Businesses exist to fulfill the needs of their customers. Essentially, they find out what someone wants and then they give it to them. Whether a business provides life-saving health care services or supplies someone with their daily morning cup of coffee, they're giving the customers what they need that they can't always fulfill for themselves.
Take, for example, the need to relieve boredom. Boredom may not be a thrill to endure, but it's an incredible driver of business, especially in 2021. A year of sitting at home with nothing but a cell phone and Netflix has made many people desperate for a way to relieve the boredom with fun new experiences. The good news is that there are dozens of fun in-person experiences run by local businesses just waiting to be discovered. The bad news, however, is that most of these fun experiences are hidden among the rubble on the internet. While supply and demand may be in sync, it doesn't do either party any good when the customer doesn't know the service exists in the first place. 66% of people say that they have difficulty finding and selecting the right experience. There has never been a platform built specifically for local businesses that offer fun experiences—until now.
Alohub is a platform that lists fun experiences run by local businesses for all occasions. Whether someone is looking to do an escape room with friends, go kayaking for a one-of-a-kind first date, or go GoKarting with a group of new faces, Alohub can make it happen. It's like Netflix for in-person experiences, consolidating fun experiences into one app and giving businesses a direct line to their most viable customers.
Alohub was founded by tech entrepreneurs James Pratama and Leo Liu. Searching for something fun to do, these two friends stumbled across a pottery painting class at The Clayroom in Boston. They found the class to be a real diamond in the rough, but it puzzled them at how difficult it had been to find the class despite them having lived in the Boston area for five years. After speaking with the owner of the store, they realized that there was a gap in the market. It wasn't just The Clayroom that offered fun experiences—there were experiences in the arts, rock climbing, escape rooms, dance, and even trampoline parks that were hiding in plain sight.
The problem is that none of these businesses had a platform built for them. Other platforms like Yelp or Groupon allow them to list their service, but it doesn't provide them with tangible value in exchange for what they charge for clicks. Any business owner worth their salt understands the importance of knowing exactly what they're getting for what they pay.
Alohub fills this gap in the market, connecting businesses that offer fun experiences with the customers who are most in need. The next time someone wants to put down their phone and find something fun to do with their friends, they can open up Alohub and instantly browse through between 50-100 experiences nearby. They can then make reservations through the app itself, eliminating the hassle of switching sites and making it easier for both parties.
According to the founders, one of the greatest virtues of Alohub is the way that these experiences can become a great intermediary for new people to meet each other. If a user is interested in playing laser tag but reluctant to go alone, they can join a social time slot to attend with new people they've never met before. This feature works similar to Uberpool, allowing people to make new friends in a safe and fun environment. This then allows a salsa class at the local dance studio to become the beginning of a new friendship between strangers.
Since Alohub launched in February, the platform has worked with over 30 businesses in Boston. Pratama and Liu have plans to scale Alohub in Boston by working with even more businesses, eventually expanding in key cities as they establish the foundation to operate throughout the country. For businesses looking for a way to attract new customers to their in-person experiences, Alohub is the key to standing out from the crowd.
