A young Saanich entrepreneur is hoping a new app can connect local bar-goers before they head out for the night.
Whether people are going clubbing, dancing, partying, socializing or drinking, whatever you call it, Connor Foreman hopes they’ll use BarScan to register where they’re going, or to see where others are going, and streamline the process before they go out.
Clubs, pubs and bars can also register their drink specials or special themes for users to see.
“I’ve [excitedly] gone to the bar but ended up not seeing people I wanted to see, and spent money I wasn’t planning on spending,” said the 22-year-old Camosun College accounting student. “With BarScan the goal is for people to see who is going to a bar that night, or to see what the drink specials are for that night.”
BarScan is set to launch on iPhone and Android by mid to late January.
Foreman, a Claremont secondary grad, was inspired to make the app after watching The Social Network, the movie about how Facebook started.
“Watching it, you realize there is always room for the next big thing, and I thought, ‘What is the next idea that will appeal to millennials?’” Foreman said.
A former elite triathlete who trained and competed as a 19-year-old rather than hit the bars, Foreman admitted he isn’t a regular on the club scene. But he has been to enough of them to know what works, particularly for the smart-phone using, party-goers of his generation.
Not a coder, Foreman invested his own money to hire developers who have created BarScan’s user platform. So far, his Instagram account @barscanmobileapp has garnered the most interest of his social media handles with more than 300 users interested in seeing how it pans out.
One question Foreman is asked often is how BarScan is better than Facebook’s ‘event’ app.
“If you create an event in Facebook it’s generally based on your group of friends, even if you open it up publicly,” Foreman said. “BarScan will be a daily thing. If you want to go to that night, you have a resource to check, a guide for drink specials, and an opportunity to see who’s going where.”
Foreman also sees it as a social tool that would include dating, as users create profiles and can chat with other users they see.
While there’s no telling whether an app will catch on, it’s an uphill battle with 2.2 million apps in the Google Play store and two million in the Apple app store as of June 2016 (according to Statista.com), with about 60,000 more released every month.