an app to never eat alone

Version 1.1 is out and ready for download in iOS app store today. It is aimed to address issues around the search algorithm and general stability. As always, we are looking forward to your feedback!

We have been getting many e-mails lately, most of them along similar lines, so I thought it might be a good idea to answer them in a blog post as a temporary FAQ. Here we go.

1. Is there an Android version? Currently LunchMeet is an iOS only affair, but as mentioned in the interview with Mashable, an Android version is very high on our to-do list.
   
2. Is there a web interface to use LunchMeet? Again this is not currently possible but it is an item on our potential future platforms list.
3. Why didn’t you already develop for all existing platforms? Time and resources were our constraints. We wanted to use the iOS version as a concept test, to gauge user reactions and general reception. Now we are finding all that to be very favorable and our assumptions validated, we will be pushing forward towards more platforms.
4. Why not a Blackberry version? Wouldn’t LunchMeet be super popular with berry wielding business people? You would think so, right? Funny, nobody actually has ever asked about a Blackberry version. So I guess it is not technically a frequently asked question. More like a curiously absent question. I wonder what that means for Blackberry users/apps.
5. I want to try LunchMeet but does it work in my area? If you can find your area on Google Maps, then it will work for you.
6. I have tried LunchMeet but there is nobody around to meet with. What gives? LunchMeet being very very new, it will take a some time for everyone in your area to start using it, which is something we are looking forward to. In the meantime, you can always use the app to invite an existing LinkedIn connection to have lunch with you, or you can announce your availability on your LinkedIn feed to increase your visibility.
7. I found a bug! Get it away from me! We spent considerable time testing LunchMeet before launch, to make sure it works smoothly for everyone. Still, we may have missed some issues and if you do come across any, please let us know. There is one issue that we are currently aware of, which in some very rare cases causes the app to become unresponsive at the Messaging/Invitation Screen. We are working on correcting this as soon as possible.
8. I want to be notified about future updates, features, versions, etc. The easiest way to be in the loop is to subscribe to our blog or to follow us on twitter @lunchmeetapp. Alternatively, you can give us lots of money and we will make sure you get all the news first.
9. I love your idea, we should work together! Awesome! We are always open to offers of cooperation and partnerships that would allow us to provide greater value to our users. So let us know!
10. I love your idea, can I invest in it? Again, we are open to offers that would help improve LunchMeet user experience. Resources surely help in that regard, but obviously this is a subject that would take very careful consideration on our part. There is no harm in talking about it, though.
11. I can’t see my question on the list. Send us an e-mail via the Contact Us page! We do our best to answer all questions.

Hope this helps with some of the questions you may have.

Cheers,

Taylan

I know visitors come from Mashable to here more often than the other way around, but in case you missed it, here is the link to the latest LunchMeet interview on Mashable:  http://mashable.com/2011/11/08/lunchmeet/

In other news: thanks a lot for all the feedback emails! It is really awesome to see people excited by the idea behind LunchMeet and offering their suggestions to improve it. I will try to reply to them as soon as I find the time.

Cheers!

Taylan

Wanna hear from someone else how great LunchMeet is? Here is a great review by Drew Olanoff of The Next Web: http://thenextweb.com/apps/2011/11/03/with-the-lunchmeet-app-youll-never-eat-alone-again/

LunchMeet for the iPhone is now live and available for download, for the price of nothing! LunchMeet is basically a free add-on for the LinkedIn experience, allowing for LinkedIn users to meet with each other face to face, based on their location and availability. That is the brief and sweet “what” of it. You can download it for yourself to see the “how”.

And here in this post, I want to cover the “why”.

Over the last year I was working in sales and marketing for an international trade company, where I realized the difficulty in reaching people by phone and finding them at their desks when you need them in today’s fast paced business environment. On a day I was particularly frustrated by that difficulty, I made a trip to the café nearby for coffee, and (this being the downtown area) I realized that all around me in that café people were discussing business over coffee, conducting interviews, making new connections, etc. So the light bulb went on and said “This is why you can’t find people at their desks. The office is not necessarily where the business happens anymore.” That was the revelation that seeded LunchMeet. The app is a channel to access these new business venues. Further validation for the idea came from the book Never Eat Alone by Keith Ferrazzi, which basically emphasizes the importance of nurturing one’s connections as an essential ingredient for success, and suggests that the lunch time is a terrible thing to waste by eating on your own when you could be meeting with new people or strengthening your existing connections.

Another way to think of it could be as an extension of the recent trend in social media, where apps and platforms like foursquare, meetup, facebook places, etc., bring people together in real life. I felt that LinkedIn itself could benefit immensely from this trend as well, but for most people LinkedIn still only works to digitize their existing connections. The goal of LunchMeet in that respect is to do the opposite: to take your digital LinkedIn network and turn it into real connections.

That was the top level goal for my team as we worked on designing an easy to use app that would allow you to meet new people and expand your professional network through meaningful interactions. Our hope is that you will find the app useful in this regard, and share your feedback with us as to how we could improve the experience. We really are looking forward to hearing from you.

Cheers,

Taylan