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Moving people off the Internet sounds like a counter-intuitive goal for an app developer, but that is exactly what Alex Capecelatro, CEO of At the Pool, is trying to do.
“I believe foundationally a technology company needs to look at what people want to do organically and then remove barriers,” Capecelatro said. “You need to start by understanding people's motivations.”
Understanding motivation is key for At the Pool, a rapidly growing “social discovery” app, since it launched in 2012 and was subsequently backed by a $750,000 seed round from Clearstone Venture Partners, Canyon Creek Capital, David Carter and Richard Cooperstein.
Social discovery, the use of technology to find and meet new people, is not a new concept: dating apps like Tinder and OK Cupid are more popular examples of social discovery. However, outside the romantic world social discovery has struggled. Without a strong love-seeking pull many social discovery sites have failed to make real world connections.
That may be because those companies have misplaced their focus. At the Pool concentrates on a narrow set of motivating factors. “We typically meet new people for three reasons: professional networking, dating and social activities,” said Capecelatro. At the Pool channels these driving forces by centering its platfrom around “Pools,” aka interests.
“We've optimized our platform to make it easy to connect with the types of people you want, when you want; it's amazing how efficient offline meet ups can get when you simply confine the criteria to location and ‘Pools,’” Capecelatro said. “Much like a dating site, our goal is to connect people nearby who share an interest.”
Besides the ‘Pools’ feature, which lets users find people with similar interest, At the Pool includes a ‘Shout’ feature. By sending “a ‘Shout’ about what you are doing or what you want to do,” users can connect with other people in close proximity and meet for offline activities.
While Capecelatro focuses heavily on these offline meetups, he admits quantifying such real world experiences can be difficult.
“We like to set our goals on what we can measure,” Capecelatro said. “Right now, meeting offline is simply too abstracted a goal and we're concerned more with members joining and connecting with locals who share their interests. At the Pool measures its progress by closely monitoring growth and retention, messages sent, and geo-proximity between members corresponding.
An eye for feedback and data has led the company also to redirect focus away from its website to a mobile app and re-connecting old friends. This past November the company re-launched with a mobile app - and Capecelatro said the company “is primarily mobile already.”
“From day one we had people asking about mobile,” Capecelatro said. “Our product is intrinsically about connecting to the world around you, and mobile just makes sense. It's easy to connect on the go, in an instant, to the people around you with At The Pool.”
After hearing from users about their desire for mobile and to reconnect with old friends, At the Pool is also re-focusing itself on strengthening existing relationships. The company experimented with introducing old friends in close proximity and, according to Capecelatro, the results far exceeded expectations. All of these redesigns have spurned a waterfall of new data and ideas for the future.
“Our app is growing well and we have great engagement right now, but we're taking in a lot of data and working on version 2.0,” said Capecelatro.
Busy with version 2.0, it is clear that Capecelatro doesn’t like to wait around. Always eager to pitch his product, he has the hyper-activity of a founder dedicated to seeing his company succeed. In fact, app users on the Westside are likely to see Capecelatro interacting with other users; he said he gets a lot of important information from using the app like this.
“Interacting directly with our members as part of the experience. I find out what they like, what they don't, what problems they have and how to make them feel more engaged,” said Capecelatro. “I've had people write in that they love the design and usability but wish they could expand the distance range to 100 miles (currently you can choose 1, 5, 10, 25, infinity).”
This constant attention to detail is what Capecelatro believes should drive the whole business. A “killer product makes everything else easier. From press, investment, marketing, etc.,” said Capecelatro.
In the coming months, At the Pool is focusing on continued user growth, new app releases, as well as the first stages of monetization - and with each step is making important progress into the offline world.
