It’s not often that we get a peek behind the curtain of the hot world of apps and startups. It seems like startups are popping up everywhere like weeds. These 3 fellows created an app to solve what seems like a pressing problem: how to find the best nightlife experience in a hurry without having to bar or club hop. To fill this need they created Happinin.

The Happinin app is lead by Michael Cianos and his two friends:  Tyler Kelly and Kyle Eddins. Not surprisingly, this isn’t Michael’s first business. Venture Capital loves a success story. He has already built and sold another business and it yielded and important partnership. His first business and a passion for tennis is what lead him to meet Tyler Kelly. Keeping things close to home lead him to Kyle Evans who, as head developer, is the digital nuts and bolts behind the entire operation.

What’s Happinin?

Thanks to Michael graduating from the University of Maryland, College Park they launched their nightlife app in the bustling metro of Baltimore. The original focus was around nightclub goers and patrons uploading videos of events, parties and the best most “happinin” night clubs. The idea was this: if a user wanted to hit the town and wanted to know what was hot, they could find out what was going on right then, in real time. It was the first real-time, nightlife discovery platform. As brilliant as the idea sounds, the concept had some problems. It relied heavily on users willingness to upload content to the app in any form. No amount of incentives seemed to work and they guys resorted to paying for content to make the app go. It had a modest launch and some modest success. The question was then posed, “How do we take this to the next level?”

Branding is changing and improving

In October, they took the platform to Loyola University in Maryland, asked students where they frequented. That experiment turned the Happinin app from a nightlife discovery app to a very popular university platform could find out about what was going on campus. From events to emergencies and much more, the Happinin app struck a chord with students as a way to bring their entire campus to the palm of their hand.

The experiment was simple and they worked a student focus group of just 250 students. Working with the students solved many problems and lead to them improving the interface (examples below) and discovering their exciting new market niche. Once they made the change, the app grew exponentially and costs went down because the content was going out to a relevant market who cared about what was being posted. The idea reminded me of Facebook in 2007 before it went public. When I was in college, everything on our modest campus went down on Facebook from non-stop drama to breakups and important campus events. As Facebook went public (and I graduated) it modulated into something else and teens and college kids don’t hardly use Facebook, but they will be using this app.

What does the future hold?

Michael had taken the wise road trod by many founders: he has surrounded himself with a board of advisors with plenty of experience and recently just hired a marketing company in Philadelphia to begin promoting the app across the nation at campuses that they spent the summer identifying for their first big expansion. Ultimately, Michael’s goal is to become a network of communities around interests, ideas, neighborhoods and to perpetually answer the question, “What’s Happinin?”

If you want to learn more, you’ll have your chance, a web series from Human Beings Productions and What Weekly (affiliated with their startup) will be producing a web series is coming in Fall about the journey it has taken to create this exciting new app.

Happenin is available on the Apple App Store or at their website.

Kyle (the crazy developer)

Michael

Tyler

 Screenshots of this up and coming app