The Very First Voux
Dear Voux Peeps,
I am happy to be writing this blog and share with you a little bit of information on how we use Voux. Every so often, the Voux team will feature a new post, so I hope that you will like reading and will have your own experiences to share.
I have played basketball since I was in grade school and I remember the days when my best friend and I would play from sun up to sun down during the Summer. I love the game so much that for over a decade, I traveled to downtown Manhattan (shout out to Battery Park City) all the way from Brooklyn to play pickup basketball along with some of my buddies throughout the NY and NJ area. That’s over two hours of trek back and forth a few times a week. On most days, there was “good competition” but there were other days when there were not enough players on the court and we didn't find that out until we got there, after traveling over an hour and having spent our hard-earned allowance (shout out to the kids still feeling me on this) on subways and buses.
I moved to Manhattan later on in life, at one point closer to the court I played for years and a funny thing happened: I started to get flooded with text messages from my buddies asking me for the status on the court all the time—was it wet, was it dry, are people out there, what time am I playing??? I knew then that I wanted to solve this issue (if not just to manage being under my 200 text per month plan) but it was not until last year did it all come together. I want something where people can coordinate when they plan to go to their shared activities, and be able to make that "game time" decision whether to show up to a spot or not based on who are currently checked in to the spot, or what is currently happening in the spot. I want our app to be able to support my daily and weekly activities too, because I have Sunday indoor basketball during the Winter that is being coordinated through group texts (by this time you'll be happy to know that I have a lot more than 200 texts in my plan...but it's just not cool to get text-spammed by 15 people saying 'in' or 'out' or 'next week' while I'm in the middle of watching Deadpool in the theater). When I’m traveling, I always wonder where the courts are in these places, so I want people to be able to share some of these cool places to the public. I also want to be able to support one-time events for those occasions when you’re meeting up with your family and friends and you want a way to coordinate the time to get there and find out who are already there and who are on their way (think that big Thanksgiving dinner). So, with all of those wants Voux is born! The lifestyle app for activities and events that allows you to create private and public hot spots for the places and favorite hangouts that you share with your peeps, so that you can coordinate your activities and events effectively and efficiently.
For the last few months while Voux was in testing, we have used Voux not only to coordinate playing basketball, but a whole bunch of other cool things. I have used it for every weekly meeting with my Voux team, and it took the hassle out of figuring out whether someone is already at the meeting area or not. We’ve also organized and coordinated a few birthdays and meetups using the app, including meeting up for movies, as ordinary as that may sound. I’ve followed my buddies on their vacations using Voux and loved every minute of virtually experiencing the places that they’ve gone to through their pictures, shared locations, and posts. My buddies have used it to recommend places to go to when I went on vacation to California this past year, and I have done the same in recommending cool places to them in Miami. I love going to places that my friends recommend, because it’s more personalized than your typical crowd-sourced five star rating. I’ve traveled abroad with it and my wife was able to find out when to call me based on when I got automatically checked in to my hotel. My wife created spots for our daughter’s weekly dancing and swimming classes where she shares with our relatives pictures of her doing these activities. I’ve used it to make sure my wife and daughter get to their activities safely for those times that I’m not able to go with them. These are just a few of my experiences, my buddies have their own and I believe you will too. So from solving my basketball problem, I’ve ended up with an app that changes the way I plan my daily life in surprising and amazing ways. I know that you’ve encountered the same situations that I’ve had, so we want to share Voux with you and we can create a Vouxniverse and live #thevouxlife!
--Fred