Pinchd Blog

San Francisco's finest angle

2011-03-01T12:45:00.001-08:00

"I've lived here for seven years and NEVER seen such an amazing view."

Said one of the early arrivals for Capture the Flag @ Crissy Field.

See more photos from the event

Flag THIS.

2011-01-20T13:09:00.000-08:00

Perfect weather. Great people. Delicious food.

We couldn't have asked for more at the Pinchd BBQ and Flag Football Adventure last weekend.

Besides grilled food, we also had a ice-cream surprise from Garden Creamery, the perfect end to a beautiful (warm!) day.

Who doesn't love a good fire?

2011-01-11T00:26:00.001-08:00

2011: Year of Adventures

2011-01-05T02:35:00.001-08:00

It may be the Year of the Rabbit in the Zodiac calendar...but here at Pinchd, 2011 is the Year of Adventures. I've been telling myself for the past weeks I need to head to the gym and get back in shape. After laying out the Adventure Schedule for the next month, I realized there is actually no need for that. These next few weeks are going to be action packed with adventures from Beach Bonfires to Tea Tasting to Crazy Audio Experiences. I'm going to get off my ass and do something different for a change. I'm pretty excited.

Click here for details on the Pinchd Challenge

Grab life by the balls...

2010-12-11T16:33:00.000-08:00

Check out the Facebook Event to RSVP and find more details.

The BEST place to watch the sunset

2010-12-08T22:54:00.001-08:00

Abandoned bunker @ Point Bointa

There is nothing between you and the largest star in the solar system.

It is not fair to ask of others what you are not willing to do yourself.

2010-12-08T15:14:00.001-08:00

We recommend to all of our users, investors, friends, random strangers to visit the Slides @ Seward Street. Finally, Eric, Shruti and I braved the rain, grabbed some old cardboard, and went down the larger-than-life, cement slides tucked away on Seward Street.

Shruti went first... then Amara..... and finally Eric.

Now we can officially say....you MUST go down the Slides on Seward Street!!

Urban Hikers

2010-12-08T14:38:00.000-08:00

Probably off to their next adventure...

Looking for new things to do in San Francisco?

2010-10-08T16:30:00.001-07:00

Slides in the Castro, free movie screenings in parks with views of the city, a sound theatre with mind-tricks, the list goes on and on -- the list of things that only a few of the hippest in this city know about. Right now, the secret spots of San Francisco can be found scattered on blogs, on “Top Ten” lists, or remain mysteries, passed from insider to insider.

While researching the subject, we realized that there are SO MANY cool experiences people have had in the city that never get shared. After talking with people, it became apparent the newest method for discovering new activities are daily emails from Groupon, HomeRun or Bloomspot. We are jumping to the best deal, get 50% off an activity you’ve never really cared about. It will be awesome because...its 50% off! Turns out most of the coupons for restaurants and services on Groupon have an less-than- average rating on Yelp. You get what you pay for, right?

We don’t want to experience the cheapest that life has to offer. We want you to find the most interesting and meaningful adventures from the source. Think of us as that cool friend you go to, when you need a good idea. Except, we are aggregating ALL of the cool friends. A city-insider guide run by the insiders.

You in?

Go to pinchd.com and request an invite.

P.S. Since we are talking about adventures, check out Clash SF. It is California's League of adult scavenger hunters! The next game is October 16th on Haight Street.

Looking for Summer Fun? Make A List of Fun Things To Do

2010-07-29T14:17:00.000-07:00

#27 on my Pinchd Summer List: Fun Things To Do

This summer we decided not to mourn the loss of our college vacation or our childhood. What do I mean? After graduating, everyone knows the grave reality of "no summer vacation.". In concrete terms this is pretty serious... it basically means a loss of FUN. Well we at Pinchd decided that this was not going to be our fate. We were going to have a fun-filled summer and drag all of our friends along. Our solution to remind them of the good ole days, by helping them create, share and discover a list of fun things to do!

