By Emily Huizenga, News Correspondent
Star Li started with a simple class project and ended with a popular new app that has saved smart shoppers hundreds of dollars in the past year.
Vidappe allows smartphone users to register and subscribe membership cards and then alerts them of discounts at nearby businesses. For the Northeastern community, this means deals on everything from Au Bon Pain to the New England Aquarium.
Told to create a model business plan for a class project, Li set out to streamline the concept of the membership-driven reward program. The 2010 Cornell graduate with a degree in business had the idea for an application for mobile phones that would allow people to subscribe to whatever card(s) they wished and receive a notification whenever they got physically close to a merchant who offers a discount through that card.
“All I’m doing is transferring information from one medium (Internet) to another (mobile app) so that people are better able to utilize these discounts,” Li said. “It’s kind of like – would you rather print out a list of deals and carry it around with you, or would you rather just download an app and have it remind you to save when you’re close to something?”
After downloading the app and registering an email, a user selects which types of discounts he or she wishes to be notified of. These options range from activities and apparel to food and sports. After selecting which state(s) one lives in or has cards registered for, the next step is to simply subscribe to those cards and wait for the notifications to begin.
At the time, Li’s idea simply yielded a good grade. Over two years later, it is helping her stay busy while users save money.
Li began official work on Vidappe a few months after graduation. While a friend from Cornell developed code for the mobile aspects, Li focused on researching discounts and designing the website. She said the difficulty in creating an app comes not in the technical aspects, but in “getting people on board. In other words – sales.”
Northeastern Professor Alan Mislove of the College of Computer and Information Science agreed.
“Coding an app requires learning the development environment of iOS/Android,” he said. “But there isn’t a fundamental reason why it’s more difficult than any other software project. On the other hand, there are currently over 500,000 iOS apps out there, so getting your app to be even seen by a large number of users is a challenge.”
By August of this year, the app was not only up and running for both iPhone and Android users, but it also boasted nearly 1,300 subscribers across the country.
For prospective Northeastern users, Vidappe is affiliated with some of Boston’s most prominent membership cards.
Registering CharlieCards will yield over 150 discounts. These include notifications for a free cup of chowder or dessert at Dick’s Last Resort near Quincy Market, 10 percent off any dine-in or take-out order at Upper Crust pizza and 10 percent off any purchase at Ben & Jerry’s – both located on Boylston Street.
Savvy shoppers may already know of the Prudential Center’s free PRUferred Card, but after registering it with Vidappe, users will recieve handy reminders of 10 percent off an entire purchase at Arden B., a free drink at Qdoba or $2 off admission to the Pru’s Skywalk Observatory.
Other Boston-oriented cards with noteworthy notifications include a Brattle Theatre membership ($5 off Huntington Theatre, 10 percent off Boston Modern Orchestra Project) and WBUR 90.9, Boston’s NPR station (10 percent off at The Music Emporium, $10 off at Boston Ballet), though both of these memberships require a yearly membership fee.
“The most feedback I get is, ‘I had no idea all these stores offer discounts – I walk by that place all the time!’” Li said.
She said she takes great care to promptly answer online inquiries and keep Vidappe as user-friendly as possible.
Looking back at all she’s done, Li said it’s satisfying to see just how many people she’s helped save money and time.
“In college, no one actually took the class seriously,” she said. “After school ended I thought, ‘this idea is actually pretty good.’”
Chances are anyone who’s ever received 15 percent off their favorite chai latte, taken a discounted Duck Tour or indulged in a free haircut won’t hesitate to agree.
