be to your liking. With the forthcoming app Rondevoo, all you have to do is select your interests, and it will provide you a personalized list of what you should check out in Boston that night.
I touched base with Rondevoo’s founders, Kurt Marcinkiewicz and Tim Pettepit. The duo shared what pushed them to start this venture, as well as their plan to make their app a must-use for people planning a night out in Boston.
Using tech to connect the digital and real world
As with so many other technologies, Rondevoo is meant to save time and avoid frustration. The founders explained that, in the past, they’ve personally perused an assortment of sites to see what’s happening in the city. But having to painstakingly sort through a laundry list of options that didn’t appeal to them in the least became quite the process.
“The main concept behind Rondevoo is that it’s the one-stop shop for planning a night out with your friends,” said Pettepit. “Up until now, people have had to use 4 or 5 applications to figure out what they want to do because every site is specialized.”
“Rondevoo pools all of the information out there and gives personalized suggestions based on your preferences,” he continued. “It lets you cut through all of the noise of things users wouldn’t be interested in doing.”
Making just about any day-to-day process more efficient is reason enough to develop an app. But the Rondevoo team is on a bigger mission: Letting people use technology in a way that encourages them to be more social.
“It’s a personal pain point for us,” Marcinkiewicz explained. “We obviously enjoy technology and we’ve had an urge to make an app to help people connect offline. A lot of apps bring people together online, but it sometimes prevents them from going out.”
“We’re creating technology that brings people together in real life, which is something we wanted to do before we had even come up with our idea for Rondevoo,” he added.
Like Pinterest, but for Boston events
So how exactly will Rondevoo work? They’re still finishing up development, but when they launch their beta in the next few months, they hope to make it “something similar to Pinterest.”
“It will let you choose categories of things you like - sports bars, movies, technology,” Marcinkiewicz began. “You pick whichever high-level topics that interest you most.”
“Then, whenever you sign in, it will give you a selection of events based on the categories you picked,” he went on. “You can look through the events and mark what you like and what you don’t like. It will use that feedback to get smarter with its suggested events. It’ll give you better options over time.”
Preparing to launch
When Rondevoo does launch, the team will be ready to go full-steam ahead with revenue. Although they’re thinking of going the ad route, they’re making a conscious effort to make sure it doesn’t ruin the user experience they’re creating.
“Right now, though, we're leaning towards sponsored results, whereby businesses could pay to have their listing at the top of the feed of a person who might be interested,” Marcinkiewicz explained. “For instance, a Mexican restaurant could create a sponsored listing that would only show up for people that often go to Mexican restaurants or tell us they like Mexican food.”
“We believe this could provide tremendous value to businesses, while also not being overly intrusive to the user,” he said.
By shielding users from a bombardment of obvious sponsor plugs, the folks at Rondevoo are aiming to give their app a truly friendly feel. Both Pettepit and Marcinkiewicz emphasized how much they want Rondevoo to seem like “a friend who’s a Boston expert - right in your pocket.”
“Kurt’s been able to steer me in terms of what’s what in Boston,” Pettepit told me. “ And that’s much like the backbone of our app’s concept.”
“Rondevoo is supposed to be like a friend who knows the ins and outs of the city, who knows exactly what you like and who can tell you where you should be on any given night,” he concluded.
Images via Kurt Marcinkiewicz.
