ACA Graduates | oores Startup Story
I have talked with co-founders of a mobile application called “oores”. If you ever caught yourself wondering where your friends are at the moment and wanted to arrange a quick, spontaneous meetup with them, then you would be interested in this application. “oores” makes hangouts easy: you don’t need to call or text each and every one of your friends to see where they are. With this application, you just open the map and see who is nearby (and their exact location) and available to meet-up.
Lusine and Aram are ACA graduates with diverse backgrounds and experience. Lusine came up with the idea, wanted to create it, even graduated two programming courses at Armenian Code Academy to be able to do so, then she found her team and started working on creating the product together. They have been working on the creation of the app for almost a year and currently have more than 2000 pre-orders.
How did you come up with the idea?
Lusine: The idea was generated four years ago when I was still a student. It was hard to meet with friends, especially after work or during breaks, when you don’t have something pre-planned, and none of your friends are free at the moment. Usually, I either went home or did something alone, and that was quite boring. Later I would learn that some of my friends were actually nearby and available, but none of us knew about that. Otherwise, we would do something together. I searched for mobile apps that would solve my problem, and there were some useful ones, but with different target groups like family, kids, or health-oriented. When none of those apps would directly solve my problem, I decided to build something myself, mostly for my friends and me. But I didn’t have the development skills. Later, I applied to ACA to learn those.
Eventually, I understood that programming is not my passion, even though I was quite good at it.
I decided to assemble a team where everyone could do whatever they are good at and passionate about.
How your idea has changed from the idea stage to the version that is currently available?
Lusine: The first version in my mind was a more open, highly saturated app where you could not only organize meet-ups with friends but post content, engage, message each other. But when we submitted the app for a private-beta and got 100+ users, we learned critical feedback that made us change the concept from Social Media to meet-up App. Something that will start small and grow big step-by-step rather than having lots of things cramped up initially.
Our go-to-market strategy is to include and engage communities first. Communities like movie-goers, football players, hikers, bikers who organize meet-ups regularly.
The team is the key part of a good product, as I know you both studied at ACA. What course was it, and how it helped to create a successful team and then a product?
Aram: I was at ACA earlier than Lusine and studied iOS development, and that’s where my career as a developer began. I have started my career at Zero and Picsart. Working in those companies helped me understand the business processes better. I was working at Picsart when it already was a big established company and at Zero, which was not that big as Picsart so working in both companies was valuable to understand how companies work and manage their processes in different stages of their development. At the very first steps of “oores” development, my experience working in those companies helped to avoid some mistakes and to understand better what to use and apply in our management processes. So with the help of ACA we both had our first experience working in technical teams, which helped to manage our team and work in the perspective of an employee too.
Lusine: My path was different. I didn’t want to change my career and get a job as a developer. I have a business development and management background. I clearly defined my goal to study programming at ACA just to create an application. As a final project for the iOS course I attended, I created the initial version of oores, which, of course, was far from being perfect. Then I made my first steps at trying to assemble a team. You need like-minded people who are not only equipped to make it but are trustworthy and passionate about what you’re trying to make. That’s when Aram and Sona come into the picture as my co-founders for this journey.
What would you advise all ACA current and future students studying programming, and wanting to create their own products in the future?
Lusine: Just do it. Don’t ask industry experts, influencers, mentors, or anyone for advice when you are in the idea stage. Create a prototype, test on actual people (not many but some), see if it works and only then go and ask questions. People always give contradictory feedback, especially at the beginning. It is amplified by the fact that they just hear the idea and don’t see the product. Everyone makes assumptions about what it is or isn’t. I made that mistake myself. Once I had a chance to introduce my idea to Alexis Ohanian when he was in Armenia and after my short pitch he asked me to download the app to his phone. We didn’t have the app then and lost an opportunity. I learned from that situation alone that you should not start talking with so many people without having anything in your hand.
Aram: When you know that you have limited time, you should always ask yourself a question:
“What value does this bring?”
It can apply to anything: management, development of a new feature, or just meeting with a person. If you ask yourself this question, you will find out that people waste so much time on things they don’t actually need.
If I could describe your product with a single word, I would choose the word “communication.” The meaning, ways, and channels of communications are quite different now after the spread of COVID. How do you see your startup’s future? Would it be changed as well?
Lusine: Every crisis is an opportunity. That’s what we believe in. It has already been over 2 months since people are in strict lockdown. Everyone craves social interactions as maybe never before. We are determined to be the go-to platform for that.
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