BY CHAZ PLAGER
The hardest part of planning a party is finding the people, and with the advent of the internet things should have become easier.
Surprisingly to Jack Schwartz, 17, it only became more complicated. Fed up with constant plan changes, the Palisades resident set out to change things by developing an app – myplots.
Using myplots, those on the app can set a location, date, and time for a party, and send out invites directly, or accept join requests from other users.
Users are encouraged to post on their Instagram or Snapchat stories “What’s Plots tonight?” to find other users. Active parties are shown on a map corresponding to the user’s location and can be clicked on to learn more.
“I wanted to make it so that no one gets left out,” said Schwartz, who is a senior at Palisades High School. “I want people to connect and create unforgettable experiences with an easy way to access what’s going on in the plot circle.”
Although he launched the app this year, he has been working on it for the past year and half.
In ninth grade, Jack was in the middle of throwing a party when he realized that he could monetize this sort of thing. “I asked myself, ‘Why isn’t there an app directly for throwing parties or a direct app for finding/creating them?’”
Jack then pitched the idea to an app development team, a group of unnamed freelancers he met through the internet, who accepted his idea there and then. When myplots was launched on the App Store, it quickly gained more than 1,000 users.
This isn’t Schwartz’s first experience with entrepreneurship. Before his app, he created his own clothing brand, Loonar Clothing.
“I was successful with marketing [for Loonar], so I thought, why not try this?” Schwartz said. “I’m hosting parties currently to market it, and I’m hoping that eventually it will catch on and the whole world will start using it.”
Schwartz, who loves his math and business classes, said he hopes that larger companies will catch wind of his app and consider sponsoring it. “This isn’t the last app I plan to make,” he said. “No way am I stopping here.”
The founder of the app myplots and Loonar Clothing, Jack Schwartz, who is in the center with his hand raised, developed the app, to make parties more inclusive.