Virginia Frischkorn | Patrick Rife | The Pixilated Podcast

Hello and welcome to another episode of the Pixilated podcast I am your host Patrick Rife CVO and co founder here at Pixilated welcoming you all back for another episode if this is your first time tuning in we're stoked to have you if you are a repeat listener thanks for coming back so brief overview Pixilated podcast has a lots of different content types sometimes we're focusing on specific tactics and things you can do from a marketing perspective and adding a photo booth to and the fun up and sometimes we're talking to a lot of event professionals and hearing about these other ecosystems of the events world that are so fascinating and today is going to be one of those episodes so today we're talking with Virginia Freshcorn from Party Trick she is someone that I recently connected with Owen LinkedIn and upon digging deeper I got more and more excited about getting a chance to speak with her one because she is an entrepreneur that works in the offense industry and as many of you know that is our background too so it's really fun to meet other people from a similar trajectory and two because she's doing really cool things with new brands and new ideas I'm guessing I don't know this I'm assing a bunch but as she evolves her business so without further ado Virginia welcome to the Pixilated podcast Patrick thank you so much for having me on I'm thrilled to be here I hope I didn't like miss set you up with my with my kind of overview but I I do feel all of those things and I'm super excited to chat with you yeah I think it's gonna be a good one yeah so I have so many questions that I'm ready to dig into some of my written down there's a good chance a lot of stuff you're gonna say is going to provoke other tangents that I will follow instead but before we get into all that madness would you be open to giving everyone that's listening just a little bit of background on who you are and kind of how you've arrived what you're doing today totally I would love it so as Patrick said my name is Virginia I'm actually from Virginia and after college I moved out to Colorado and I thought I was gonna do this wild crazy ski bomb situation and then move back to the East Coast and all of a sudden I got hooked in the world of events and so I started my career in the event industry back in 2,005 I'm sorry back 2006 and I always started doing luxury ultra luxury event production at a 5 star hotel started my own company couple years later which quickly became at was Bluebird Productions one of the top 50 companies in the world according to Vogue Martha over the moon and all those fun publications did wild elaborate 500,000 to 5 million dollar wedding and then crash 2020 arrived right and basically since then you know we started a little sister brand to Bluebird Productions I started a little picnic company and then in the last year we kind of wrapped everything up and realized that we wanna bring Celebration to everyone and we wanna make it possible for people to host and plan and actually enjoy what they're doing so we took all the knowledge took our playbooks and used tech to leverage all that and developed Party Trick so that's my new venture that's where you are today that's awesome I I think the Party Trick brand is incredible and also think that it's the product and value proposition to the market is stellar as well I think there's there's so much opportunity that's there and I am as we talk I think we'll under uncover a lot of the maybe some some similar hypotheses working on in both of our companies before we get into that I I definitely like I wanna talk about Free Bluebird and I wanna talk about Bluebird but you kind of teed it up and as much as I've celebrated in these podcasts so far finally being in the post post covid era meaning that we don't have to talk about it with every conversation it's not a predicate that needs to be acknowledged in the room is like something either we're getting over or are you still in it or what you know like this philosophical tell me where you stand that has to happen in a business transaction perspective and that's wonderful it's been so nice to not have to talk about it anymore and explain what a zoom call is to a customer you're trying to sell a photo booth to but that being said I feel like we would be remiss to not at least there are entrepreneurs that listen to this that are in the events ecosystem that suffered similar things to you and I and I think that even talking about Bluebird a little bit you know coming out of the fall 2019 rolling into quarter one you know like I knew we have clear marks you know like there's the day the universities canceled everything and then there's the days that everyone else from an events perspective canceled like three weeks and then four weeks after that is when everyone canceled their subscriptions to our products because their businesses were being closed so would you be okay to yeah cause I feel like it also sets the it sets the stage so great for party trick right here comes the Phoenix but before the Phoenix comes the fire what a fire that was so funny I was actually we're working on a piece and you know Covid as much as like you said we don't want to talk about it it was so pivotal to kind of get to where we are today and so we actually had a wedding the weekend of Covid and I couldn't go we so I am based in Colorado I live primarily in Aspen part time in Denver and I had a wedding that