Many startups are trying to make money on the popularity of social networking applications. Two Nordic startups, Icelandic Blendin and Danish Heaps, have created two very similar products that both focus on connecting people for parties.
Everyone love spending time with friends, but everyone is always busy, making it hard to coordinate nights out, parties or other social events. Social networking apps are great at doing this, but sometimes people want something a bit more specific than Facebook.
In this article, we will be looking at two Nordic social networking apps, Blendin and Heaps, which are helping its users to easily create a night out with their friends or find people for their private party.
Helps you find people to party with
People are tired of long queues, waiting 25 minutes for a drink and having to pay a fortune for it. The Danish app Heaps helps you coordinate with friends to decide when to go out, as well as finding a party among other Heap users, who are looking to go out on the same day.
If you are five people looking to create a party, then Heaps makes it possible to see what other groups are looking for fun at that specific time. Heaps uses the same concept as Tinder, making users able to swipe between different groups looking to party, liking the groups that fits ones description. By signing up with your Facebook, it enables you to chat with the groups you match with, and coordinate your evening together with them.
“We all know that some of the funniest nights out, starts when you randomly bump into a group of people, and there is an instant chemistry. These are the nights we remember the best,” explained Frederik Bjerager, Co-founder of Heaps.
The team behind Heaps consist of six young men, who got the idea for the app through a Danish TV show, where people create private parties and invite random people, as well as their own struggle finding and coordinating parties.
“The idea was simply too good, somebody had to create an app with the same purpose as the TV show. We decided to do it ourselves,” said Frederik Bjerager.
Heaps got more than 30,000 users, and the Copenhagen based startup is looking to launch in the US. The app is available for iOS and is currently in beta for android.
Connect with friends and plan a night out
There is no simple way of knowing if your friends want to go out, without having to message or call them all. It can be a timely process to keep track of them all, and try to coordinate so everyone can come. Blendin created an app that is simply to use, and enables you to easily meet up with your friends when going out. Blendin helps you connect with friends by telling you who is going out, with whom and where.
Blendin is combining useful information and encouragement, to get people out their door to socialize with friends. It is a social networking application, which is providing real time map based interaction, which allows users to share their location and plans with friends, making users able to find out who is interested in going out.
“It encourages users to get out of the house and interact with their friends,” tells Davíð Örn Símonarson, CEO and Co-Founder of Blendin.
The Silicon Valley based team has been working on the app for almost two years, and received $200,000 in seed funding back in April 2014, to help distribute the app and gain traction. Thea idea behind the app, emanated from their own struggles connecting with friends.
“We realized that there was no efficient way of knowing which friends are going out, or want to, without having to contact every one of them. Blendin is the solution to that,” expressed Davíð Örn Símonarson.
The Blendin app is currently available in all countries for iOS and android.