Hangster

Friends and Free Time

Back in college, one of the biggest problems I had was scheduling hangouts with friends. As a hypersocial guy, I was constantly trying to coordinate game nights and taco runs with friends all over campus. But figuring out who was actually free was an issue.

After having done marketing for another startup on campus, I was inspired to build my own with some friends. Our goal was to build an app that would broadcast if someone was free and what activity they wanted to do. Thus, Hangster was born.

Product and Design

Besides my “marketing” experience for another startup, I had zero experience in the tech world. My only professional experience was as a Mechanical Engineer, having spent time at a defense company for an internship.

For Hangster, I ended up taking on Product and Design roles, creating the mocks and wireframes for the app on Sketch and doing research and gathering feedback from friends.

Three friends and I worked on Hangster, with one friend focusing on marketing, one on engineering, myself on design, and all three of us sharing product. Eventually, we brought on a few other engineers to help out.

Competition and Tar Pits

Surprisingly, we weren’t the only ones with this idea. Several other companies were looking to solve the problem of getting friends together such as Shortnotice and even Google with Who’s Down. The most successful of these was Down to Lunch.

Unlike Hangster, Down to Lunch users could only select one button (“Down to X”) instead of choosing from a multitude of different options. This made the app much simpler and more accessible, so much so that it reached the top of the app store. While Hangster did reach thousands of users, its success paled in comparison to DTL.

However, all of these “who’s free” apps ended up disappearing. They were all generally what YCombinator calls “tarpit ideas”: ideas that seek to solve impossible problems. Finding free friends could be painful, but not painful enough to require a completely separate solution. Eventually all of these apps, including Hangster, died.

But as an aspiring Product Manager and Designer, I gained some valuable lessons.