We have a similar app, Flatmin (http://flatmin.com) that's targeted more specifically at shared living situations.
We built it a few years ago, and h(ave|ad) big plans to expand into household chores and shopping lists. It's an interesting problem from a couple of perspectives. We've found the more Facebook integration we can do, the better as the target market are very comfortable with Facebook.
It's also a difficult one to make money from - we have some ads on there, but I think to really make it work you'd need integration with another app or some kind of freemium offering (daily deals?)
Yours looks nice - if I could make a suggestion, it would be great to enter email addresses of people to invite, as sending them a hex string is less common and more likely to get lost!
Very cool! Flatmin looks like an awesome service! Payback is definitely still feature-minimal :p Everything you suggested is actually a major item on my to-do list! Facebook integration has been brought up several times and I very much agree about the hex string scheme - the next thing I'm going to do is look into an invite by email/ join with referral link, etc. I have no intention of trying to monetize either - I made it purely as a learning experience for my own apartment, and it does seem like a difficult space to get into.
We built it a few years ago, and h(ave|ad) big plans to expand into household chores and shopping lists. It's an interesting problem from a couple of perspectives. We've found the more Facebook integration we can do, the better as the target market are very comfortable with Facebook.
It's also a difficult one to make money from - we have some ads on there, but I think to really make it work you'd need integration with another app or some kind of freemium offering (daily deals?)
Yours looks nice - if I could make a suggestion, it would be great to enter email addresses of people to invite, as sending them a hex string is less common and more likely to get lost!