It’s a Saturday (or Wednesday, Thursday or Friday) in Auburn and you want to go out tonight. You instantly type in your go-to group message the same question we’ve all asked a million times: “Who is going out?”
Time goes by, and maybe you’ve solidified your plans, but it probably took about 20 texts for all your friends to arrive at a decision.
Thanks to Wigo, the cutting-edge “Who Is Going Out” app for college students, this hassle is about to be a thing of the past (you’re welcome!). We chatted with Ben Kaplan, the CEO of Wigo, to get the inside scoop.
Wigo CTO, Guiliano Giacaglia (L) & Wigo CEO, Ben Kaplan (R)
Ben, who had no experience in creating or programming apps, came up with the idea for Wigo during his freshman year at Holy Cross. “I basically wanted a simpler way to, you know, get my sh*t together with my friends,” he said, “I designed exactly, like with a pencil and a piece of paper, what I wanted it to look like and I got [other people] to program it.”
He was clearly onto something with that initial paper drawing, since today, students at over 1,100 campuses have downloaded the app already. Although Ben is from Vermont and went to school in Massachusetts, his app reaches campuses all over the map because of its mass appeal.”We’re doing something with social planning that no one else is really doing,” he said.
When you download Wigo (it’s free!) you’ll notice four tabs at the bottom: Who, Where, Chats and Notifications. While each category serves its purpose, Ben’s favorite is the “Where.”
“You wanna know, like, where your friends or maybe crushes or friends of friends are going to be when you’re deciding [where you want to go],” he said, “I also think Chats is pretty important because plans change so quickly in college, and you want to reach out to someone and maybe you don’t have their cell phone number or you want to [contact them] in more of a collaborative atmosphere.”
Within the next few weeks or so, Ben plans to release a new version of the app with more of a simple design and less tabs (just in time for spring semester!). Long-term, he hopes to add additional features, including one that he compares to a more event-centered Snapchat My Story.
“Imagine like 200 people are going to an event […], anyone who’s going to the event can post photos [of it],” he said, “And then the next morning, instead of everything being gone, you can kind of watch the highlight reel. You can vote [on the pictures] and the best stuff will stay and the sh*ttiest stuff will disappear and go away.”
Although Ben’s company is growing like crazy, and was recently backed by Tinder, kayak.com and Rue La La to name a few, he keeps a humble attitude.
“I don’t want it to sound like I’m just some guy with a company, cause I was a college kid, too,” Ben said.
Photos courtesy of Wigo Public Relations.