Who is Behind Happiest Ours?
Happiest Ours is a MaaS (Marketplace-as-a-Service) being marketed to the Mobile Bartending industry for corporate events! They are based out of Southern California and have already entered some prominent and accredited accelerator programs such as the famous TechStars. The Team, Alana, CJ, and Ryan founded the company in San Francisco a few years ago after an event held at Ryan’s (CEO) home, and the chaos made Ryan believe there must be a better way!
Happiest Ours provides full-service bartending for corporate events, everything from the garnish for your tailored cocktails, to the premium liquor for the themed drink of the night. But, and this is a massive BUT, the customer only pays for the opened bottles of alcohol! That’s right! Do you know how many Corporate Event Planners over or under budget their liquor quantities for the event? Basically every. Single. One.
That is why Happiest Ours only charges you for the bottles of alcohol you open based on their proprietary algorithm that calculates an estimation based on the number of guests and event duration. This way, Happiest Ours can over-deliver, risk-free and ensure that all guests have enough to enjoy their evening.
What is The Problem?
Ryan and the Team realized that a lot of either solo bartenders or even companies do not have a friendly way for customers to reserve their services. From Marketplace Studio’s research, the majority of methods were a simple contact form or a request to email / call the Owner of the business. Again, there must be a better way.
Ryan has a vision where a Corporate Event Planner at unicorn companies can go to HappiestOurs.com to find a Bartending Team for any event size, curate their cocktail menu, customize a drink or two to match the event’s theme or company brand, and then pay for the full service without the risk of buying too much or too little.
How can we create a process that involves a two facet approach to building and scaling a venture marketplace? Well, that is partially where Marketplace Studio comes into play, to help Happiest Ours execute their vision.
Enter Marketplace Studio
When Happiest Ours connected with the Marketplace Studio team, we were very excited from the start because of the pure positive and enthusiastic energy CJ, Ryan, and Alana bring to the table (bar). The plan was to start with our Pre-Development Package which included:
1 Integration Proposal & Requirements
2 User Persona Profiles
Emily came to life as the Demand User as a Corporate Planner
David came to be the Bartending Company Owner
2 Low Fidelity Prototypes
Emily’s journey to find, curate, and pay for the bartending service
David’s experience to add his company to Happiest Ours’ platform
User Testing for Prototypes
Iterating after the rounds are completed to adjust for User Feedback
2 High Fidelity Prototypes
Development Ready 3D mocks, refined to a crisp
Marketplace Studio was able to design stunning designs post-research & validation thanks to our Lead Designer, Paige with a powerful assist from our Growth Product Manager Aaron, and Darren as the Product Lead. With our flexible terms, Ryan decided he wanted to raise more money from new and current investors before leading into full development of the product. Similar to the marketplace struggle, the classic Chicken & Egg scenario! Thankfully, we have a solution for that! We suggested to Ryan to start with the Pre-Development package and leverage the prototypes to visually communicate to the prospective investors what they will be using the capital for, building out the MaaS platform!
We were able to design a single workflow for the two key personas in the most optimal way while also keeping in mind that Happiest Ours themselves will be implementing the product into their own bartending offering.
Quote From Happiest Ours
What were your original expectations with the Marketplace Studio team?
To be completely honest, my expectations weren’t that high. I have dealt with 4 different dev shops and all haven’t quiet met my expectations. Mainly most of them have been order takers. As someone with a non-technical background sometimes you don’t necessarily know what you want or when you want it. The Marketplace Studio team acted more like an extension of our team. They are a pleasure to work with, provide proactive input and thoughtful pushback when needed.
What do you value the most about working with Marketplace Studio designing and later, developing Happiest Ours?
Mainly it is there ability to execute within a timely manner.
What would you tell a marketplace Founder who’s considering designing a marketplace?
If they don’t have a technical arm on the founding team any marketplace start up should consider using Marketplace Studio as an option.
As a first-time marketplace Founder, what do you believe is most valuable about our Pre-Development process?
I have the ability to share what we are building to any stakeholder without having to fully develop. This gives us a lot of flexibility.
