The brand is YotMe, an app that allows anyone anywhere to host or attend a party in a nearby private home. “It’s a lot like Airbnb,” Hinckley says. “There’s a profile and a rating for each host and guest. It responds to a very simple rule: Treat someone how you want to be treated.” If you don’t? Let’s just say you’re off the holiday card list.

For the rest, however, it’s an insta-party. “My grand vision,” says Hinckley, “[was] to build an app that the minute you decide you want to entertain you can curate the entire event—the food, beverages, cohosts, guests—from your phone.”

Hinckley is no stranger to grand visions. He’s built and sold a company (Bullhorn) and run for the United States Senate, learning the ropes after watching his father and grandfather create Hinckley Yachts, a luxury sailing and picnic-boat company, based in Southwest Harbor, Maine. So far, YotMe has raised $500,000 in funding and boasts 5,000 members. Not bad for a barely four-month-old company. It’s just the tip of the cocktail iceberg, Hinckley says. “I’m trying to create a global society.”

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This is a First Look: It’s the first time any news outlet or blog has covered this startup. You can read more First Looks here. (We do this a lot.)

Barry Hinckley co-founded Bullhorn, a company that makes recruiting software and CRM. In 2012, Bullhorn was acquired by private equity for $135 million. After a failed run for Senate in Rhode Island, Hinckley, a scion of the famed custom yacht-making family, is off doing something a little less conventional: a tech company that’s calling itself the Airbnb of private house parties.

Stay with me.

Let’s say you’re planning to have a holiday party at your house for 50 guests. You could invite 50 people you know–or, here’s an idea: you could invite 25 people you know, and fill out the guest list with 25 you don’t know yet. They’re not exactly random: once you’ve listed a party, you get to say yea or nay over whoever asks for an invite. Of course there’s a rating system for guests and hosts. It’s like a college house party, with control over the guest list.

“We go to bars to randomly meet people,” Hinckley told me in an interview. “I’m trying to totally change the way people go out on the weekends. When you walk into a bar you have no idea who’s there.”

Sounds crazy, but if you told me five years ago I’d be getting into a random person’s car for a late-night ride back to crash in a random person’s spare bedroom, well, I don’t know what I would’ve said.

Yotme, Hinckley told me, is a sharing-economy update to online dating sites like Tinder and Match.com that will “own the pre-dating space” and “completely disintermediate the global bar scene.” (They’re also going after Paperless Post, Punchbowl and evite.)

With that pitch, or something like it, Hinckley is raising a $1 million seed round of startup funding, beginning with a $400,000 AngelList round under the BOSS Syndicate, led by his former CEO and co-founder at Bullhorn, Art Papas. (We told you about that in the BostInno Beat a couple of weeks ago.)

So far, he said, they’ve done about 20 events in a beta test in Newport, R.I., including a 130-person party at Hinckley’s own home. “60 of them I hadn’t met before,” he said. “They were totally well-behaved. They brought wine.” “The events we’ve had in Newport have been oversubscribed and they’ve been sticky,” Hinckley said. “People who downloaded the app to come to the party have come to other events and have even hosted parties.” A pilot in Scottsdale, Ariz., is under way. Nantucket and Boston pilots are coming this month, he said.

Here’s a video in which Hinckley explains Yotme.

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LISTEN TO THE INTERVIEW NOW

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Outside of fashion week, the YotMe app connects people looking to attend parties and have fun with other people. YotMe also allows party hosts to publish private functions to YotMe users and choose which users they want to invite. Users can ask to join or be invited to the party for selection. Public ratings are also available for potential guests and party hosts so app users can know what others think before choosing to get involved.

Hosts are graded by users who attend parties on a 1 to 5 scale. The 1 grade is for horrible hosts while 5 is for hosts with fun and exceptional service at parties. The app was created by entrepreneur and developer Barry Hinckley. He sold his previous startup Bullhorn, a staffing and recruitment software platform, for $135 million in 2012.  YotMe is available in the Apple App Store and or on Google Play.

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NEWPORT – Last year, entrepreneur and former U.S. Senate candidate B. Barry Hinckley began thinking about Rhode Island’s reputation as a boating destination, and about a way to connect boaters with each other.

Then, he thought about building an app that would allow people to publish their private fun, but that would open doors to previously closed events at the same time.

From there, the YotMe app was born.

YotMe – which means to unite closely – connects people wishing to access inaccessible and exclusive parties with the people throwing them.