So how does one really keep a promise like this. I just said it! We leveraged our existing technology (big words..yikes!) and provided a solution to ourselves, our friends and our lovely Pinchd users. Another solution we considered was to quit our day jobs and plan events for everyday of the summer. The latter was a non-option..given we had already given our parents premature heart attacks from our career choices.

This was the deal. Most of our friends had a list of fun things they wanted to do this summer. The problem was getting these things done with friends! So we decided to do an intervention What we did was pretty simple, we made it really easy for them to create, share and discover fun things to do.

(1) Create a List of Fun Things To Do: basically on Pinchd you can keep a list, check things off, organize them, put details. Its kind of addicting. So this is my warning, if you really have something important to do maybe you should not embark on creating a list.

(2) Share their List: basically you can easily share your list and your friends can tell you which ideas they are interested in. You can also proceed to plan that activity (or multiple activities) on Pinchd!

Here are our lists:
Shruti's Pinchd List
Amara's Pinchd List
Eric's Pinchd List
Chris's Summer List

Don't worry, these are only viewable if you actively share them. Plus you can set your ideas as "closed" which means no one can see them ever...even if you share them :)

(3) Discover fun things to add to their List: This we are still working on...but if your friends that you hang out with are on Pinchd and have lists too...you can check out theirs. You can also look at our discovery page: Pinchd Suggestions. Again, still working on this so if you have some feedback let us know.

So stop crying about the good ole days, and start checking things off your summer to-do list! We have...although if you don't know Amara, please don't say you are interested in her ideas she tends to get a little nervous about things dealing with human interaction...just kidding..kind of!

xx

Pinchd Contest: You will not win this trophy...

Pinchd

P.S. We are also having a contest to feature the user that has the most "interested" summer to do list. People have some pretty cool things on their list from "riding in a tandem bike" to "watching a movie in the park." So if your idea gets a lot of interest, it will get featured and well financed by yours truly!

A Pinchd Makeover: Facebook Events, Ideas and More

2010-06-10T17:15:00.000-07:00

As our June Newsletter highlighted, we released some exciting changes today. The big change is...that we have decided to change our name again...just kidding! Anyway, the improvements range from integration of Facebook Events to our email digest going through a major face lift. If you have not already, check out the improvements here: http://pinchd.com.

So what is this post about? This post is dedicated to letting you know about our changes and sharing with you our reasoning. Also, we will share some funny stories that occurred on the way...

1. Facebook Event Integration:

Funny Story: For a little bit my facebook events were the only events being pulled. Also, Facebook Privacy got a huge blow...well this is not really funny for them...or for anyone. We take that back!
What Changed: Everything. Pinchd started integrating with Facebook Events in an effort to centralize your social calender. So what do we actually pull? As you know we really care about privacy. So as expected, Pinchd users (that hopefully means you) can only see Events on Pinchd that they can see on Facebook. This is explained in more depth in our Privacy Policy. In short, you can see anyone's public/open Facebook Events (because that is what you currently can do and see on Facebook). You can also see your own Facebook Events (i.e. if events are secret no one sees it that is not invited). Why did we do this? We wanted all of your social information in one place, make it easier for you to plan your social life. More importantly, we envision that a lot of ideas and plans will be created around Facebook Events (and eventually around Evite events and Eventbrite events etc). This is a little glimpse into our next steps :)
Things to Note: Unlike our competitors, we do not view a Facebook Event the same as a Pinchd idea or Pinchd plan. Our user-generated content can happen around a Facebook Event but is not considered the same to us...

