The Munich startup Social Club is a lifestyle app that gives its members a free drink every day at select locations. It offers variety for consumers and a marketing tool for restaurateurs. We spoke with founder Denis Melo.
1. Who are you and what do you do? Please introduce yourselves briefly!
My name is Denis Melo (33). I'm originally from Brazil, have lived in Germany for 15 years, and studied business administration with a double degree in International Business and Finance. I'm the founder of "SocialClub."
SocialClub is a subscription-based lifestyle app that offers its members a free drink every day at participating partner locations.
Free marketing for restaurateurs
Our members can find trendy bars, clubs, and restaurants, and the subscription costs just under €10 a month. The app is free to download, and everyone automatically receives a free drink to get to know each other. Essentially, SocialClub is a free marketing tool for restaurateurs.
Instead of spending thousands of euros on traditional advertising, SocialClub enables restaurateurs to give their guests a free first drink, encouraging them to stay and order more drinks and food at full price.
It's a win-win situation: the venues get more visitors and can sell more, and SocialClub members get to know new venues and get their first drink for free. We also promote our partners via social media, live campaigns, and invite our members to events.
2. But that's been around for a long time!
Not really. It would have been nice if this had existed when I was a student!
In our increasingly digitalized world, customers expect companies to 
communicate with them through a variety of digital media. Unlike many of today's top apps, which aim to encourage people to communicate with each other purely digitally or via mobile devices, the goal of the SocialClub app is to bring its users back into the real world and engage with real people there.
SocialClub is a new kind of "GastroTech" company that connects consumers, data, and technology in a novel way, building on the ancient tradition of drinking together and the social experiences it brings.
3. What has been your biggest challenge so far?
Winning reputable partner companies!
Acquiring reputable partners is a particular challenge for an app in the restaurant scene. As a startup, the SocialClub team had to rely primarily on cold calls, initially with more success than failure. The reason was that venue owners initially misunderstood SocialClub as "just another restaurant app."
However, these concerns could mostly be dispelled by demonstrating and explaining the SocialClub app. Humans are visual creatures, after all, and if you can show them something tangible, it becomes much easier.
And so it is easy to see what we deliver, in contrast to expensive indirect marketing strategies.
Investor wanted — Intensive marketing and international expansion planned
4. Let’s get down to business: How is business going?
Business is developing surprisingly well. Although we only launched the beta release of the app a month ago, the app has already been downloaded more than 500 times – on iOS and Android – and we've had more than 1,000 visits from our partners. Of course, our SocialClub team doesn't want to rest on their laurels.
We're therefore planning an intensive marketing campaign for the next three months. We expect our user base to exceed 10,000 by the end of the year and reach 100,000 by the end of next year, as we intend to have a presence in ten cities internationally by then.
From an operational perspective, we aim to expand our team from six people to 20 full-time employees by attracting additional investors in addition to our business angels. Despite these aggressive expansion plans, we expect our company to become profitable within 12 to 18 months.
Raising awareness of Munich's lively bar scene
5. What does Munich mean to you?
Munich offers a strong infrastructure, a good startup climate, and thanks to the numerous excellent universities, it's easy to find highly qualified people here. Many people aren't really aware of Munich's lively bar scene. I want to change that!
6. How will your startup become the next unicorn? Or will we see you soon at Epic Fail Night?
It's time to use technology to reward a good customer with a few free drinks in a better way than usual. We sit on a treasure trove of data, far more extensive than any venue or alcohol brand has had access to before.
Smart Data for bars and beverage manufacturers
SocialClub wants to better understand customer behavior and drinking habits and use real “smart data” to improve bars and 
Helping beverage manufacturers create better products and market more effectively, and offering customers an easy way to order cocktails based on their current drinking preferences. The market is huge, and we're optimistic about making these changes in the market and hopefully becoming the next unicorn.
7. Helles or Prosecco?
Only free cocktails at the moment!
