Split, tip, pay, and share!
Full Society is an iPhone app (+Android if we hit $50k stretch goal) that allows you to view your bill, split it easily with friends, tip, pay (with ApplePay, Paypal, Venmo, credit/debit card), and leave at any time. YOU are in control. No bartender or server required.
The Full Society app connects you to nearby restaurants and bars. Convenient, seamless, and socially conscious: our mission is to give a meal to someone in need for every table that pays through our app.
The idea of “Full Society” is that you feel FULL from eating out, and you feel FULL by helping provide a meal for others after paying your bill. The result? A FULL society!
“I have been waiting for someone to solve this annoying restaurant problem for years” – Leo Khin, Chapter Director of Start Up Grind
“Full Society is the best restaurant app on the East Coast! Paige is a truly gifted entrepreneur!” – Johns Hopkins Innovation Factory
“We applaud Full Society for its vision and compassion, and we celebrate this launch!” – Robert Gehman, Executive Director of Helping Up Mission
As Featured In:
In today’s world, our lives are busy enough! Full Society will save you TIME when you eat out, make your dining experience MORE enjoyable, and LESS awkward (e.g. the horrors of splitting the bill between 10 friends at last call).
Full Society is a socially conscious and sustainable company. We want to cut down on paper receipts (who wants to keep track of those anyway?) and change the way we think about society.
Our app is focused on giving back to the community, a desire that many of us have as our society becomes more interconnected. The social media integration also generates positive personal promotion for the users (and restaurants) among their peers. Our goal is to be a social enterprise that attempts to bridge gaps in society through business solutions.
Let’s not be silly.
We don’t expect that every single American will go out to eat exactly once every 5 days and donate $1.25 every time. But, we do believe that there are a large number of people who will. Those people will have a HUGE impact!
Many Americans are surprised to learn how big of a problem hunger is in our own country: 1 in 6 people in America go hungry every night.
Our Non-Profit Partners: If you choose to donate, where will the money go?
We provide meals by partnering with non-profits. In-app donations are sent to these organizations to provide meals directly to those in need.
- Our Founder The initial concept for Full Society was born in a class at Johns Hopkins. Having waited tables and bar-tended in crowded restaurants in the past, Paige (founder) saw a dire need for ways in which restaurants could save time. After writing a 40 page research paper on industry trends and analysis, creating user surveys, and conducting numerous interviews with restaurant owners, she put together a team and went straight to work developing the product. Paige is a Johns Hopkins University graduate who has worked in finance for the past 6 years. Last year she went back to grad school to get her MBA and that’s when Full Society came about.
- The Founding Team includes two University of Delaware graduates (Lauren “The Lorax” Cantlin and Jamie “Jambles” Winder) and a University of Maryland graduate, Mike Klicos, also known as “Dad.” Lauren brings years of creative design and writing experience to the team, while Jamie has similar writing experience in addition to strong communications and marketing skills. And Mike, the only non-female member, brings over 15 years of restaurant experience to the team. We also partnered with Bolster Labs to do our technical development and design.
- Most importantly, the entire team is deeply passionate and determined to help others. Full Society wants to take all necessary risks required to do what we believe is right for our community and beyond. We are a bootstrapped business, having just recently accepted $25k in seed funding from the Accelerate Baltimore Program.
Awards and Competitions:
- Accelerate Baltimore 2015 Winner (recipient of $25k funding)
- Johns Hopkins University Business Plan Competition Finalist 2015
- Invest Maryland SemiFinalist 2015
- Johns Hopkins University Innovation Factory Startup Winner 2014
- StartUp Maryland Great 8 Finalist 2014
Traction:
- 2,100 interested pre-users
- Pilot program set to launch MVP (Minimum Viable Product) Summer 2015 in 25 restaurants
Technology:
- Technical Proof of Concept: Complete!
- Experience Prototype: Complete!
We are so close! We still need to finish technical development to get our MVP to launch. We also believe that marketing is key in getting user adoption at our onset and beyond. Help us spread the word about America’s dire need for a society full of happy, well-fed people. When you receive, you should give back. That is what creates a Full Society!
Note that the Full Society team is a lean startup. We’ve made ourselves successful by making our wants few (scrounging up ramen, crackers on the floor, and anything else we can find to sustain ourselves). We are entirely unpaid working around the clock on this project.
Your funding will allow us to:
- Aquire 5,000 users
- Finish technical development
- Launch iPhone app publicly in Apple app store
STRETCH GOAL: $50,000
- If we hit our stretch goal, we will launch our product in July 2015 for both iPhone AND Android users!!
Perks
Since our motto is to give back, we want to make sure that Full Society’s backers receive rewards that make them feel full.
Dinner Lab – Our FAVORITE Perk
Dinner Lab website, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Linkedin and Pinterest.
blog
What is Dinner Lab?
Dinner Lab is a company that similarly utilizes the restaurant industry as an innovative tool for bringing foodies together. Dinner Lab creates an elevated restaurant experience by having strangers meet together for the first time to try elevated cuisine crafted by chefs all over America. Dinner Lab is already operating in over 20 locations nationwide and they want to expand further. By helping us, you help Dinner Lab, hungry Americans and yourselves to some incredible meals at a crazy good price. What’s not to like?
As a Dinner Lab member, you’ll have access to incredible cutting-edge food events in the city of your choice!
We believe this partnership will help foster a more integrated food community, not only in our hometown of Baltimore, but all over America. We highly suggest taking a look at Dinner Lab, even if you choose to back us at a lower rewards level.
Challenges
What would life be without a little risk? We’ve already experienced several challenges and we are certain there will be more to come.
Our biggest concern is our ability to get to market quickly. Although the mobile payments industry is still very nascent, there are many startups in addition to fully developed companies encroaching upon the space. We are still exploring options to help us quickly expand to restaurants across the country.
To lessen this risk, we are currently focused on forming strategic partnerships that will help us expand and scale quickly.
Another risk we face is delay in the technical development timeline due to additional unexpected work needed. We went through a very thorough requirements definition with Bolster Labs to ensure that this will not be likely to happen.
More About the Team
The truth? Here is how the team came to be:
Paige and Mike went to high school together. Paige knew mike was smart from taking AP calculus with him. They parted ways for college and worked in different industries but always stayed close friends. When Paige was 5, her sister Lauren was born, thus saving her from being the self-absorbed only child she otherwise most certainly would have been. During her MBA, Paige solicited Lauren’s help to learn graphic design for some of her projects. That’s when Lauren realized the potential for Full Society and encouraged her sister to move forward. They searched high and low for a free intern who was intelligent and hardworking (nearly impossible). Somehow Lauren convinced Jamie to get behind the project and move from New Jersey to Baltimore to be with us full time. Paige, Mike, Lauren, and Jamie have been together ever since.
Fun Facts:
To learn more about us, check out our blog updates! You’ll enjoy all sorts of short tales from our hilarious little startup lives.
We are Full Society, a four-member team based out of Baltimore that wants to make going out to eat more convenient for both customers and restaurant staff while directly benefiting the greater community around us.
Our ultimate goal? Make everyone full by giving back to those in need, one table at a time.
Thanks for backing our project!