weekend and on Friday before the wedding actually Thursday night picking county announced this like moratori on gatherings and you couldn't gather more than 50 people and I had 200 people in town for that wedding and we were like oh my God what are we gonna do and so I have to have a converse and they were gonna find us as the event planner and it was like a large 5+ figure fine for organizing an event so we to call the bride and we're like hey we can basically consult from afar but I'm not walking on foot like I'm just like not showing up to your wedding and so that was like the big start of things really really changing for us and then you know unlike some vendors we had to basically reorchestrate that year I had amazing weddings amazing clients and we had to basically replan three to four times like over 20 weddings and it's so hard because we thought we'd be back by the fall right and so right after that one we went into basically lockdown and we're like what are we doing oh we'll be fine by June okay no we won't be fine by June oh we'll be good by September no we won't be good by September I mean we did two micro weddings that year and that was it and crazy and I I kept actually my entire staff on on team basically I didn't let one person go but everyone stayed on and in part I was actually in this is interesting to the Party Trick story I started building that's where a lot of the idea for Party Trick came right I was seeing my dad back on the East Coast and he was throwing these great like distanced parties with his friends and you know my dad was in his late 60s when this happened and so they'd have like parties in the garden and have a table and a table and a table and it was I was like oh my God I miss this and I'm in Colorado and it's snowy and gross and I miss my friends I don't wanna sit on zoom I'm getting yelled at because you know Covid's my fault from our lovely clients and like I wanna bring what he's doing to everyone else so we started building the beta for actually what's now party trick so I kept my team on because we didn't know how soon and growing a large team is hard like we didn't know how big how long it was gonna take until Bluebird was back and I was like cool well let's just build this little thing on the side so we actually built our our beta was called Bluebird in a box and the idea was like wrapped in a digital little box and delivered these blueprints I remember yeah I reached out I actually tried to connect with your company during Covid because of because of what because the Bluebird in a box concept because I was like oh this could be a wonderful way for us so we built so Pixilated makes like software and hardware right and the ways that we sell them are we have this like awesome turn key rental business where we ship them all over the place although we were only doing that a little bit pre covid it was like one idea that we were flirting with and and then we also sell the hardware to like a brewery or visitor center that wants to have like a photo op that also helps them build their mail chimp list or like agencies that are doing photo activations and all of their like big scale things so like that's what we did so the event side went away and then the subscription side went away and what we were left with was like nothing and we you know we built this you know virtual photo booth platform to kind of keep us afloat and honestly like we didn't have the money and the resources to be able to like compete with the big software developers that were rolling that product out so for us it was almost as much a PR play to stay relevant over however long it was gonna be so that way when things corrected we could kind of move back into it but yeah scary scary times for sure and I remember like I remember when I saw Bluebird Productions immediately I was like ah I remember reaching out because I had gone down the hole and been like this is a cool company I could tell then that we that there was some common grit driving our companies forward so it's it's even more wonderful to end up talking here with you today and kind of getting to hear that story so sorry for interjecting no I love how things come full circle right like that's the most amazing and how this we actually did a collab with Party Trick and it was something that I worked this guy years ago when I was at the Little Nell and then I stayed in touch with his wife and she reached out she's like you really should talk to my husband and now all of a sudden something comes to fruition and it's just funny how the world kind of you know we all kind of like circle around each other and then all of a sudden something like magical happens from it so yeah well so it's funny right like the world is huge except when you start getting further down the funnel of your experience and then it narrows quite quickly and all the sudden you're like ah this is the reason to not be an asshole because like the funnel narrows and all the sudden it's like I mean even the things where you went walked away feeling bad about the way that they have context year after year and you're like wait remember how much that impacted me and how I was thinking about myself and my role and what we do here and like yeah either that person is completely off of the map or like or that person is right next to me and like we never had to say it out loud but like I deserve to be here and probably they would be further along if we had got together back then right you have to like mention