Last week Tim, the CEO of Wawadoo made time to have a drink with me. I had met his co-founder, Chris at open coffee club last week and was anxious to find out more about the young Alphalab company.
Wawadoo is the recommendation engine for events. As they explain it, “just view our list of events, vote ‘thumbs up’ or ‘thumbs down’ if something interests you, and receive increasingly accurate recommendations on things to do every time you choose.” On the concept level they may have something: how many times have you wondered what to do or found out about something you wanted to go to after it was over?
I was excited to hear that Tim’s thought this through much further than the concept level, it’s a potentially interesting business model. Like many interest-based sites, there is a lot of potential for related business to leverage targeted advertising. For example, if I’m a bar I could advertise to people who frequently attend events at the neighboring concert hall or happy hours that are similar to mine.
The difficulty in a business like this is getting to critical mass. The users have to be present in order for the businesses to find value. Tim and Chris, the founders of Wawadoo, think they can do it. “We’ve seen a great response from local organizations. I think they see something like this as the future of finding an event” says Chris, the COO of the company (and a talented developer). “We haven’t opened the site yet and we already have interest of event promoters and organizations who want to co-promote with us,” Tim added, “This will be a great way to get the word out to users. It also means that the businesses must see something there.”
Soon you’ll get to decide. Go to www.wawadoo.com, enter your email address, and you’ll be one of the first members of the public to try it.
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