Pumping as a science

Immortalised in song after being adopted into local slang, pump, is life.

Andel Husbands and Jonathan Agarrat have a sort of ESP that’ll serve them well in their careers, joint or otherwise.

They may as well be twins, both young men are 21years of age from Diego Martin, they both attended Newtown Boys RC School and then Fatima College, Mucurapo. But they also shared interests. “While growing up we were both naturally interested in the field of technology and tried our hand at most crafts including HTML, C++, Java, Swift, Python.

What’s interesting is that we are both self-taught,” So when the two budding techies each began cooking up an iOS app on their own in 2014, of course they’d have the same idea.

“The birth of the app is quite a funny story actually. We were both putting what we learned about making websites into practise and upon completion we were both excited to show each other.

As it turns out we were both working on the same thing, a way to see all events going on in Trinidad,” Andel recalls.

Agarrat called his website On D Avenue while Andel named his WhereDPump. The latter was dubbed cooler plus it lined up with the fellas’ mission. “The problem we were trying to solve is literally the name of the app, WhereDPump!?’ Even as developers they mesh almost perfectly. “Jonathan focuses more on actual code implementation and structure, while I focus more on the actual design aspect and user experience. We both learn from each other and almost everything on WhereDPump is a combination of both of our skills.” But they don’t just stop at their limitations, they choose to power through them, acquiring new abilities on the fly.

Among the projects the dynamic duo has worked on are; UniversalWiz; YouCanDoThat; TriniReviewer; Fatima College’s website, Soca4u and many others they didn’t bother launching, WhereDPump marks their Apple App Store debut.

With a wide array of pumping options there was bound to be some competition.

“While we were still in development, we saw these other entertainment apps being released and popping up,” Agarrat says. “However, we remained focused and made it our mission to take our time with WhereDPump so that we could provide a solid app with a great user experience that can be loved and enjoyed by anyone.” What came out of this process was an app that’s fun to its core.

“We’re a party app, focusing on everything to do with partying.

I think also that’s what is driving much of our success; that we chose to focus one thing and do it well. Additionally, we actually don’t look at what the other apps are doing,” says Andel.

“Every update of WhereDPump is about being better than the previous version of the app,” he adds, “and finally, what we currently do and our vision has one core principle in common, solving a problem.

We add features as solutions to problems.” The students, like most college kids, relish vacation.

For a pair of Trini students studying in North America, it’s awfully convenient that they have a ready resource to ensure their time home isn’t wasted. They’re their app’s most enthusiastic end users.

“We have to know where the pump is before we can tell others, right? We love to pump! We actually use our app. Whenever we are in Trinidad it’s non-stop pump! The time away makes us miss the pumps at home even more,” Agarrat says.

But it’s not all fun and games, there’s actually a lot of science behind the apps success thus far, Husbands explains.

“Jonathan pursued some studies in the start-up life and he defined two main metrics we stick by; User Acquisition and User Retention.

So we focus a lot on acquiring users, always thinking of new ways to gain attraction but people can just download the app then delete it so User Retention comes into play.

“How do we keep people using the app? Basically we look at a ratio between the two metrics; the number of users that came and the number of users that stay.” The party scene thrives on exclusivity, WhereDPump aims to put VIP in the palms of the everyday pumper.

“For local users, no more headache.

Some people did not attend events because they couldn’t find someone to list them. They reach by the door and the person never sent in their list or their name spelt wrong,” the app solves that problem.

“With WhereDPump we see people attending more parties thanks to our easy process of getting listing and sourcing information that would help them make up their minds,” says Husbands.

“For promoters and club owners etc this is great,” Agarrat explains.

“Before they would have to constantly post to Facebook or Instagram and it’s not guaranteed people are seeing it, they most likely scroll right past it. We have 1000+ users on WhereDPump, we can send notifications that are delivered right to their phones about event updates, pricing, drinks specials etc. It’s a promoters heaven!” Then there are those on the outside looking for an easy entry into the local partying scene; “For tourists, they’re new to the country, they don’t know where d pump is, who listing for what, who’s selling tickets, where most people going to be. If only they had an app that did that ...hmmmmm.” And it’s been working, just last week an acquaintance told them they overheard two foreigners talking about how convenient it was for them to be able to do it on the app.

Agarrat is in his final year at the New York Institute of Technology, Husbands still has two more to go at the University of South Florida in Tampa, they’re both pursuing computer science degrees, and while they have no concrete plans for their postgrad years they know it will involve tech. “Honestly that’s the beauty of field. You can work in almost any industry. I can’t think of one industry where technology isn’t present today.” The pair has hinted at regional expansion but for now they are keeping their cards close to their chests. “We like to keep suspense and surprise. Just know that there is an actual whiteboard with a ton of features written down. We perform surveys on our users to figure what next they need. We also look at the feedback users provide from within the app.

If you want something to stir up your imagination, we’ll say this; we’re grouping a certain set of features together we call the Carnival update.”