it so it's it's so interesting the way that like it does narrow and it and it and it's kind of wonderful for us right because it makes reaching out and making the you know like it's so hard to reach out to somebody on LinkedIn right like 99% of the time it's ghosts and I'm like a founder of the thing I do all of the things like this isn't like there's no there's you know no remote worker that's gonna come edit this whole thing for me like I'm gonna do all of it so it that's like a heavy thing to bear and to get through all of it so at anyway so please let's get back on on task take me from the beta a party trick to kind of how it is evolved well you know what's interesting is I tasted kind of sour turn not sour but sad I mean sour inside so if anyone knows this I do speak really openly about it but basically I launched Party Bluebird in a box on a Tuesday very vividly remember that and I you know my father was a really close person he inspired the start of that and on Wednesday I talked to him kind of recouped how it went he was an entrepreneur he was really my mentor and talked to him he went to bed and never woke up and so I got back from a run on Thursday morning and got the call from my family my dad was back on the East Coast like I mentioned and I just like lost it and I'm like okay I'm supposed to be happy I've just launched this company I now I'm trying to keep brides happy and it was just I mean it shook the the ground like I couldn't I can't stand I can't do anything anyhow fast forward I never was able to really get my heart and soul back into Blueburn a box as it was I started seeing the holes I started seeing it's almost like he was sitting on my shoulder being like there you go that was wrong that was wrong that was wrong and ultimately I shut it down right like I couldn't run it plus everything else it wasn't the right I Learned everything not to do right like you learn how to fail and I Learned how to learn from those failures of this is why it didn't work I know I didn't work there was no tech behind it the branding was off we weren't clear I mean I came up with the idea in may and we launched in June like I mean it was it was launched in August it's crazy how quickly and so much came from like I Learned a lot that all set me up for success so basically I could never scratch the itch stop scratching the itch that like I had to bring this out there like the mission and vision was always there and it got harder and harder to do those bluebird weddings and it got harder and harder cause I again my dad sitting there where you say yeah well no no no I don't mean to cut you off at all please don't I've lost a parent okay so I have a tremendous amount of empathy for you no no it's okay and I'm and I'm you know like in turn like I'm I'm so sorry for your loss yeah because that is hard no matter who you are it is hard as an entrepreneur in the events world I found it exceedingly hard and and in in times still due to this day and in in which you mentioned about right not having the empathy to serve your customers well right you know like they're not wrong but neither are you you know and that's part of the thing that is I mean pardon my language but that's part of the thing that's so fucked about being an entrepreneur and starting a new venture is when there and there's almost never space in time to take into breath the things that are happening in your life and allow for them to take the room the air in the room for a moment because you got this whole thing this whole world that relies on you and you always have to put everything in your life behind it like almost all of the time whether that's helping your parent when they're in a time of need or whether it's giving yourself the space to get over them passing away like it's so hard right and then we go like right there's children and there's you know there's back to school night and there's you know come and come read on a Thursday afternoon and like all of that stuff those all stack on top of it but you know I can promise you that anyone that's gone through what you've gone through which is a large portion of people have dealt with losing their parents yeah I think that all of them if they're reminded of that can empathize with how challenging it is I say all this knowing that it changes nothing for the people that are spending money and have expectations but I just wanted to put that out there like I I feel for you because that's a hard it's a very hard thing to figure out how to carry forward the mantle of your professional responsibilities while not being torn a sunder as a biological han oh my God I know I mean I it's interesting like I definitely had my initial shock and then I was like I'm not going to deal with this I'm gonna just put my head down and get this done but then the perspective and shift changed and it was so much harder to again engage and find stuff as important but so I just was like I'm gonna just figure this out one day at a time one foot in front of the other inch by inch by inch right and I don't know I think after that smer of 21 that was a rough smer amazing smer but it was all of our 2020s that got postponed I was I actually had some interns for Bluebird in a box so I was still kind of working on it and I'm like I'm gonna officially shut it I then I'm gonna finish out what I need to finish out with Bluebird and I'm gonna figure out how the like to get this thing going and in a way this is funny not prove my father wrong but do