2. New Idea Generator (we obviously don't have a name for this...)

Funny Story: After we pushed this "new" way to generate ideas (i.e.status) on Pinchd, the first idea created was titled "Do Drugs (with girls)." In addition, in order to show interest in an idea a user clicks "I'm Interested." Up until two hours ago, a user would click "I'm interested" and we would tell them they were "uninterested...". What does that even mean!
What Changed: We have tried to make the process of generating and sharing ideas easier. We took out the intense invitation process and made it as simple as a Facebook or Twitter status update. All you need to do is enter an idea into the status box and post. If you want, you can also tag people, select a date, add details and set privacy but those are not required. Also, note that your availability is tied more clearly to your status update. As you know the green dot, means I am down or open to ideas. When you select green the date for the status (i.e. where you generate ideas) automatically changes...so if you have any additional ideas you can populate them quickly! In any case the major change is that you can easily spit out (not literally...thank god) ideas.
Things to Note: We obviously thought of this entirely by ourselves...haha. That is just false. We had inspiration from other amazing social media tools along with really good input from our users. Shout out to Polly Brown,Sky McCarthy, Sognya Kesler, Nisha Vasavada, Arlen Kam, Nikita Vashi, Ravi Dev, Megan Zoback, Akhila Challa for helping us out with these changes! You all are Pinchd-savers (hahaha)

3. Email Digest

Funny Story: When you hear the word digest don't you think of something medical...well the Pinchd Email Digests has nothing to do with anything medical. Anyway back to the funny stories. While we were working on the email digest, one of our team members broke both of his/her computers and actually paid $30 to have his/her wireless fixed by the Geek Squad at Best Buy. This is something that Chris or Eric could have fixed in 28 second...maybe 29 seconds. Also equally humorous was when one of our team members realized that for the last four weeks their ex-significant other was getting an email digest of only them and their appropriate availability...remember this email is titled "I'm down." Pretty uncomfortable.
What Changed: Well the Pinchd Digest got a face-lift and not the type that Hiedi Montag is known for (yeah that picture is kind of terrible). The email digest used to include only who was down. But now we include information on what your contacts are doing along with a featured daily deal!
Things to be Noted: You are defaulted to receive these digests every Tuesday and Thursday but you can easily changed them on the settings page (https://pinchd.com/account/edit).

4. Improved Home Page

Funny Story: Nothing that funny about an improved home page...
What Changed: We basically made the homepage cleaner. It is now our "things to do" page. You can do two really simple tasks. Set your availability and add ideas about potential things to do. It is just that simple.
Things to be Noted: The homepage is still a work in progress (as is everything on the site) but keep your eye out for some additional changes in the next couple of days!

I would put some images of the improved Pinchd product...but you should check out the changes yourself! Make sure to allow Facebook permissions when you log-in. Remember we are only displaying your public Facebook Events (this is content already available on Facebook).

As always we would love your feedback.

xx

Pinchd

Pinchd Meets Trendy Lime (San Francisco)

2010-06-08T14:34:00.000-07:00

In our last post we announced that Pinchd was working on a group component! Currently this group feature is in private beta and we have only granted privileges to a few select organizations in San Francisco. These groups are the evangelists of Pinchd groups. Although we have received suggestions to make this component open to the public, we are limiting it to groups we have personally invited...for now! It is not our attempt to be exclusive...we just want to get the product right :) We don't want to follow this pattern bad product cycle!

So the purpose of this post is to announce our newest addition: Trendy Lime.

"Trendy Lime is a producer of upscale social and networking events. They are setting the standard in classy, exclusive events for Trend-Setters, Entrepreneurs, and Ambitious Professionals in prime venues of San Francisco. We are a social network comprised of global socialites"

If you are interested in Fashion and Travel check out and join their group on Pinchd here: Trendy Lime Group. Will get into what to expect and our purpose behind teaming up with them, but first there are a couple of perks for Pinchd/Trendy Lime users. I would have revealed this at the end, but knowing you...well and me...we would probably just scroll down and ignore the rest of the post!

Perk 1: If you join the Trendy Lime Group on Pinchd (make sure you are actually interested in Fashion and Travel) you enter a raffle to win a bottle of Veuve Cliquot at the JETLAG2 Event.
Perk 2: If you are a Pinchd user you can get 25% off tickets for the JETLAG2 Event! (just click the link)
Perk 3: If you attend the JETLAGE2 Event you will get an exclusive demo of Pinchd....which is obviously the coolest part.

