Two Louisville brothers aim to help you make more real-life memories with their new app, Shortnotice.
“All of the popular social apps -- Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat – they are focused on photos and videos, and they’re only about your virtual identity. Shortnotice is totally different. It’s a social app focused on your offline activities,” says Neil Nijhawan, one of the creators.
Neil and his brother Kush came up with the initial kernel of the idea for Shortnotice back in high school, when they would organize lots of pickup basketball games. “We’d always need at least four or six people,” says Kush, “but it was super tough to get enough. We had to guess to see who was available whenever we felt like doing something, then text everybody and check. If they weren’t available, the plans fell through.”
They figured out a better way.
With the Shortnotice app, users can avoid all that delay and disappointment and quickly make plans with friends who are up to get together, too. In just a few seconds, you open the app, type in what you want to do and how long you are free, and then your friend contacts will see your post. The ones who are available and interested “nudge” you through the app, and you can then start an in-app convo to set the details. Privacy is maintained by only allowing your real-life friends, those you have phone numbers for, on your contact list. A select group of best friends can get notifications whenever you post an activity, and you can add other buddies to convos later.
You won’t find selfies or other photos in Shortnotice, by design. “You shouldn’t see your friend’s face on the phone, only in real life,” says Neil. “Nothing virtual. This is about doing things in real life. The logo for Shortnotice is a puppy because puppies are carefree. They don’t care about likes, and they’ll just bark when they want to do something.” To start the app, you “tap da puppy.”
Both brothers are computer science majors, Neil at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, and Kush at Stanford University. Key to their success with Shortnotice was spending last summer in Seattle in the Microsoft Ventures Program and joining the Microsoft Partner Network, which provides robust technical and marketing support, and a wealth of industry contacts.
Kush, who is taking a year off from Stanford to work on Shortnotice, says to make this venture successful, they’ve had to pick and choose priorities carefully. It definitely involves “sacrifice,” adds Neil, as being computer science majors is extremely demanding, and launching a legit app takes an enormous amount of work.
The app is available for free on all three leading mobile platforms -- iPhone, Android and Windows Phone – a boast not many apps can make. After officially launching just last week, Shortnotice has around 2,000 users and is adding about 200 a day. “It’s meeting our vision,” says Kush. “We want to make your day, and touch your heart. We like to say, ‘Sometimes it just takes a nudge to make it happen.’”
Photos: Shutterstock/Pressmaster, Shortnotice
