What do you do if you\u2019re an event discovery startup and suddenly it\u2019s illegal to attend events? You lean into the cultural shift and pivot. Today, $11 million-funded calendar app IRL is morphing from In Real Life to In Remote Life. It will now focus on helping people find, RSVP for, plan, share and chat about virtual events, from live-streamed concerts to esports tournaments to Zoom cocktail parties.<\/p>\n
Coronavirus could make IRL<\/a> relevant to a wider audience because before an event \u201conly mattered if it was around you. But now with In Remote Life, content has no geographical limitations,\u201d says IRL co-founder and CEO Abe Shafi. \u201cThe need is exponentially greater because everyone\u2019s routines have been shattered.\u201d IRL ranked No. 138 in the U.S. App Store today, making it the top calendar app, even above Google\u2019s (No. 168).<\/p>\n<\/p>\n IRL has some fresh product development talent to lead it through the transition. The startup has hired stock trading app Robinhood\u2019s <\/a> VP of Product Josh Elman <\/a>. The former Greylock investor is well known for his product chops from jobs at Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn. Elman joined Robinhood in early 2018 but left late last year, notably before its rash of recent outages<\/a> that enraged users.<\/p>\n \u201cI just realized more than anything that the company needed people who had 110% to give, and it wasn\u2019t clear that was going to be me,\u201d Elman said of Robinhood, now valued at $7.6 billion and struggling to scale. \u201cMy first passions and all the things I\u2019ve talked about over the years have been social and media.\u201d<\/p>\n For now, IRL is a part-time gig, where he\u2019ll be heading up a Secret Projects division. While most apps \u201ctry to suck more of our time,\u201d he sees IRL as a chance to give this precious resource back to people. Though he insists \u201cRobinhood\u2019s great, I\u2019m a very happy shareholder.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWe were on a tear, hitting a stride with usaging and growth related to real life events,\u201d says Shafi. \u201cThen this happened,\u201d motioning on our Zoom call to the COVID-19 reality we\u2019re now stuck in. \u201cWe realized we had to pull all of our content because it wasn\u2019t happening.\u201d<\/p>\n Today IRL\u2019s iOS app<\/a> launches a redesign of its Discover home screen content to center on virtual events people can attend from home. There\u2019s now tabs for gaming, podcasts, TV and EDU, as well as music, food, lifestyle and a catch-all \u201cfun\u201d section. Each event can be added to your calendar that syncs with Google Cal, or Liked to add it to your profile that friends and fans can follow. You also can instantly launch a group chat about the event in IRL, or share it to Instagram Stories or another messaging app.<\/p>\n If you can\u2019t find something public to do, you can make plans with friends using the composer with suggestions like \u201cLet\u2019s video chat,\u201d \u201cZoom workout,\u201d \u201cgaming sesh\u201d or \u201cNetflix party.\u201d That instantly sets up a calendar event you can invite people to. And if you\u2019re not sure when you want to host, IRL\u2019s \u201cSoon\u201d option lets you keep the schedule vague so you and friends can figure out when everyone\u2019s available. Indeed, 50% of IRL plans start out as \u201cSoon,\u201d Shafi reveals, identifying a gap in rigid time\/date calendars.<\/p>\n Beyond individual events, IRL also wants to make it easier to develop habits by letting you subscribe to workout, meditation and other schedules. With sports seasons suspended, IRL lets people sync with calendars of hip-hop album releases and more instead. Or you can subscribe to an influencer\u2019s life and digitally accompany them to events. The goal is that IRL will be able to merge offline events back into its content recommendations as social distancing subsides.<\/p>\n The biggest challenge for IRL will be tuning its event recommendation algorithm. It has lost a lot of the traditional relevance signals about events, like how close they are to your home, how much they cost or if they\u2019re even in your city. Transitioning to In Remote Life means a global range of happenings is now available to everyone, and because they\u2019re often free to host, many lonely low-quality events have sprung up. That makes it much tougher for IRL to determine what to show.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n For now, it\u2019s basing recommendations on what you engage with most on its home screen, but I found that can make the initial experience very hit-or-miss. The top events in each category were rarely exciting. But IRL is planning to beef up its onboarding process to ask about your interests, and integrate with Spotify so it knows which musicians\u2019 online concerts you\u2019d want to attend.<\/p>\n Still, Shafi thinks IRL is already better than asocial alternatives. \u201cOur main age range is 13 to 25, college and post-college metropolitan areas and across college campuses. Our average user has never used a calendar before, or they\u2019ve just used a default calendar like Gcal or iCal.<\/p>\n Hopefully, IRL will take a more serious swing at helping friends realize they\u2019re free at the same time and can hang out. While Down To Lunch failed in this space, now Facebook Messenger and Instagram are exploring it with their auto-status feature<\/a>, and location apps like Snap Map and Zenly could adapt to share not just where you are, but if you have the intention to hang out.<\/p>\n \u201cHow can we use just a little bit of nudging, transparency or suggestion to get people to just do one more thing per month?,\u201d Shafi asks. IRL is trying to figure out how to let you passively share that \u201cI have 2 hours free\u201d in a way that \u201cnever makes you feel rejected if they don\u2019t respond.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p>\n Facebook did launch a standalone Events calendar app back in 2016, but later paired down the calendaring features, folded it in with restaurant recommendations and renamed it Local. \u201cAs big as Facebook is, it can only do so many things insanely well,\u201d Elman says of his old employer. \u201cThey could do more [on Events], but it\u2019s never been the juggernaut like photos.\u201d<\/p>\n Shafi is happy to have the opportunity in such a foundational space. He describes the concept of the calendar as one he\u2019s sure will outlive him, so it\u2019s worth the effort to make it social no matter how long it takes \u2014 though I\u2019m sure his investors like Goodwater Capital, Founders Fund, Kleiner Perkins and Floodgate hope it\u2019ll find a way to monetize eventually.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n Revenue could come in the form of selling access to events through the app, or letting promoters and local businesses pay for enhanced discovery. For now, though, IRL is building a deeper connection with event and content publishers with the upcoming launch of its free Add To Calendar button they can build into their sites and emails. Elman says several services charge for these buttons that integrate with Apple and Google\u2019s calendars, but IRL hopes giving them away will help fill its app with things to do, whatever that might be.<\/p>\n \u201cOur tagline is \u2018live your best life.\u2019 It\u2019s not judgmental. If your best life is playing video games on your couch with your homies, we don\u2019t judge you for that.\u201d<\/p>\nRobinhood\u2019s Josh Elman joins IRL<\/h2>\n
Events without borders<\/h2>\n
A cure for loneliness<\/h2>\n