dropdrop

Leave messages where you travel, for others to discover.

4 followers

Leave messages where you travel, for others to discover.

4 followers

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dropdrop lets you leave messages and photos where you travel, for others to discover. Download dropdrop for iOS, and connect with your local community.

Launch tags:iOS•Messaging•Travel

Launch Team

Render: Get up to $100K in startup creditsCloud infrastructure for founders who want to move fast and NOT break things

Promoted

facebook only as signup was a showstopper for me. also: there is obvious potential for abuse, wondering what flagging mechanisms are in there? love the idea - curious if I can browse drops without being at or near a location - and if you will remove the facebook requirement

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10yr ago

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Maker

@passingnotes Thanks so much for the feedback about the Facebook login. That was a decision we made early on so that we could bring this app to market quickly. If we find that dropdrop appears to have a reasonable market fit, we will be adding email or possibly phone as an option. Which signup option do you prefer? For flagging, we have the ability to block users, and to report drops and their users. We're very aware of the potential for abuse, and made sure to have the tools in place to prevent that. Currently, you have to physicially be in range of drops to view them in the app. However, we have a feature on our road map to allow users to virtually "travel" to different places and view/leave drops there.

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10yr ago

@craigphares I fully support the idea of virtually traveling to view drops, but I pause on the idea of leaving virtual drops. There is something in knowing a person was physically present at the drop location. Also, with virtual drops what's to stop an intern at Dicks Sports from taking an afternoon to spam the maps?

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10yr ago

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Maker

@outsidedan very good point, and we may nix that idea if we feel it could be abused. We do have stamps (in-app currency) which might limit abuse or at least discourage it if we require stamps for that feature.

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10yr ago

@craigphares Excellent. I see some companies are already using the platform in an innovative, non-spammy way ;) http://sram.d.pr/1hE3k

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10yr ago

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Maker

@outsidedan That is so awesome to see!

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10yr ago

Swap Ideas

This is a cool idea, but I am curious how will you crack the install challenge? Especially if this is an app that only works in very special cases, and far in-between?

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10yr ago

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Maker

@tribaling Great question! As with any platform that relies on user-generated content, you need critical mass for it to be useful. We've tried to make the on-boarding process as easy as possible. We're using Facebook to tap into users' existing social network. Although there are very special cases, there are a lot of different very special cases, so there is the potential to have content generated for a wide variety of reasons.

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10yr ago

Toolhouse

Cool, reminds me of that uk startup that let you attach msgs to physical items on the streets that had a serial number of sme sorts

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10yr ago

BetterMind

Hunter

@orliesaurus Do you remember the name of the startup?

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10yr ago

Toolhouse

@craigcaruso yeah http://www.hellolamppost.co.uk/

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10yr ago

@craigcaruso @orliesaurus There is also http://geocaching.com

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10yr ago

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Maker

@yuejn @craigcaruso @orliesaurus Yes, but that's specific for scavenger hunts. dropdrop is much more than a scavenger hunt. Although it could be used the same way as geocaching, it's not intended to solely be used for finding nearby waypoints.

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10yr ago

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Maker

@orliesaurus @craigcaruso That Hello Lamp Post project is pretty cool. I can see how this reminds you of it. That whole sense of discovery and surprise is really what we're after.

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10yr ago

just f***ing send it

Does you roadmap include AR? I think it would be really cool if people could search for "drops" with their camera. You could also have a digital scavenger hunt :)

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10yr ago

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Maker

@ykguler AR would be super-cool. We will definitely consider that as we expand on this!

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10yr ago

EuroBot 2016

Hey @craigphares I really like your app! Very simple and intuitive! Where is the most used currently?

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10yr ago

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Maker

@david770 Thanks so much! We put a lot of thought into how to make everything as intuitive as possible. Currently, we're seeing the most activity in the United States, specifically in NJ, NY, CA, and IL. We're also seeing lots of activity in China, France, and the UK.

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10yr ago

Future Minds Fund

I'm intrigued. I love me a bit of adventure. This actually looks really exciting and i want to try it but i got thrown off a little when i just read its a messaging app. How exactly does the funnel and product journey work?

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10yr ago

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Maker

@themelamini I love the excitement! dropdrop is not like a traditional chat messaging app like WeChat or Facebook Messenger, although it does have a direct chat feature. Think Twitter, crossed with SnapChat, limited by location. When you first login to dropdrop, you'll see a split-screen view of a map and a list. The map will have "drops" in proximity to your current location, and the list will have a news feed of those same drops. Everything you see was created at that specific location, and will last between 24 hours and 2 months. Drops can be as small as a room, as big as a city, or somewhere in-between. If your current location falls within the boundary of a drop, you'll see it in the app. Move outside that boundary, and the drop disappears from your view. You can follow other people on dropdrop, and find your friends on the app through Facebook or your address book. You can place a new drop at your current location and specify who of your friends can see it (or let everyone see it), how long it should last, how big to make it, and if you want to leave it with your public profile or anonymously. When you leave a drop for a friend, they receive a notification that you left them a drop, and they'll see it on a map. But they can't actually view the drop itself until they physically enter within its boundary. Also, as you explore the world around you, if you stumble upon a drop from someone you follow, you'll get a notification on your phone that a drop is nearby from that person. It's sort of like leaving a physical note for someone - all within the virtual space of the app. So far, we've seen a lot of people leaving messages for anyone in their neighborhood to view - talking about things only locals would know. We've also seen some messages left in places where the creator knew their friend would find it. And we're seeing lots of check-in style reviews of businesses. Also, based on the feedback we've received so far, we're seeing many more use cases for the geocaching aspect of this, so we're working on adding some more features that will make it even easier to use it in this way. I hope you get a chance to try out dropdrop, and I can't wait to hear how you end up using it!

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10yr ago

HackToStart

Cool. How is this different from Drop Messages? Also, how frequently do you think most of your userbase will use this? Only the biggest travelers travel once per month or more

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10yr ago

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Maker

@leftearpod Great questions. Drop Messages is only photos, and it's cluttered with Instagram posts that aren't really meant for that platform. We want our content to be specific to our platform, and we've provided much more control over the duration, audience, and size of the messages you post. And no drops last forever, so the content will constantly be current and relevant. It's yet to be determined as to the frequency of use, and travelers are only one segment of our users. We expect people in neighborhoods will use dropdrop to talk exclusively with each other, even if they're not connected by anything other than proximity. Also, the flexibility in drop duration leads to very different types of communication.

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10yr ago

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