this in his honor and do it prove him a little bit wrong cause I knew how big it could be yeah and I know how big it will be yeah additionally you know it's interesting I have an older brother and a little sister and we all ended up in the hospitality world of some sorts my dad very traditional businesses and he can made a comment just once and he's like you guys just chose lifestyle businesses if it was a negative thing like you do wanna have a good quality lifestyle but it was just like knock that probably I was probably like 22 23 when he said that and then like oh I'm gonna show you how a lifestyle business can be a billion dollar business dad like challenge accepted thanks haha well and the and the thing is for what this industry is right and I know that you and I both know a whole lot of similar truths about the events industry in general and it's willingness to adopt new things and like all of this all of the stuff all of the things or not you had to find you had to you know like you gotta ride the elevator to the current glass ceiling before you're like that's where I gotta break right and then you're like okay now I gotta break it and you know like your dad know that he was just trying to be precocious right like he knows that if you're a good entrepreneur you're finding the new glass ceiling you're making a plan to break it and then you retreat to to execute that plan and sometimes it doesn't break and you go back down again and it's like all about hypothesis execution right reading the tea leaves and going at it like one more time so well well like what a great like kickoff to to the chat yeah like I'm obviously I'm sorry to hear challenges but it's wonderful to hear the way that you're placing them in a position of power to to influence you and to drive you forward and I mean I can't think of too many more ways to like honor your dad and like what that relationship between the two of you meant yeah no again I think every good thing a lot of growth always has like pain in it maybe it's not the pain that we wish it would have happened but there always is and you get great learning every time you go through that I used to be a big runner right it's not that much fun but it feels amazing at the end that's not true like great training runs those are fun but sometimes it just hurts and then you feel amazing because you push through sometimes it sucks sometimes it sucks yeah yeah I am I have I'm an intermittent runner as well I'm not in run shape right now at all but I can empathize with that perspective like sometimes like running just sucks like that's just it not at the end of the run not when it's done no never ever sucks when it's over never sleep when it's over okay so now we got the predicate we understand how the whole thing came together right like tried this concept tragedy ensues like shackled to a business concept that you know like was worth a try but proved unscalable and frankly untenable from what you wanted from it right totally commitment to burn it once it's done once obligations are fulfilled and to go back at it again let's go yep all right take us from there so basically we let's see end of 2021 you know I shut it down and basically almost restarted building Party Trick and so smer 22 we were wrapping up weddings my actual last wedding an event that we did was October 8th last year and we launched Party Trick on October 13th so that weekend I was actually in Montana really kind of fun full circle I done the girl sister's wedding years before she's remained a close friend and like the whole time like we're this big big build out like it's a very large gorgeous gorgeous wedding and I'm on one hand I'm like dealing with my vendors and on the other hand I'm dealing with like our tech team who's building everything for us so clearly I'm a non technical founder love events love gathering people together and so all 22 I was building and and had this weird dual life where half the time I was really like dealing with an amazing product manager and then an agency that kind of did our branding did a lot of our like beta MVP and then marketing team and then on the other hand I'm dealing with my Bluebird team building all these weddings and kind of like ramping my time accordingly based on kind of where I was most needed so with all this we ended up building and then launching what's now party trick and party trick is since we've never like fully addressed it yes we haven't what is party trick yeah haha we're an app and what that means is we're not just an app like we're actually a web based app we're a mobile app we launched the mobile app actually today but we've been live for a year right so when you say we're thank you so exciting so hey we'll put that in the comments everybody that's looking can we link to it is that is it out there for us to be able to link to okay so everyone is listening your your attention just went off oh there goes my microphone check check the show notes and we will have a link over to the app so you can go and check it out but please go ahead Virginia check it out so basically like we launch and our goal and our mission is to empower anyone right to host an event and so events have three main things and if you get the event industry this is like the easiest way it took me a while to boil this down but there's event planning there's event design and then there's event execution and production so what is it gonna look like how are we gonna make it look beautiful how are you