From Fine Art to the App Store

Just a short while ago, I was a Fine Art graduate slowly coming to realisation that conceptual art & me is not a good match. Back then, looking for a ‘real’ job, I accidentally stumbled across Songkick and got to be one of the lucky ones to become their intern. Starting out as a Data Warrior (don’t ask), after just a few months I progressed to full-time project assistant role working with the hiring team. The office was smack dab in the middle of Silicon Roundabout, where the start-up scene is buzzing (and before Songkick, I didn’t even know it existed).

I left Songkick to study full-time for my MSc at the Imperial College Business School last September – and what an intense year that was (anyone studying at Imperial is familiar with the pace)! Not wanting to lose touch with the incredible start-up rootsI had planted, I led ICBS Innovation & Design club and sat on a committee of Entrepreneurs Interactive. Together, we arranged for loads of famous as well as up-and-coming start-ups to come and speak at Imperial.

Then, nearly as serendipitous as the YPlan app itself, I became an alpha tester for what looked to be the best last minute ticketing app on the horizon. As I met one of the co-founders, Rytis Vitkauskas, for the first time during an early UX walk-through, I was enthralled not only by what they were trying to do – provide tickets for same night entertainment – but also by a really slick app design and awesome user journey (I’ve seen a few alpha versions of other apps before and could only wish that any of them were as finished as YPlan’s one was). Even though I didn’t pursue the artist path eventually, I do have an eye for beautiful design. Alpha finished in about a month and I found myself crushed that I couldn’t access the app every morning as per my new ritual.

The other co-founder, Viktoras Jucikas, re-contacted me mid-summer announcing that they were taking off and on the hunt for interns. I found myself more than just interested and started as a part-timer (as I was still working on my final paper at this point), and following my last exam, got a full-time job offer (and couldn’t be more excited). I’ve been with YPlan from the very first day (I mean the very first – where we actually got keys to our brand new office – at that time, a shared office space at TechHub). As the concept began to pick up steam, we quickly outgrew our offices moving to a much more suitable space in King’s Cross. From 6 people on the very first day to 15-full time and 2 freelancers in just a few months, not to mention a phenomenal launch with impressive press mentions (Wall Street Journal, Wired, Guardian, Gigaom, The Mail, Shortlist, and #1 New And Noteworthy as chosen by Apple, just to name a few), I’d say it’s been some pretty awesome growth for a brand new start-up! We’ve just announced seed round investment of $1.7m, our user base is growing, the events are being booked, and YPlan is standing next to other mobile commerce apps such as Hailo, Uber, Hotel Tonight, Airbnb and the likes. As smartphone users are growing (currently making up 50% of total mobile subscribers in the UK and nearing that in West Europe and the US), the time couldn’t be better for the mobile commerce apps to start taking over the world.

To give you a bit of a background of YPlan – it’s the world’s first mobile-only ticket booking app that makes going out tonight easier than it ever was. Londoners can get inspired, pay in two taps, and go on the same night. UK ticketed entertainment is a $5bn industry, utilised only at 50%, and currently only 2% of events are completely sold out, so YPlan solves a problem for venues and promoters. It also allows Londoners to be more spontaneous and book awesome stuff from a carefully curated list of events (think chess boxing, rickshaw racing, rooftop cinemas, art exhibition openings, ping-pong tournaments, cabaret, comedy, brewery tours, etc.) in some of the best venues you never knew about. The simplistic design makes the experience a breeze and no need to print out tickets, just show the in-app-ticket on the door (oh, and it works with Apple’s Passbook, too). Our team is awesome & has unrivalled experience from places like Time Out, Toptable, GetTaxi, Airbnb, lasminute.com, Goldman Sachs, and more… and I think I’m really lucky to be among them.

Now, if you’re interested in start-ups and follow their game, you’d say – what do you need all those people for (and how can you afford that)? Where’s all that lean start-up approach everyone’s talking about? Well, YPlan’s founders Rytis Vitkauskas (28, HBS graduate and former VC) and Viktoras Jucikas (31, former Executive Director at Goldman Sachs) were taking up a very lean approach while they were in ideation phase. In fact, you might have met Rytis already, and heard him talking about his journey into YPlan – in the past few months, well before the launch, he was invited to speak at Imperial College a number of times – as a keynote speaker of ICBS Entrepreneurs Club, leading the very first workshop (topic: ideation, how you can structure it, and how YPlan was the idea 51) at ICStartup (you can read the full article here: http://www.icstartup.com/news/what-did-we-get-first-workshop/), and also participating at Silicon Valley comes to Imperial, where he was on a panel to ‘An Insider’s Insight: Day 1 to Scale.’ Quite a few Imperial students were among a small community of early YPlan users who got access well before the launch and were trialling out the app while the YPlan team was fine-tuning.

Thing is, after graduating from my course, not many people got to start their own businesses or were able to start working at such an early stage start-up getting to see how things really happen. I remember sitting in IP (Intellectual Property) class thinking it was the most boring thing in the world – guess what one of my first tasks was at YPlan? Filing a trademark! And I got pretty excited about it, too.

The moral of the story is, a few years ago I was a Fine Arts graduate plagued with worry on how I was actually going to make it as an artist. A chain of very odd and fortuitous events led me to work at Songkick, then study at Imperial, and finally be one of the early members of YPlan team, and so I got fully immersed in the exciting start-up experience. I’ve learned that as long as you’re not afraid to delve into the unknown and take challenges head on, start-up life is really the place to be.