This ‘app’, which already has 6.000 users, is a good tool that allows people and companies to create experiences around different hobbies

HobbieSpot is a startup that has developed an innovative application intended to facilitate the meeting between people who share hobbies, the creation of leisure communities in which to share experiences, organize events to which its members can join, and even discover new hobbies.

“The HobbieSpot ‘app’ – says its promoter, Roberto Salcines – is aimed at attracting and retaining niche users in the environment of hobbies that are not usually adequately served through entertainment media such as television, press or internet. Therefore, it is covering a need that till its creation in 2015, no one had satisfied”.

On August 30, HobbieSpot released the latest version of its ‘app’. “Basically – says Roberto Salcines– this new version allows you to display hobby channels and that users can subscribe to them in a similar way as it is done on YouTube. We have already made the leap to the British and Irish markets and, now, according to the business development, it is time to be able to fill the different channels with hobbies and to bring the concept of the application to the end user”.

HobbieSpot’s innovative digital business project, which has already gathered the support of 16 investors, next year will face the challenge of generating not only more powerful metrics in Europe but also making the leap to America. “Our idea – says Salcines – has always been to take the product to the United Kingdom as a preliminary step to go to the United States and Latin America, where we estimate that it will have a better acceptance as innovation, due to the size of the cities, the existing type of leisure culture and because the climate, that mainly in Latin America, favours living ‘outdoor’ experiences”.

The universities

HobbieSpot is going to start a strategy to introduce its ‘app’ in Spanish universities to enable young university students to have an exclusive product through which they can organize plans, meet other people from their faculty, from other faculties and even other universities in the world. “HobbieSpot is going to occupy the space that Facebook has left in the universities and expects to become in the reference application for leisure purposes among university students, facilitating the organization of plans created for and by themselves. Each university has its own communication channel where privacy and exclusivity are guaranteed through the validation of each student’s university email. A real revolution is coming in the way that university students enjoy leisure and free time”, Salcines declares with pride.

The user, in the centre

The HobbieSpot developer is confident that the market will welcome the latest version of his recently released ‘app’, “because we have put the user in the centre and we have gained in simplicity and provides a great user experience”.

Between the first prototype of the ‘app’ presented in June 2015 and the last one currently available, there are many hours of work, dedication, design, rethinking the original product to make it more attractive. The objective has been to create a product that connects people from all over the world interested in hobbies and that also enables them to know each other in the real world by attending events, or plans, that can be created by both a person and a company. “HobbieSpot’s activity is therefore aimed at forging a tool that allows people and companies to create experiences and that can provide geolocated audiences”, says its promoter.

Difficulties

One of the biggest difficulties that the HobbiesSpot project came to was the lack of previous references. “90% of the digital businesses that are made here start from models that already work in other parts of the world and that are adapted here. However, I had nowhere to get inspired when defining my product”.

Roberto Salcines defines the trajectory of HobbieSpot during its two and a half years of life as “an innovation project that has required searching for the product-market fit based on what you were building and the feedback you received from the users themselves. Therefore, when I have users in the channels, I have multiple business models that I can apply, from second-hand models for the sale of products, payment plans or third-party plans with resale models that allow me to expand or develop. Now, we are developing a unique product in the world that adds everything that is separated in a single point. HobbieSpot wants to be that point where people go when they think about living free time experiences to meet and to have plans around what they are passionate about or will end up passionate about and do not know yet. In HobbieSpot public of all ages will coexist, with open channels and other exclusive channels for university audiences”.