So why are we working with Trendy Lime and what value are we hoping to provide:

Why? Trendy Lime throws the best events around fashion and travel in the city. Its members are social and some of the most chic and happening folks in town. We feel that providing them with a TL group on Pinchd would enable them to continue doing what they are doing (i.e. being fabulous)....much more easily. Also the founder (Liana) is awesome!

What do we bring to Trendy Lime? Our goal with the Trendy Lime group is to continue the "fabulousness" after a big party and in doing so making their community stronger. Like we mentioned in our previous post, this is what you can expect when you join the Trendy Lime group.

Interactive Social Calendar: All Trendy Lime Affiliated events will appear under the tab Group Events. All event supported by Trendy Lime will also appear there.
Share Ideas: Share or suggest ideas about other fashion and travel events, plans, ideas. Gauge interest from the TL community! Or share ideas about gatherings that you think Trendy Limers might be interested in.
Sync-up: See when others in Trendy Lime are down to go out and spark something informal (dinner, shisha etc.) OR tag them in an idea.
What's Happening: Know what other members of Trendy Lime are up to (a rockin party, a classy soire, a benefit etc.)!

So there you go..here are a few things that you can do once you join the group. So join and post ideas about fashion and travel (or other things social), connect with other Trendy Limers (outside of just formal events) and encourage your most chic friends to join the community!

xx

Pinchd

Pinchd Meets Girls in Tech

2010-05-10T18:12:00.000-07:00

We are happy to announce that we are working with Girls in Tech! If you want to join the GIT group on Pinchd, sign-up here: http://pinchd.com/girls-in-tech.

We are formally launching the partnership on May 20th, so come check out GIT and Pinchd at the Spring Fling event. Brief run down, GIT is a social network enterprise focused on the engagement, education and empowerment of like-minded, professional, intelligent and influential women in technology.

Although our group feature is exclusive, we have extended Pinchd groups to a few other organizations/groups in San Francisco (in addition to Girls in Tech)! Stay tuned to hear about those soon. If you are an organization or group email us at (info@pinchd.com) and we can add you to the waiting list.

So lets talk about what Pinchd can do for Girls in Tech (or any other organization or group). In essence we want to make your community stronger-that is our mission and we are sticking to it. From a high-level this is what your group can do:

Interactive Calendar: Members can stay up to date on all group affiliated activities. These activities can range from our monthly grant meetings, to a formal gala to an informal happy hour.
Platform to Share Ideas, Plans and Events: Members can be initiators! Pinchd allows members to suggest interesting (but not necessarily group affiliated) events, plans or ideas with other members. For example, if there is an interesting Tech event or a happy hour outing. Or if they want to get together more, they can spark something with the other members themselves
Easily Sync-up: With Pinchd it is easy to stay connected with your group's members outside of just formal events. If you want to get together with fellow members informally, Pinchd allows you to make it happen easily!
Coordination and Collaboration: Coming soon! You will be able to coordinate when people are free for a meeting, suggest/vote on a place to meet, take a poll on what time of food you want to order etc.

So here is the deal, if you are a GIT member you can sign-up now! With this said, you will not be approved to the group until May 15th. Check this baby out, http://pinchd.com/girls-in-tech.

Shout out to Adriana, Laura and Allison!

xx

Pinchd

Facebook Events = Pinchd Bliss

2010-05-05T17:32:00.000-07:00

May 1st was an interesting day.

Well, at least for anyone in the event space…so let me correct myself, May 1st was an interesting day for about ten to maybe eleven people (not including all of us at Pinchd). That is a grand total of like 15 people...yikes! Anyway, for those that have not heard Facebook unveiled an easier way to start events. Don’t worry if you have not heard about this, if anything it is validation that you are not a nerd…then again you are reading this blog (just kidding!)

