Bars are more than just places to get a beer and a bite to eat. For many people, they are community centers where friends and strangers gather to enjoy some cold beverages and participate in bar games.

Take it from Richard and Fernando, local business owners in the Charlotte, North Carolina, area who have been hosting bar and brewery events such as pool, volleyball, and cornhole for a few years.

These successful events were a big draw for local bars and breweries, whose owners asked Richard and Fernando to host their events at their establishments regularly.

In early 2022, Richard and Fernando decided their business Bar Athletes needed to take the next step by developing an app. They approached Confianz in early 2022 with an idea for an app that would help spread the word about their events and drive even more traffic to local bars and breweries.

The Problem

Richard and Fernando knew their app idea would succeed based on their previous success holding events at local bars. However, they needed help determining how to develop an app that would address all of their needs.

There were several specific features that the Bar Athletes app needed that other apps available on the app stores couldn’t deliver in one streamlined package

Payment system

The app also needed a back-end payment system allowing participants to pay registration fees directly from the app. This is important because business owners need assurance that people who sign up for events are serious about them and won’t end up being no-shows.

Plus, it makes keeping track of payments simple. Instead of trying to collect payment on the day of the event, the event hosts can collect registration fees online ahead of time to help cover the costs of putting on the event.

Event tracking

The app also needed a way for participants to keep track of their progress and scores throughout the event. This would also make it easier for spectators to track event progress and cheer on their friends at the right time.

Event search

Above all else, the app needed to make it easy for participants to find Bar Athletes’ hosted events in their local area and register to participate in events. Many people in the Charlotte area enjoy participating in cornhole, volleyball, darts, and other tournaments who want to stay on top of the latest happenings in the area.

With an app, participants can always know when and where the next event is happening to ensure they take advantage of every chance to register for an upcoming game or tournament.

Prize collection

One of the best parts of competing in bar events is collecting prizes. Bar Athletes wanted their app to have an option for participants to directly collect prizes from the app to ensure they received them and to minimize any headaches of prize collection on the day of an event.

Options for bar owners and event hosts

In addition to helping athletes find and register for events at local bars and breweries, the app also needed to allow business owners to create and post events at their establishments.

The Solution

Richard and Fernando had searched the app stores to find a solution to fit their needs but came up short. The pair decided to meet with the Confianz team to develop a customized app that would help their targeted audience find, participate in, and track events at local bars and breweries.

Richard and Fernando were familiar with Confianz as a local Charlotte-based business. As business owners who work with local bars and breweries, they appreciated working with a local app development company.

Getting Started

Confianz and Bar Athletes started working together in February 2022. The Confianz team set up several initial conversations with the Bar Athletes team to get a better idea of precisely what they needed out of an app and what was missing from the apps they found on the app stores.

It was important for the two companies to align on how the app needed to function for the best user experience. Spending time upfront learning everything about how Richard and Fernando wanted the app to work for both participants and business owners was essential before Confianz moved to the development stage.

After a few weeks of discussion to confirm requirements, sign a non-disclosure agreement, and put together a work breakdown structure (WBS), the Confianz team got to work designing the app. The WBS details the pieces of the app that need to be completed and the hours it will take to complete. This is an essential step in the app development process because it ensures everyone involved is on the same page about how long the app is expected to take to develop.

Tech Stacks

Front End - React Native

React Native is an open-source JavaScript framework, designed for building apps on multiple platforms like iOS, Android, and also web applications, utilizing the very same code base. It is based on React, and it brings all its glory to mobile app development.

Back End - Node. js

Node. js is a platform built on Chrome's JavaScript runtime for easily building fast and scalable network applications. Node. js uses an event-driven, non-blocking I/O model that makes it lightweight and efficient, perfect for data-intensive real-time applications that run across distributed devices.

Database - MySQL

MySQL is an open-source relational database management system, is a fully managed database service to deploy cloud-native applications.

Design and Development

The Confianz development team used the logo from Bar Athletes to build out the overall look and feel of the app. They suggested a compatible color scheme, font, and button style to create a clean, fresh look.

Confianz kept Bar Athletes up to date with the status of their project by holding weekly status calls. After about two months, the app was ready for testing. By month four, the app was built, and the Confianz development team worked with Bar Athletes to add details to the app to improve the customer experience.

The Results

Within six months, Bar Athletes had gone from having an idea for an app that would help their business to having a fully functioning app available on the app stores.

Within a month of being released, the Bar Athletes app already had a number of bars signed up and several events posted. They had around 25 events planned for the month of September and are already gearing up for phase 2, which will expand into additional cities near Charlotte, North Carolina.

The Bar Athletes app is available for free on the Apple app store and Google Play store. So far, it has received only five-star reviews from bar athletes in the Charlotte area who appreciate the convenience the app offers.