I want the latest iPhone. I want to slim down. I want to fall in love. I want to catch up with my best buddy.
10 dollars say most of us have had these wants, along with many other things we desire to do day in and day out. However, how many of us actually do or did something about it? Normally, we tend to put them aside and get back to our daily routine of work and study.
A team of three entrepreneurs from the Singapore Management University (SMU) decided to build an app that helps people post these random outbursts of desires, in hopes to trigger people to come together and co-enjoy them.
The mobile app, called FlashWants allows users to post his wants via an image. Fellow FlashWants users who want it too can respond to these posts with comments and suggestions. Users can also discover other wants by exploring the categories on the side menu.
Although the iOS app has been launched only recently, there have been successful stories from happy FlashWants users. FlashWants cofounder Eve Law told Vulcan Post that there was a user who received a surprise McDonald’s breakfast from an acquaintance, and returned the favour by buying him another meal. There were also cases where friends were meeting up for spontaneous supper dates and even acquaintances meeting up for karaoke sessions.
“Users love FlashWants, because posting their wants help them to receive suggestions and encouragements from friends. At times, it also helps them to find a partner-in-crime to go out there to satisfy their wants together,” said Eve.
The team behind it and how it all started
FlashWants is founded by SMU current undergraduate Xiang Rui, along with Scott and Eve whom graduated mid 2013. The three of them were best friends and all of them came from families with entrepreneurial backgrounds. Since young, they’ve seen their parents working hard for their own businesses.
We wanted to build something that benefits people and work on something that we are really passionate about. When we are together, we are always talking about crazy ideas and one day we decided to make our crazy idea happen. That was the birth of FlashWants.
The trio managed to attract multiple successful mentors to help guide them along their journey. Four, to be exact, and all of them advices the young team on different aspects of the business. Dr Virginia Cha (Angel investor and entrepreneurship educator in Singapore) gives us directional advices, Parin Mehta (Strategic Partnerships Lead in Google Southeast Asia) gives us business development advices, Miles Gilman (Managing Director at A2 Bioscience) gives us pitching advices and Jon Yongfook Cockle (director at BeatrixApp) gives us marketing and UX advices, Eve told Vulcan Post.
Will FlashWants work?
When asked about the number of users currently onboard the app, FlashWants declined to reveal the number. However, the team did share with Vulcan Post that they have been blogging about things that people might want from time to time, and these blogposts help to inspire and attract new users. Currently, they are are looking into collaborations with brands to co-promote FlashWants in their marketing campaigns.
“What is also in the pipeline is to keep our users updated with weekly newsletters on their posts and other popular posts from their friends to nudge them towards making them happen. Moving forward, the direction is to focus on helping our users takes small steps to achieve what they want. We will be providing users with relevant content around the web. These could be relevant recipes for people who want to cook; it could be a discount coupon related to their wants; it could be a geo-location reminder. Things that bring them a step closer.”
FlashWants is not about getting people to ‘like’ things from a catalogue, it’s about expressing the things that you want from within, telling your friends and making them happen.
So, do you have any wants you want to shout out?
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