Introduction
Bartend My Party is a first-of-its-kind platform that connects bartenders and mixologists with party hosts and corporations looking to hire local professionals for their next party or event.
The platform is designed to connect small business owners specializing in bartending services with private individuals and corporations seeking professional bartending support for parties and corporate functions.
Problem Statement
The web application serves two primary user groups: Bartenders and Customers.
- Bartenders provide bartending services as packages to customers.
- Customers are individuals or organisations looking to hire bartenders for events.
Bartenders join the platform by selecting and purchasing one of three subscription packages:
- Basic: Complimentary listing in 2 zip codes.
- Advanced: Complimentary listing in 4 zip codes.
- Platinum: Complimentary listing in 10 zip codes.
Customers can sign up, search for bartenders by zip code or radius, chat to discuss packages, and book services.
The application needed to support:
- Secure advanced payments
- Real-time chat
- Creation of both predefined and custom packages
- A robust booking system with notifications and cancellations
- Advanced search functionality using zip code and radius
Objectives
Build a complete web application platform where bartenders offer their services to customers. Packed with features like:
- Booking
- Payment
- Chatting
- Custom and Pre-defined Package creation
- Secure Auth system
- Profile Creation
Process
The application was divided into three user roles: Bartenders, Customers, and Administrators.
- Bartenders: Subscription-based accounts, profile and service creation, chatting with customers, sending custom offers.
- Customers: Booking and paying for services, managing and canceling orders.
- Administrators: Managing bartenders, customers, and admins, as well as maintaining oversight of all platform features.
Approach
I went with the incremental approach to complete this project.
Building increments and working together with the client to find out what else is necessary for bartenders and customers, to make our platform more engaging and rewarding for all parties.
In addition to the web platform, a companion mobile application was also developed to provide customers and bartenders with on-the-go access to bookings, chats, and notifications.
Research
The platform was benchmarked against Find Your Trainer, a fitness trainer booking service with a similar business model.
For handling payments:
- Stripe was integrated for subscription-based recurring payments (bartenders) and one-time payments (customers), due to its global recognition and strong documentation.
For communication and notifications:
- Pusher’s real-time APIs were implemented to support chat and instant notifications.
For the web framework:
- Laravel was chosen to build a reliable monolithic system.
For mobile development:
- Flutter was used to develop apps for Android and iOS
Designs
A minimalist UI design was selected to provide a clean and intuitive experience for both bartenders and customers.
Conclusion
The project was successfully completed and deployed to production. Adjustments to the timeline were required due to late-stage client requests, but the platform went live with continuous monitoring and enhancements in place. In addition to the web platform, a mobile app was developed to extend access and usability. However, the product was later discontinued by the client.