Facebook announced two major changes: (1) members can now start events directly from status and (2) members can create events from the Event box on your homepage. We are very excited about these changes! We have always felt very strongly about the Facebook Events platform. We believe that this move is further validation that intention data or future-time data (in the general sense) is valuable. If you have more hip words for intention-data or future-time data please post it in the comments section, I feel like a 60 year old professor every time I use those terms. (image to the left...yes, we are aware its a monkey)

Not everyone has been as thrilled as we are. In fact, there has been quite a stir about how this move negatively effects smaller companies like Zaggle, PlanMixer, Plancast. There is an interesting post (Check it out here) that suggests this move by Facebook eliminates the need for services solely focused on broadcasting formal events or sharing Facebook social calendars. Not sure if this is true, as these smaller companies can become more high-touch, niched and agile. But that is not for us to decide, this decision is up to the users.

With that said, we are glad that Pinchd took the stance of focusing on informal plan MAKING as opposed to the formal plan BROADCASTING/SHARING. In our mind, this move by Facebook was bound to happen. If they believed in the value, the better event integration was simple and strategic. Not saying that we had this amazing foresight...we just solved a need we thought we really had which was not facebook events sharing or creation! We are happy they made this move, as it makes the need for Pinchd and our future integration with Facebook stronger.

So lets talk about what it means for Pinchd. As you know, we are everything before you create a concrete, formal event on Facebook. Just to review, we allow users to first see who is even available to hang. Second, you can easily just throw around ideas (does not need to be attached to a day, location, people etc.). It can be honestly as informal as you want it to be (i.e. you want to gauge you is interested in going sky-diving at some point in time throw out an idea). The full extent of this feature is not up yet...so get excited or just trust us ha. Third, we equip users with the tools to transform ideas into plans-things like polls, coordination tools, suggestions etc. OK, we will stop promoting ourselves and get back to the question☺. None of this can be done with Facebook Events as their structure/format is focused on broadcasting/sharing not on making, coordinating or collaborating. So we don't feel there is any real overlap, if anything this move by Facebook allows us to approach the needs we aim to solve better.

In the coming month we plan on leveraging Facebook and integrating events into Pinchd (in fact good'ole Chris Baclig (Chris's Pinchd Availability) is working on this right now. This integration will allow people to better set when they are free (i.e. if I have a formal event that I KNOW I am attending I can set my status to red without having to go between both the platforms). Second, having all my “going out stuff”-formal events, ideas, friends’ availability, informal plans- in one place is awesome! Yes, I recognize that the phrase “going out stuff” sounds like something a tween going through puberty would say. (look to the left for an image)

Third, formal events inform informal events. What do I mean by this? Well, I am not going to reveal much but imagine if you could form things around big events. If you get this, the concept is beautiful…dare I say drop dead gorgeous. Let's be honest, I did not get the concept until Amara and Eric and a handful of our users explained this to me (Amara Humphry Availability and Eric Ma Availability) but now that I get it...the possibilities! All of this integration/potential is what makes us so excited. If people are making more concrete events on Facebook it makes our product more valuable because now people can throw out ideas around formal stuff easier, set their future status with greater visibility into their social calendars, have needs for consolidated social calendars. This move opens up much more opportunity then just these things but you will have to stay tuned... yes I know we are being a little vague in this post-please forgive us.

Anyway, let us know if you agree with our stance and if you are also excited with Facebook’s new integration around Events. As always we would love to hear from you.

xx

Pinchd

Out with the Old and In with the New...Pinchd's Product Changes

2010-04-20T18:34:00.000-07:00

As the title of this post suggests, we changed more than just our name. If you are the independent explorer type (I don't know exactly who I am referring to here) you can check out most of our changes by simply visiting Pinchd. If you are the type that likes to know what you are getting into before you start poking around (yikes...that sounded extremely sexual!)...then this post is dedicated to you.

1. Looking Sexy: The New Homepage!
With a little inspiration from iGoogle, some feedback from the lovely Christina Brodbeck (Facebook) and some awesome advice from our users (both offline and online) we created the first version of our new homepage. (One quick note, our "friend" terminology is a little different than what you are used to. We follow the Twitter model, but with different words and more privacy. Basically, you add people to your contact list (this does not mean you are on their contact list). In short, you list people and can be listed.

