Untappd++
When Tim and I started Untappd 5+ years ago, we never thought that it would hit 1 million checkins, or better yet: 3 million users. We had always thought that Untappd would be this side project that allowed us to tinker with technology and see if something stuck, but never our wildest dreams did we imagine that it would be where it is today.
As many of you know - Untappd is a part-time gig for both myself and Tim. However, many of you that know me, it’s pretty much a full-time job. Just ask my wife about the numerous times I’ve had to head home on New Years Eve to fix servers, or spend hours after my day job coding and answering questions from the community. We’ve put tons of hours in the project over the last 5+ years, and I’ve loved every minute of it. The reason why I love putting in those extra hours is because of the experience and joy people get out of the application. That’s the self-motivation that we need to keep on trucking.
However, we want Untappd to be better, put out features faster, and be able to provide more support. With today’s news that we have entered in a strategic partnership with Next Glass, it will give Tim and I, for the first time, a chance to do Untappd in a full-time capacity to meet those goals. It’s a dream come true to build something from the ground up and finally be able to follow through into a full-time role (even though it feels like we have already do it now). Of course, with this partnership, nothing will change on the Untappd side. We will continue to push the boundaries by adding new features, more badges, and much more - but in a full-time role. While we know that change is always hard to stomach, the app that you use and love won’t be changing in any way. The good part of this is that things will be able to get done faster, with a bigger team to build more features. We know the community wants more out of Untappd, and with this partnership - we’ll be able to execute on that. Tim and I have control over the vision and direction of Untappd, to make sure meet the needs of the community, which was incredible important during our discussions with Next Glass.
Of course, one of the reason why Untappd is so successful is the user-base. From day one, we have firmly believed in the value of user, and put them first in our feature building, and spent a large amount of our limited time talking with users and getting feedback. I’ve been known personally to call people who have support questions and get them back on track with that app. Since we were only a two man team, we wanted to focus on good customer experiences so that people would tell their friends. Now under Next Glass, that vision and direction isn’t going to change, but only get better. Next Glass values the way we communicate with our users, in being both transparent and by putting the customer first. That’s the only way to run a business in our eyes.
While our parent company, Next Glass, is located in North Carolina - we will have Untappd offices in both New York and Los Angeles to grow the team. With the resources of Next Glass and the technology and platform of Untappd, we feel that we going to change the landscape of beer.
With that - I want to thank everyone that has helped us get to this point. It’s hard to imagine Untappd without the support of you, the user-base - so I am forever grateful. From my family supporting me every day, to my wife being the most patient person that I know, to my in-laws reminding everyone at family functions to check-in their beers - it’s been an amazing ride, and we’re not stopping anytime soon. I’m very excited about the future of Untappd and excited to start to kick the tires on February 1st, 2016.