designing the experience that's like the event design and then planning the details the food the beverage music are you having a photo booth there how are you inviting people like what are the details that like you know actually go into that recipe and then the last part is like that production or execution how does it work what are you doing when are you doing it what party trick does is it gives you the tools to do all those things and like actually enjoy and the goal is it's at home events it's not these large large productions that we were doing with Bluebird it's your taco Tuesday night to your Thanksgiving dinner to you know we just passed Labor Day weekend so it's a Labor Day weekend barbecue we've got like fun tailgates and while you may be good at one section like making it look pretty knowing exactly how and when to do things might be harder so we kind of are really flexible we just want to be super super simple to people fill the gap totally it's so scattered right that's the thing with events industry what kills me and I speaking with another event pro about this recently nothing's consolidated there's no efficiencies in terms of everyone works differently how do you find stuff like it's it's so like a overly negative way but it's gonna come across that way it's so freaking backwards Virginia you're speaking my language it's it's so fun I mean like obviously I think we both expected that we would find some of these things right we we are all about the democratization of how you like create a photo like it doesn't have to be a photo booth right you know like people put these things in front of step and repeats at graduation right we put them at HR parties across the universe like there's a lot of scalability with the idea of a photo system that you can deploy that isn't necessarily a Roman photographer and and I think that's something similar to what you've done but more so than that it's informed by so Pixilated started 12 years ago right I've always been the guy whose responsibility is to be on the all the way on the front of the wave meeting people kissing babies making friends throwing parties like all of that stuff like that's what I have always done which I love to do and it's great but as somebody who is such right you have scoped out photo booths on your budget before and I can tell you they come at the end with like the end results of what a budget is most of the time I understand that there's outliers where we here Mark 20 grand for the vice party or whatever but like most of the time it's a it's a last minute thing it's the end of the budget kind of thing so it's very hard when you have a vision and you build a tool that can change the game to get to find yourself in the place where you can integrate that idea at scale and be taken seriously because you're just a photo vendor partner and then on the other side of it if you changed what you were saying right and you were like we can do this and you're coming at it from more of an agency angle like that could work but then it puts you on the on the hook for scope creep outside of that agency side of it and for like a photo company a place creating photo activations and making sure that we can capture data off of it like scope creep will completely destroy it because it's a very like it's it can be scalable and the solution is easy to to update for each customer but moving outside of that realm of what we're doing for them like it doesn't it doesn't fit at all and it ends up being problematic so the the things that you're saying it's it's great I feel like you're talking about this like new guard which is what we think about as well and it's not in disrespect to the way things have always gone but there needs to be this this predicate this platform of information that allows event professionals to see the myriad ways that they can use new platforms and new solutions to be able to apply something like that across all dozen of their portfolio events across the year and not only have it be simple and more affordable but also to give you like a much broader spectr on what your impact is and and those kind of tools but it's hard it's it's hard and I find like the people like you and I that that had that hunch like wait wait wait there's something here it's hard for us to get the commensurate ear attention to position that thing because what we sell traditionally doesn't align and I realize that you you're not about that like you're you're talking about like small events like in backyard parties but at the end of the day right like small events are large events there are a ton of planners who will look at what you're doing as a great resource and they'll be like wait like for my certain level customer this is what I use as my tool you know like we we get in with it's hard for us to talk to Mars Pet Care like at the top but I've got all of these grassroot Mars Pet Care marketers that are out doing like you know the Memphis River Walk like pet day photo thing and they're using it and they're like this thing has changed my life but you can't talk to their boss cause they're just not they're not dialed into it so what we need to do is launch the first conference that's just about this whole new world of sorry that's my aspirational side talking I'm just I'm just going down there like I want to know I'm like kind of curious because it's education right like at the end of the day like all of these things are true because people don't believe that it can be