Show HN: Hobnob – Beautiful Invites Sent via Text Message

by mirthlab • 11 years ago

11 9 11 years ago

mirthlab5• 11 years ago

Hi all, long time lurker but first time poster here.

We built Hobnob because we were tired of evite and FB events. We wanted something fast, beautiful and mobile friendly. We also wanted something where our guests wouldn't have to download or install anything to RSVP.

With Hobnob you can create and send a great invite in 30 seconds. Your guests can reply with Y or N to RSVP. Simple and easy.

Would love to hear your feedback!

primitivesuave• 11 years ago

Normally I don't comment on Show HNs, but there are a lot of good things to say about what you made. It was a great idea to make this SMS based, as it is a universal medium and most people aren't willing to download Yet Another App. Also if I am planning a gathering, it's more likely that I'll have everyone's phone number, and much less likely that I'll know all of their email addresses or even be friends with everyone on Facebook. The part I appreciate the most is that you don't need the app to RSVP. Most developers would text a "download the hobnob app to RSVP" link to people, but clearly this is far superior since it makes it super easy to respond. The text message picture is beautiful.

I honestly don't have anything negative to say, the app is beautiful and the entire experience is quite polished. Really nice work!

mirthlab5• 11 years ago

Wow, thank you so much! Your comment made my day!

It's great to hear that our design decisions resonated with you. We worked really hard to make this great for the people using it. We tried to put the user experience ahead of the almighty download. Thanks again for the encouraging comment!

Zisko• 11 years ago

Hi! Just wondering what the timeframe was on building this, and what your team size is!

mirthlab5• 11 years ago

Hi, thanks for the comment! We're a small team of 4 people working part time. On the engineering side it took about 6 months to get to a closed beta with two devs; one web dev (me) and one contract iOS dev.

We spent a lot of time reworking pieces of the UI/UX though so it's tough for me to nail down how long the product in its current form actually took to build. It was kind of a windy road to get where we ended up. :)

hawaii• 11 years ago

This looks great. Friends don't let friends use Evite. For events where your guests are people you already text with, this couldn't be easier. Perfect for "Let's do lunch!"

mirthlab5• 11 years ago

Exactly! We're hoping to make even the smallest meetup something fun by using Hobnob.

geewhy• 11 years ago

As part of the first time tutorial, how about inviting new users to a fictitious event to help acclimate them? Also, it's feels so lonely after installing the app and seeing the message that there's no activity, so even a training event would help users feel loved. ;)

mirthlab5• 11 years ago

The fictitious event is a great idea. I'll share it with our team. :)

I completely agree about the first install experience. It needs to be better. We have several ideas to improve it. One thing we're toying with is using it as a way to showcase some great flyer designs in order to inspire new users to create their first invite.

Thanks for the feedback!

Show HN: Hobnob – Beautiful Invites Sent via Text Message

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