We have a name!

After hours and hours of brainstorming and acronyms and abbreviations I thought we came up with some good names for the company. We decided that Rendezvous was too common and we needed a name that would show up on search results, be easy to say and original enough. 

Fresh was our first choice but when we went to buy the domain name, well you guessed it! It was taken! What a bummer. So 3 hours later, after typing random words into the Go Daddy domain name search my fingers were glad that Freshn was a domain name that was available. I think it sounds cool and also stands for something. Friend Radar, Event & Social Network. I have no clue what the H stands for but hey, I'll take it!

Pain in the domain

If it wasn't difficult enough already to come up with a name for your product, now you have to find a name that hasn't already been taken. During the brainstorming process for a name we came up with dozens of real and random words and acronyms. You'd be surprised at how many are already registered domain names or if they're not, then they're extremely expensive! Some domain names are going for tens of thousands!

What's in a name?

Selecting a name for your new product can be a difficult process. What are the things you need to consider? 

• Is it original?
• Does it have a meaning?
• Will it appeal to my target market?
• What if it sucks?

All these are problems I'm facing and more. It's difficult to come up with a name especially since my company has to do with social networking. And I DO NOT want to use the words social or networking in the name. I know, I'm stubborn and it would probably be much easier to come up with some generic name involving social network, but do you think Twitter was even a word before they came up with it?

Anyways, I've been toiling over many many names and I've settled on a "working" title of Rendezvous for now. I'm sure there's going to be a couple name changes in the near future.

Friends or Frenemies?

Group dynamics are a fickle thing. One moment everybody has your back but when one person voices their reservations, people are quick to follow suit. Of course I'm being over dramatic.

The app idea is new and scary. The thought of how difficult it may be to create an app is almost overwhelming. Convincing the team of my vision and mission, I thought, would be an easy task. I mean, we're all hip to technology and we understand how quickly things go viral in this day and age. 

One member of the team isn't convinced that our app is worth pursuing. He says this class is about launching a company and trying to get into revenue, and although I empathize with him, I don't think he sees the big picture. He wants to start and online business selling vapes and I totally agree that if we did so we would hit revenue by the end of the semester. But after that, I don't see the business going anywhere. The market is quickly becoming saturated and as an ex-vape user who knows many other store owners, I know that the margins are razor thin.

Some nights I feel like he totally gets our idea and the potential to CHANGE THE WORLD. And other nights he just seems checked out. Hopefully I can find a way to explain to him how profound our app can be.

Freshn app features

Why another social network you ask? Well it's not just another social network. It's a new way to organize your life. Even with all the technology we have, we still haven't solved the problem of planning last minute events with friends effectively.

How Freshn will help:
See where friends are in real time
Get exclusive offers from businesses near you
Plan hangouts with a higher turnout rate
Get notified when friends are in your area

Features:
GPS map to pinpoint friends, events and businesses
Get educated on the most popular places right now via the "Fresh meter"
Read personalized reviews of what your friends are saying about places they visited

How My Idea Got Started

Who knew that it would be so difficult to pick an idea and stick with it. Last semester, I started with an idea for a business that involved selling truly healthy items from vending machines. The idea fit most of the criteria needed for a successful business to grow; there was a gap in the market, there was a growing trend towards healthier eating, and there was a legitimate demand for healthy foods. After much research though, I found out that the vending machine industry was highly labor intensive, the market overall was shrinking in size and it had a relatively low profit margin. Ultimately I decided to forgo my endeavors in the pursuit of an idea that had a potential to grow along with technological growth. The idea involves a mobile app that can be used to plan events with friends, as well as meet new people who shared similar interests. 

 My idea for this app came about a couple years back. I had a 2 hour break in between classes which I reserved for lunch. Since I didn't know anyone at school well enough to invite them to join me for lunch, I often ate alone. I would post on Facebook, "Who wants to join me for lunch in Fullerton in at 2pm?" I would get comments from friends farther away telling me they would love to eat with me, but they were too far. So I ended up eating alone. 

 Then something else happened. 

I'm an avid user of Yelp, a restaurant review website. When I go to places, I can "check-in" via my smartphone and it will post a status update on my Facebook telling my friends I was at a particular place. So after checking in, and eating alone, I would get comments on Facebook like "tfti" (thanks for the invite) or other forms of saying, "Why didn't you invite me? I was just down the street." Well obviously I didn't know you were right down the street! 

 The app idea formed from my two observations. One, posting on Facebook to invite people out to eat (or anywhere for that matter) was not a great way of reaching everybody. Two, There has got to be a better way to organize last minute meetups. 

 My solution was a mobile app that uses GPS locations that lets you see where your friends are at any given moment, in real time. Then, if you're looking for a pal to go grab lunch with, at the last minute, you can see who is nearby.


(A cool article about why I think my app would work in today's world.)