A new Maryland-based tech company is here to help young professionals across the country locate the best drink deals when they’re heading out on the town. The Konnect App provides real-time information from bars and clubs to reflect the most accurate prices for budget-minded customers.
For founders Kaitlin Hamilton, 24, and her brother Matt Hamilton, 22, personal experience led to the idea. Matt, a service-disabled veteran, traveled for work and wanted an affordable drink but was unsure where to find one in different cities. Kaitlin travelled to Chicago and showed up at a bar with half-priced wine bottles advertised on a travel app, only to find them as full price.
“We frequently experienced that,” Kaitlin said. “We’d run into those issues where you maybe read a comment from a year ago that said they had this great thing and you go for that great thing and that great thing’s not there.”
The siblings created an app aimed to avoid those inaccuracies by providing everything in real time. In 2017, they pooled their resources together (with a little help from family and friends) to launch the Konnect App.
It’s free for customers and $15 a month for businesses (“about 80 percent less than Yelp,” Kaitlin said). Bars, clubs and restaurants can enter information for specials and events like happy hours, game-day deals, ladies’ nights, etc. that will get bar hoppers to their establishments. Visitors search a map and pins pop up indicating available drinking spots.
And businesses are still free to market themselves on Yelp, Open Table or anywhere they choose with no pushback from Konnect.
“A lot of people don’t realize that with some companies they’re locking themselves in,” Kailtin Hamilton said. “Different things work for different companies but for some people we’ve heard from, they think it’s going to be a great idea and then three months later, they’re not seeing anything.”
Developing a good relationship with drinking establishments is key for Kaitlin and Matt, who are often the customers themselves. “We come from a family that likes to go out, so for us a big part of reaching adulthood was going out as a family.”
“We have the whole country on the map but we focus our efforts on the DMV area just because we go out personally to the bars and we talk to them face to face,” Kaitlin continued. “We want to create an actual rapport and relationship with these places.”
The app is currently available on iOs and the pair, along with three other employees, are working to finalize it on Android before pushing it out to the public later this month.