Back to our new homepage. One thing to highlight is the profile panel. Here you can set/share your availability, your list and those that have listed you have are included and your upcoming ideas are displayed. Another cool feature is the "Add to Contact List" at the top. This notification allows you to quickly know what friends have listed you so you can add them to your list (well if you want to). The middle section provides a glimpse into the week both in regards to availability (i.e. status) and your contact list's (i.e. friends) ideas. You can see who is free four days in advance. Finally we have the suggestions on the right. This includes information like "best night to go out" or HomeRun deals (we are experimenting with them right now, check them out here: http://homerun.com).

If you need help navigating around the homepage, click the help link in the top right button and the following screen (left) will pop up and help you find your way.

2. Pinchd in your mail: Email Digest

So lets say you don't have time to check Pinchd, but you still want to quickly know who is down to go out today. You can sign up for our daily email digest (well everyone is defaulted to receiving our daily emails...but don't worry you can unsubscribe to them). You can change your email digest settings, by clicking settings and adjusting when you recieve them.

Left, is an example of the actual email digest. This is where it is useful to have friends on Pinchd (remember we call them contacts). This way you do not have to text everyone you know, to figure out when they are down to hangout. Case and Point. I have a lot of people I wish I saw more often, but it is just a hassle to keep up and know what they are all doing. Luckily, I convinced a huge majority of them to use Pinchd. It is awesome because now I don't have to text a million people. I can just know who is down to go out, when I am!

3. Down, Down, Down!: The Who's Down Page

So if you can't figure out from the dashboard who is free or just have too many friends, go to our new "Who's Down" Page. Here you can see when all your contacts are free...you can also have favorites! Notice the "Got an Idea" button and the "Ask for Ideas" button. I don't know about you, but I am the type of person that never has any ideas...this is why I love the Ask for Ideas feature. This way I can just start talking about stuff, without setting anything in stone.

4. What Details?: Idea Tool

So we also changed how members can have conversations. Basically we made them a lot more light weight. It is easy to invite people and have a basic conversation about things to do without feeling the pressure of committing. With this said, if you want to add details, finalize plans, take a poll or coordinate when to go out you can add tools from the right panel. Some of these features are still in progress...so bare with us if they are not all functioning!

Alright those are most of the changes and tests! More than likely some of this stuff may not (code for will crash) work...please be patient with us while we fix things.

xx

Pinchd

Pinchd: Go Tribal Changes Name

2010-04-19T16:20:00.000-07:00

Hello Pinchd, Goodbye Go Tribal!

We are excited to announce that we are officially changing our name from Go Tribal to Pinchd. Although Go Tribal is very dear to our hearts, we wanted to move forward with a more fun, fresh and quirky vibe. In addition to our name change we also unveiling some new product improvements, including a new homepage and daily email digest. Note: Your personal information along with our site has been securely transferred from gotribal.com to pinchd.com. Our service and value as cited in our recent media launch has remained the same (http://pinchd.com/in-the-news)

So many of you are probably asking yourself how and why we picked a new name. Some of you probably don't care and are thinking about lunch, dinner or even your late night snack. Regardless, we have decided to share our process, methodology and reasoning for changing names. Maybe it will even help you choose a name for your own company, product or kid? (under no circumstances should you name your children Pinchd...ever)

Anyways, when we picked Go Tribal it really was an off shoot of our company name Tribal Atmosphere. One reason it stuck was because our loyal users used "Go Tribal" as slang for "lets party." This was awesome but also restricting. Our name and vibe seemed restricted to nightlife and partying. Although we love to party and feel our service aids people in their partying needs, it is not limited to nightlife. Informal events and more broadly intention data can range from a game of pick-up soccer to drinks at a swanky club. The opportunity we were ceasing was and is much larger than the horizons of the Go Tribal name. This is one reason... there are many others. We have decided to spare you the details. We just no longer felt that Go Tribal fit our direction. It just did not feel light, playful or fresh! It was time to lay Go Tribal to rest. RIP Go Tribal.

Our Process: Picking Pinchd!

This time we tried to do things right. Pinchd was a name we were all passionate about AND it made good business sense. Yes, Pinchd makes sense....enter the IGOR Naming Guide. We are not sure if this is reputable resource, we used it anyway...and we found it useful.