different I was at I was had a meeting with a a partner of ours earlier today and I was telling him this is you're gonna laugh so hard about this cause I think you've been an MPI member correct yeah I think that's where I had originally come across your your business we right so we sell these DIY kits right we ship them all over the place you can fully customize them they're easy blah blah blah blah blah if you send that email to like a meeting planner in the conference space they're like I work with Big Pharma and they would never have fun or like can't see it like no way they can't see it I went to Omaha for an MPI Heartland annual meeting and really like sponsored it and I took a green screen photo booth out one of our kits and I took the box that it ships in to sit it right next to it and I set it up and it was doing all these cool green screen photos with like a big bridge from Omaha to Iowa I forget what it's called Mr Carl or Fred or sorry my Omaha people out there they're gonna throw me for this I'm sorry guys but the point is I put it in front of 10 event planners and they were like what is this what do you mean like it packs into and it just like wait this shows up and like ever since then I was so blown away because it really reinforced me how important just 1 to 1 or 1 to 4 education is when you're in the beginning side of it because it's not the people don't wanna learn it's just for whatever reason they've been baked into expecting to evolve one way and they don't think about that there are other ways that it can be that was a lot Virginia I'm sorry thank you for horing that rant it takes me back to the beginning and one of the things is when like we started Bluebird it was never designed or planned to be like a wedding planning company now we did like corporate events we did a ton of corporate and socialists don't show them because candidly like photography is not nearly as good and weddings are so pretty right but and a lot of times corporate will come to us because they're like we don't want that boring stuffy corporate event but by the way you can't show anything cause of the type of people we have here it's Aspen you got it anyhow but when we started it we were like we wanted to disrupt the and I was like 23 24 it was we wanted to disrupt we wanted to do something different people didn't get it we wanted to do social media management for the event industry we wanted to do more gorilla marketing and experiential marketing that was event stuff again which LED us like we ended up doing we launched with click on the snow and we did this Ferrari four wheel drive experience cause none of the other like event planners per se in Aspen got it when these brands came and they're like we wanna do this we're like that they didn't understand it to the Bluebird got these events we were so lucky at such a young age but then it just kind of like funneled and went a different direction but we just didn't wanna do the same old thing I think so many people in the industry do the same because it's easy right and it's like ignore the email I got my person oh my client it's like we make these assptions and I feel like if you're not pushing forward if you're not pushing the envelope you're not like living and trying and evolving you're just kind of like doing the same old same old and there's no fun in that and I mean even before I started Bluebird when I was at the Nell I saw the same old cookie cutter wedding after cookie cutter wedding and I'm like guys like there's such a you've missed opportunity and I look at this with Party Trick now like what you guys are building and people just have to be a little bit adventurous we just need those early adopters to understand and get it event industry doesn't entirely get party trick they get it once they see it right and I can like I hosted a party with some event people and everyone's like I get it now like oh so do I need to do 20 person dinner parties every night cause I will totally totally I was taught it's so funny that you say that I love it I love the like weirdo ideas that only us can like be like is this what I should do I said to Nick the other day I was like should like like should I just go to like should I go to Dallas and put it out there and be like I'm coming to Dallas for 48 hours and like I'm bringing this thing for all your parties like tag them up and then just go there and be like ridiculous and like pop around to parties and like put a photo booth there for three hours and then keep like rolling and have it be because you do you've got to be gosh we're getting into like the you know like what it is to have your personal like Virginia you have a personal brand right like I I I do as well right it's important for leveraging our companies forward and how we do it particularly as you develop more brands right you've got to have that pride bar that moves it forward and in the events world that can feel like a suffocating thing right because you've got like a few styles of people with big profiles in the events world and a lot of those styles are fine but they're not for me so figuring out like the the balance between how you are pushing the envelope and you're being creative and you're being thought provoking while at the same time not being trophy and like out there like pedaling the headlines for like that whole side of it like it's just different right like it's different when you've actually got a real product that has a hard deliverable in reality right it's