Stanford get together apps hit the scene

A yr after “Stanford Hates Enjoyable” swept campus, bringing the suspension of the Tree and the election of the present ASSU executives on a enjoyable oriented platform in its wake, the motion to foster a freer and extra energetic campus tradition has impressed Stanford’s newest spherical of startups: get together apps. 

Two apps — Wristband and Mixer — are every searching for to change into college students’ go-to platform to find occasions occurring throughout campus and RSVP. Each apps started advertising and marketing their providers to college students this quarter. 

Up to now, each apps have very comparable performance. Wristband and Mixer each promote upcoming events and conferences on their app, whereas additionally permitting their customers to maintain observe of occasions they’ve registered for. Each apps additionally enable organizations and people to register their occasions on the positioning, in addition to restrict who receives entry to their occasion. When opening the app, the most important perceived distinction between the 2 apps could also be their differing coloration schemes. 

“Final yr, we actually had a wrestle discovering occasions on campus,” stated Ameya Jadhav ’26, the co-founder of Mixer. Tristan Ketterer ’22, the co-founder of Wristband, echoed the sensation, “There simply didn’t exist a simple place for folks to be taught that info and work out what to do,” Ketterer stated.

The principle distinction between the apps lies of their introductions to campus.

Just lately, Wristband marketed occasions reminiscent of Kappa Sigma’s Eurotrash, Sigma Phi Epsilon’s White Lies and ASHA’s annual garba. Mixer publicized quite a lot of smaller occasions, performances and socials, like a screening of “Friday the thirteenth” on Oct. 13 and Stanford Live performance Community’s “Welcome Again Present” the day after.

Regardless of this obvious slight distinction within the startups’ audiences, many occasions are cross-listed between the 2 platforms. As of the time of publication, 10 out of the 14 occasions publicly marketed on Wristband had been equivalent to 10 of the 27 occasions at present marketed on Mixer. 

Whereas Ketterer says he plans to ultimately department out past Greek life occasions, Wristband marketed its product to fraternities from the get-go, providing app modifications and financial compensation for fraternities to make use of the apps, Ketterer stated. Ketterer declined to touch upon how a lot cash every fraternity acquired. 

“We realized that a big a part of Stanford’s social life was centered round Greek life,” Ketterer stated. “We approached fraternities fairly early on about working collectively and creating options for them to ensure that them to place their occasions on there.”

In the meantime, Mixer is at present within the course of of selling aggressively in the direction of non-Greek affiliated college students and scholar organizations. “I feel the toughest half is definitely getting adoption,” Jadhav stated. He believes that Mixer’s broad concentrate on all kinds of occasions together with group conferences, performances and cultural occasions will be capable to entice a wide-range of scholars to make use of the platform. 

“Mixer reached out to us,” stated ASSU co-chair of social life and inclusivity Emily Deng ’25. “I haven’t heard of Wristband.”

The Mixer group has plans to quickly start offering perks to teams who promote solely on the platform. “They are going to give out reward playing cards to random folks at our occasion or merch if that particular person is on Mixer,” stated Anusha Dwarkanath ’26, president of Stanford Noopur. Jadhav confirmed this, saying that the deliberate promotion might be “only a quick time period commercial plan … to get [more] college students on Mixer.”

In accordance with Dwarkanath, utilizing Mixer is straightforward and easy in comparison with electronic mail lists of different types of commercial. However she stated that when promoting for her group, “it’s all about the place the persons are.”

Wristband additionally entered some early controversy round its dealing with of Eurotrash, the primary frat get together of the yr and an annual custom at Stanford. Previous to the occasion, Ketterer designed flyers urging folks to “get your wristband” for Eurotrash. Many frosh felt that this poster misled them, making them imagine a wristband was required to enter the get together, even though Eurotrash was an all-campus occasion. 

In response, Ketterer posted an apology on Fizz utilizing a screenshot from his Notes app. On this submit, he apologized for the scenario and warranted customers the slip-up was not intentional, displaying regret that his actions prompted “main confusion.”

“I stand by what I stated,” Ketterer stated. “It was not my intention in any capability to mislead folks, however I acknowledge that’s what occurred, and I’m actually sorry about that.”

Mixer, although at present free from controversy, could also be dropping the warfare of consumer adoption. As of now, Wristband has round 1500 customers on the app, Ketterer stated. In accordance with Jadhav, Mixer has 310 energetic customers. 

“With any platform that’s about congregating occasion info and getting occasion hosters to wish to submit that occasion info on there, you want folks,” Ketterer stated. “However folks solely wish to be on a platform like this if there are occasion posters.”

Nonetheless, each apps fall wanting the widespread attain of “The Playing cards,” the ASSU’s weekly electronic mail blasts asserting campus occasions and alternatives on the undergraduate-wide mailing listing, ostensibly reaching the over 7700 undergraduate college students. In contrast to each apps, “The Playing cards” promote solely all-campus occasions, reminiscent of events, sporting occasions and neighborhood socials. Moreover, organizations don’t all the time should register their occasions themselves. In some instances, Deng and her co-chair, Annie Reller ’24 simply ask organizers to approve the itemizing.

“Everybody checks their electronic mail, as a result of we sort of should test our electronic mail,” Deng stated. “It’s good that as a part of ASSU we’ve entry to the complete undergrad mailing listing.” 

Jadhav and Ketterer each appeared unperturbed by the competing merchandise. “All competitors is wholesome. We love that there are different folks attempting to resolve this drawback,” Jadhav stated. 

Most college students interviewed, nevertheless, agreed that one centralized app for occasions can be splendid.

“The truth that there are a number of apps that serve the identical objective … is irritating,” stated Will Kousser ’27.

It’s nonetheless too early to inform which platform – if any – will come out on prime. Nonetheless, each founders appear assured in regards to the want for his or her merchandise on campus. 

“I do envision someday there simply being this one app that each one the teams on campus are utilizing that’s fairly seamless, integrates throughout all totally different teams, all various kinds of occasions,” Jadhav stated.