When we started the process of re-naming Go Tribal, it was imperative to know our goal. We all agreed that our ultimate goal was to elicit a feeling. The emotion we wanted to elicit was a combination of fun, quirky and light. Although we had other goals, this was our driving force.

Each founder then independently created a word web of all the names that fit this goal. During this time, some of lost sight of our goal (haha). Here are some that did not achieve our goal and hence did not make the first cut: LoneRanger (courteousy of Amara Humphry ha), Pencilin (looks pretty close to Penicillin), Seewhosdownnow (could we be more literal), and GoTribala (this was a new low...even for us).

From this list (each of us came up 150 potential names meaning a list of 600), we all narrowed our individual list to about 15. If you are as terrible as I am at simple computation, we are at 60 names. How does one decide a name from 60? Our initial instinct was to take a survey and ask all of our friends. We tried this and failed. This approach resulted in the most vanilla name. Plus, everyone had an opinion none of them relating to our service or product. One of our friends actually rejected a name because it reminded her of a boyfriend she had from middle school. This is where IGOR saved the day.

IGOR suggested that in order to assess the streghtn of a name we would have to be as objective as possible. They broke down everything so we could easily rank names. We judged names on Appearance, Distinctiveness, Depth, Energy, Humanity, Posistioning, Sound, X-Factor and Trademark Availbility. This is one of our filled our rubrics (note that we associated Pumpd with the Jersey Shore)

This may look intense but to be honest it made picking a name fun. Appearance, allowed us to pick a name that looked aesthetically pleasing. Distinctive forced us to ask, "are we different from our competition? is being different important?" Depth was how layered the word was (i.e. could we have multiple tag lines, or different interpretations?) Energy was how it made you feel (i.e. did it have a punch?) Humanity helped us realize if the name sounded robotic (i.e. would this be a good nick name?). Names like "letshangout" were not human at all. Positioning forced us to discover how it related to our value proposition and mission. Sound forced us to ask if the name could travel without explanation, whether it was word of mouth discovery or on the radio. 33 was the X factor. Finally we had to check if it was an open trademark. To be honest, checking TESS eliminated a lot of names.

The IGOR process, helped is narrow our selection to around ten names that we loved and felt "fuquiright" (combination of fun, quirky and light). We immediately compared them to other products in the social media space (not just our direct competition). This is what we came up with.

This execercise, helped us narrow our choice down to three: Pinchd, Tossup and Iffy. This is when our heart spoke to us....and our heart wanted to get Pinchd! We then went a little crazy and started designing logos. I will not discuss how we picked our logo (at least during this post). In any case, here were some of our preliminary ideas...

The Good Stuff: How did Pinchd Score? Why did we ultimately choose it?

Pinchd had great positioning yet was not as literal as our competition (who generally are very techy Silicon Valley folk...we still love them). Our mission has always been to facilitate real-world interaction. The physical act of pinching or the fact that you could not engage in the action unless you were physically with someone was powerful. Moreover, Pinchd could be easily interpreted as "pinched for time" or "pinched for cash" all needs we were attempting to solve. With this said, its meaning was not that literal. We might get some criticism for not picking a literal name, and understand the risk of early start-ups picking potentially evocative/experimental. Unfortunately, we like a challenge. No but seriously, unless our name was "seefriendsagain" or "informalplans" it was pointless. This also played into distinctiveness if you look at our competition they use the word "PLAN" in many of their names. Unfortunately for them, this very word (plan) makes people think the service is formal (9 months of customer discovery revealed... plans = formal event). Moreover, many of our competitors names "Planmaker" or "Plancast" seemed not "fuquiright" to us (remember fun, light and quirky). We understand why those names make sense for them, it just did not make sense for us. We also scored well on depth, sound, energy and of course the X-factor. We struggled a little bit with appearance, but than again you make a name hott (my last boyfriend was named Estifante...and he was a beautiful man).

So this is our story! Hope you love the name as much as we do.

xx

Pinchd