Click Here!

Hinckley said the app works well for people moving to new cities, allowing them to expand their social circles.

“For the first time in the world we’re opening doors to private parties that have previously been closed. It’s a great way to spice up any event,” Hinckley explained.

He said he started developing the app last October and released it in June. It is available for download on the Apple app store and Google play.

“Anyone can use it now. We have 1,000 users in the system,” Hinckley said. “It’s going pretty good. We’ve been doing trial events to make sure everything works well.”

Hinckley published an event of his own through the app that featured the band The Ravers, and had 220 people apply to attend. He had approximately 120 at the party, approximately 60 percent of whom he knew, and the rest he didn’t. But he said it was a success.

He said guests and hosts are rated through the app. Hosts can determine whether the guest is highly rated and should be allowed to attend an event. Likewise, guests can determine if a host is highly rated. Information also is cross-referenced with LinkedIn and Facebook, he said.

According to information on the Yotme website, goyotme.com, a potential guest can make his case for a party invite by posting photos and video.

“Make it good ’cause your admission is at the host’s discretion. Find and RSVP to as many parties as you can handle. Recruit your friends. Get there. Find your fun,” the website states.

It also states that hosts can “breathe new life” into their parties through the app.

“Tired of the same guests? Use YotMe and users get favorite people plus some who just might be new hilarious friends,” the website states.

Hinckley said the app is different from Evite or Paperless Post because the host never relinquishes control of the guest list.

“I’m a very social person. I love meeting new people. I realize the older you get, social circles shrink a little bit. This is designed as a way for people to build their social circles in a nonpublic form,” he said.

YotMe was involved with Providence’s Style Week from Aug. 28 to Sept. 3 as a runway room sponsor and also was a headlining sponsor for Toddlers and Tiaras reality stars Susanna Barrett Paliotta and Isabella Barrett at New York Fashion Week recently. The website plugs upcoming YotMe events, including one in Hollywood, Calif., and a film festival in Nevada.

There also is a section on the site to become a YotMe ambassador; once accepted, ambassadors earn points for every YotMe user they refer. Points are redeemable for trips and YotMe “swag,” the site states.

“This is not your average backyard barbecue. This is something exclusive,” Hinckley said about YotMe. “It’s the first social app for the sharing economy.”

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Hosted by Supermodel and current Ms. United Nations 2015 Sherrie Gearheart.

What’s next in the new sharing economy? YotMe is the first social app in the sharing economy.

YotMe opens doors to previously off-limits social events as Hosts publish their private functions to the YotMe community and then hand select Guests that have requested to join the fun. Based on profiles and public ratings Hosts can cultivate an extra-ordinary event with unending potential diversity.

Breathe new life into your parties: Tired of the same guests? Use YotMe and users get favorite people plus some who just might be new hilarious friends. YotMe is “where you want to be” of private parties. YotMe is “where you want to go” of social connections. More information about this new App is at www.goyotme.com.

It’s a game changer. No one’s ever put parties for all people into a global marketplace. Democratizing the private party. How about all those corporate-sponsored boxes at events that fail to reach capacity? Those cool get togethers that never quite get off the ground? Or the last thirty people needed to boost a guest list into something diverse, special, memorable, and exciting. YotMe gets users there. And before this app, there was no way to access these parties, but with the YotMe App users can.

Either Post Fun, or Find Fun.

Why should people be comfortable sharing a party with YotMe? Because there is comfort in highly rated people. The App provides users with a personal “YotMe Social Factor”; this is built over time. Based on the generally accepted scale of 1-5. Is a host a 2 or a 5? Is a guest a 1 or a 4? “Did they show up or bail?” “Were they on time?” “Are they always a guest and never a host?” The age old idea of great guests and great hosts now has a digital number, that can open doors to great events around the world!

Barry Hinckley’s www.barryhinckley.com entrepreneurial success as a job creator and visionary is well known among industry leaders, his fast track record has already attracted loyal followers. His last start-up ‘Bullhorn’ was acquired in 2012 for over 135 million dollars.

YotMe is Hinckley’s next vision, now taking off in trial stages.

Events:
9/13 Fashion Show, ‘Bound by the Crown’ Couture
4pm: 325 W 38th Street, NYC

9/13 Top of the Strand, Strand Hotel, NYC, 33 W 37th
8pm until midnight, afterparty powered by YotMe

ORIGINAL ARTICLE

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