not just social media like there's more to it than that but also at the same time as much as you can let behind the curtain show is great cause it's really authentic to what you're dealing with totally totally now so spot on yeah okay so gosh we're already we're running low on time but I don't I I can't give up quite just yet so let's very quickly I wanna make sure that we at least cover two things I want to yeah I wanna hear about the app and and and why like why is the app launching today right what it what who is it for and who who's using it and then we'll get to to question No. 2 that I have out I'm gonna memorize it I don't forget it here okay so basically we I wanted a mobile app when we launch Party Trick you know almost a year ago and I was told you don't need an app you don't need an app blah blah blah and I'm like I want it and really got shut down and ultimately you know it also came to funding right and then it's expensive to build technology did not understand that when I decided to start a tech company I was like oh you know very different than starting a planning company so we waited waited again couldn't get rid of it so I brought on a CTO earlier this year when I started going and raising bunch of capital and they because I'm a non technical founder it was like hey Virginia you really need either CTO or technical co founder I'm like okay boom I hear you I'm doing went out got myself a great CTO and he's like yeah totally and ultimately we we you know stripped away what we built and decided to build this beautiful app because now the functionality the features everything we can do is bigger better and what you could experience on the phone is actually similar to what you experience on the web based app so I'm a big Asana fan like I love Asana it is my all time favorite productivity for like life I literally it's like today's garbage day reminded me to take my garbage out today dorky but it's true I use these on an app on my computer I use it on my phone okay looks like the same thing until party trick is built that way and we want to watch the app earlier this smer it didn't happen July came didn't happen it's finally here and it's amazing because we're back to school right I have two little kids they're in school there's like I've already hosted three events like this week like with playdates and we have potlucks and we have entertaining season right upon us so having app now getting it in your pocket having a planner to help you there like we do virtual event planning so like you need some help with something customized or you use one of our templated events it's there to make the rest of the year for you with Halloween Tailgate Thanksgiving Christmas Hanukkah all of it before is coming up and Russia like everything is coming up right now so having the app now allows you to like really enjoy and close out the rest of 2023 strong and not as exhausted right like I always finish it and I'm like oh my god is it I don't want that this year I don't want that for anyone else so our app goes for pretty much anyone which is lovely awesome party trick so is it is it in all of the app stores is it free is it pay okay so we are in the Apple App Store and we are in Google Play and you get first party for free it's free to download the app you can actually be a guest so like Patrick you're hosting and I'm a guest we have a really cool new feature like David will kill me if I say but I'm gonna say it anyhow so there's full in that messaging like Slack style messaging but if you're inviting me to something and I'm not a paid user you can like communicate everything in app versus the annoying text groups what have you I love keeping communication streamlined and then it's$25 per party 50 for three parties or 89 for the year so our price point is insanely affordable if you think about it 89 for a year it's your whole entertaining budget it'll save you in one party that much in your time really love it yeah awesome that that's amazing okay so tell me inside like we won't go through all the features everybody needs to go and download it to check that out but tell me the one or two things that are the biggest value for your users that are adopting it right now what are the things that they're like this is it like I'm I'm doing like all the other stuff is great but I'm doing it for this or I'm doing it for that all right females say I can now curate exactly what I want to look like because you don't have to go and source all over right you can basically shop a tablescape which you can't do anywhere else they love that and then they love the timeline feature which basically tell you what to do when to do it so it's two weeks out this is what I should be doing and it's interactive tell me about the tablescape so is that is that is that backended to an actual fulfillment system or is it just saying nope here's the Amazon product we would suggest yep so basically you can look and like our farm to table check that one out you can go click on I call it red dotting a red dot and it sends you to an Amazon link you can then put everything in your Amazon cart or depending on where the products are one cart check it out we take you off the platform for that we do get an affiliate commission obviously for that great yes so that's how that one's that's the way to do it totally yeah and then we don't customers should look that they should understand that yeah yeah that's not like a dirty word like an affiliate commission means I can