You won’t be left scratching your head if you want a night out in Mumbai. Even a dry day (those occur more often than we like) will definitely throw up several fun options. In fact, we’re inundated with the massive repository of information available online. There are more than enough platforms that are eager beaver to spam you with details on the remotest thing you might be interested in.
“There’s a lot of information out there, too much to make sense of and plan an evening and then you end up missing out on a good deal,” says Prashant Chari, a 27-year-old media professional. Sanchit Gupta thought so too, so he went ahead and made an app to change the way the city plans its night out. The 28-year-old took reporting events a notch further and created curated experiences based on your preferences.
Further still, he allows you to buy them in advance, on your phone, so you don’t have to waste time standing in lines. “DrinksOnMe has food, drinks and events; it’s both, a reporting and a booking platform for nightlife in the city,” says Gupta. “People are doing bits and pieces, but there’s nothing that combines it all for nightlife in Mumbai.” The app will cover venues, events, experiences, cab bookings and gigs offering in-app payment options.
When Sanchit Gupta was studying at the Indian Institute of Foreign Trade in Delhi four years ago, he lucked out with a four-month student exchange programme to France.
He came home a changed man. When he moved to Mumbai in 2013 to work with Tata Capital, a trip to Bandra’s teeming hotspots spurred an idea: he decided to recreate his own version of his experience abroad.
It started with a random shot in the dark; an event advertising a bar crawl with no marketing, except a Facebook event page. When 40 enthusiastic people turned up on short notice, Gupta knew he this was a good opportunity to explore. It evolved into innovative ideas, such as the bus crawl. “I hired a bus and ran it in Lower Parel between four and five bars. It was mad,” beams Gupta.
At first blush, the former finance professional looks the part he first embarked on. He wears glasses, is very demure in his disposition. He’s also soft-spoken, till he starts talking about bars and nights out, then his eyes light up like a kid on Christmas eve. That’s when it’s obvious; he’s found his passion, in making a career out of partying himself and getting others to join in.
He then tied up with theatre company ‘Tamaasha’ (Sunil Shanbag) and created Theatre on the Rocks, an event where plays were staged in bars: Marriage-ology at The Barking Deer Brewpub in Lower Parel and Blank Page at He Said She Said in Andheri. In January, this year, in an effort to go bigger, DrinksOnMe was conceptualised. The app has been co-founded by Gupta and his ex-batchmate from Manipal University Sahil Kapoor where they both studied engineering (yes, Gupta is a Pink Floyd fanboy like others of his ilk). Kapoor is manning things in Delhi, while Gupta holds the fort here in Mumbai.
Their team comprises seven very young and passionate-about-partying kids fresh out of college. Make no mistake though, they do mean business. “We have received pre-seed funding from Jaarvis Accelerator to put together the right technology and build a team,” states Gupta. Incidentally, he got his hands on the international funding from the Singapore-based company through LinkedIn. Who says random cold messaging doesn’t yield results? “We will be coming out with a beta version of the app in the third week of December and the final version will be out in January,” says Gupta.
Gupta and Kapoor know exactly where they want the app to go. DrinksOnMe will launch in Mumbai and Delhi, and will later move to Pune, Bengaluru and Hyderabad. Further honing of the technological specs will lead to better organisation,” hopes Gupta. We’ll wait right here, then.
WHAT'S ON OFFER
Venues: The app will categorise
venues such as brewries,
nightclubs, rooftop bars, places to
go for a date and stag friendly
spots based on mood, budget,
time, etc.
Hashtag reviews: Users find it hard
to rely on lengthy reviews. Users
will have the option of selecting
three hashtags appropriate for a
venue from a list of preloaded
options. When a user visits a
venue page it will be reviewed
with the most popular
crowdsourced hashtags based on
feedback.
Transport: In talks with cab
aggregation companies and
linking APIs with DrinksOnMe so
users can reach home safely.
There will be discounts too.
Events: In a couple of taps, users
will be able to spot events they
are interested in and book them
from within the app. They will
receive a ticket within the app,
which they can show at the
venue. There’s an integrated
payment gateway as well.
Guest list: There will be an
integrated guest list that allows
users to directly choose a club/
gig and get on its guest list
without having to waste time at
the entrance
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