First, the name: Weesh is a mash-up of “we wish.” And that’s the basic idea of the new app from a company called JustUs. Weesh helps couples find activities they wish to do. And, once they do them, Weesh is a place to document their experiences. It’s a planner, wishlist and scrapbook combined.
The app was created by Karin Levi, Amit Hagin and Ofir Beigel within New York’s Dreamit Ventures accelerator. They first launched a similar app in Israel to validate the concept; it became the top lifestyle app in the Israel app store.
Today they’re launching Weesh to help couples manage their activity “wish lists.”
Weesh has a fun concept and engaging design, but it is entering a crowded space: Y-Combinator company Pair launched earlier this year to much fanfare and has amassed 220,000 downloads. HowAboutWe Couples seeks to suggest and sell activities to couples. Beyond that there’s SimplyUs, a calendar and to-do list organizer. Avocado offers similar planning and communicating tools; it was created during the 20% of “free time” it’s founders had while working at Google. The startup is backed by Baseline Ventures, General Catalyst and Lightspeed Ventures. Twosome is a couples therapy-type of app. VCNC, a competitor out of South Korea, is now available in 13 languages with a million downloads.
Weesh aims to be different in a few ways. Pair is focused mostly on being a channel of
communication, not a digital scrapbook. Thumb-kissing is adorable but utility functions like activities and planning aren’t baked in. Meanwhile, communications on Weesh are mostly centered around experiences, future or past.
HowAboutWe Couples is similar in its focus on activities but requires couples to pay a monthly subscription fee of $150 for dates like “a lavish picnic in Central Park,” a guided bike tour through Long Island’s North Fork, or a private yoga lesson in your home. Weesh acts as less of a concierge and more like a shared notepad. A bucket list for couples.
Weesh faces some of the same issues as its competitors: It currently requires two iPhone users. It solves a problem that couples seem to be handling fine on their own, making it a “nice to have” app, but not a “need to have” one. Like Pair, it seems most useful for couples that don’t live together and see one another every day.
Unlike Pair, Weesh provides a sweet, nostalgic record of the activities in your relationship. And further, it doesn’t need a critical mass of users before it implements a business model. The app is free to download. Weesh will get a basic referral commission on purchases and bookings made through its app. The company doesn’t have to supply all the activity ideas for the couples–their wish lists include self-generated ones and suggestions from Weesh. In the future, Weesh will reach out to vendors directly to source activities.
Aside from Dreamit’s investment, JustUs is backed by Jeff Pulver and JP micro angel fund. It’ll open up a new round of funding in August, after Dreamit’s demo day.