continue to do this awesome thing that you love and not like put it on your plate to pay for it like that's that's a wonderful thing gosh I love this already so what's the No. 2 thing yeah and then the timeline okay and that's just because logistics right like when is this showing up when do I need to place this order by for all of this to come together by my date and it's working backwards yeah and it basically starting 2 weeks out like hey you should be inviting your friends this is what to say hey you should order like decor if you don't have it already did you check to see if your decor arrived and then I mean I can tell you posted thousands of parties the amount of bottles of champagne or wine have exploded in my freezer is like it's embarrassing we have a notification that reminds you to check your freezer to make sure that nothing's in it and to light that bathroom candle because even the most experienced host hostess there's always something like you forget to turn the music on you forget this that's what women like guys like the playlists cause they don't wanna be judged on their playlists like we have we have three playlists for every single party but that's when I talk to guys they love that I love it as well as in notifications what to do I have a lot of guys who use it for date nights cause yeah it's really good sure or or husbands to use it to not like be like the like the shit partner that didn't help or didn't do like you know like so like I'm I don't gentlemen not generalizing all of you but some of us are happy to help but we just don't remember in the moment what that thing is and also sometimes like asking what that thing should be not a popular way to get to helping out either so I could see that being valuable right like helping us be great helping us more forgetful partners yes be the great that we could be yeah no so leading up to this point so have users been predominantly about like from like a web platform like prior to the app existing is it been that same value but just they've been accessing it from desktop yeah and I think the nice thing is like when people are partying they're on the go right like if you're hosting you're not working on your computer and honestly the one that like our app like in Chrome or in Safari on a phone and experience wasn't great like it wasn't built well for mobile so having the app is really lovely cause of push notifications the pushes tell you what you went to do and then you can actually interact with your phone or tablet we have it built for tablet as well you can click on it on the app so everyone's used it on the computer today but it's just it's the user experience is so much more friendly on an app like versus trying to use it on Chrome on your phone yeah yeah here we go Virginia this could go on forever I've got so many more questions you might be one of the people that I say like let's do this again soon too with that being said before so I'm gonna I'm gonna call it here and cancel the other 11 questions I have waiting in the wings let everybody know who's listening like what should they do it sounds like they should go to either the Apple Play Store the Google Play Store or sorry the whatever whatever and download the app but let them know what do they do yeah so check us out find us at party trick com really easy and we're at party trick on Instagram at party trick underscore on TikTok and download the app it's just on the Apple Store there's really not much else under Party Trick which is really lucky so download it and let me know your feedback that's the most important thing well first download it try it and then send me your feedback tell us what you want like we are really LED by what our customers are saying and what our consers want like sure I think I know what people want but really we know by listening to the feedback so feedback is like the most amazing gift that anyone can give so download it find us has a yeah awesome Virginia on behalf of everybody listening and certainly of myself thank you so much this was awesome I had the best time definitely a hour well spent so on behalf of everybody in the Pixilated audience thank you for sharing some of your insights and time with us today thank you so much for having me Patrick alright guys that's it another episode of the Pixilated podcast in the books obviously I know that everyone that's listening is pretty thrilled go check out the app give Virginia your feedback I can't I'm gonna like double down on what she said when people are building things your feedback is free and you wouldn't believe how valuable it is to them so you know if it if if you have the time if you have it in your heart go check out the app plan your after school play date with your kid or something else you know your your happy hour at your work and give for some feedback so bringing it to the end if you haven't yet make sure whether you're listening on a podcast or watching this on YouTube or whatever the case may be hit the subscribe button and make sure that every time we produce a new episode you get notified so you can check it out and if you are a listener and you're enjoying yourself please leave us a quick 5 star review maybe a few kind words reviews help more people like you find our show the whole goal behind this thing is to spread information to help people think about new ideas kind of in the events and the and the broader kind of marketing and engagement ecosystem so until next time I'm Patrick Rife. Peace.