<img height="1" width="1" style="display:none" src="https://www.facebook.com/tr?id=192888919167017&amp;ev=PageView&amp;noscript=1">
Tuesday, March 19, 2024
March 19, 2024

Linkedin Pinterest

New shopping app Quid caters to absent-minded

Vancouver man, former resident helped program

By , Columbian Business Editor
Published:

Add one more app to the mushrooming list of technology tools intended to eliminate the inconvenience of waiting for just about anything.

The new app is called Quid, and it is designed to help forgetters and procrastinators. Its three designers, including one Vancouver resident and another who grew up in Vancouver, say it will solve the age-old problem of realizing that you’ve forgotten to buy that one thing you needed at the grocery store.

A quick trip to the Quid app should produce someone who happens to be nearby who is willing to run back to the store to purchase that forgotten item — for a fee, of course. Problem solved, and both the buyer and the app developers pick up some profit.

The app became available Friday on iOS and Android or through the website www.quid-app.com. It’s first targets for building a critical mass of service users and providers are Vancouver and, to a lesser degree, Portland.

“Our first goal is to get traction,” said Adam Trent, a 29-year-old Hazel Dell resident who is one of the app’s designers.”If someone posts and no one does (the job), they won’t post again.”

Quid is good for more than that forgotten carton of milk, of course. Trent, who works as a local operations director for a Chinese company, sees the app as a potential tool for finding someone any variety of short-term tasks, including lawn-mowing or cleanup work. And, he says, it provides a service for people who are looking for part-time work to supplement their incomes. “It’s a win for both people,” said Trent, a graduate of Mountain View High School and Washington State University Vancouver. Already, Trent says he’s talked to drivers for Uber, the ridesharing service, who say they could combine their work for Uber with jobs picked up on Quid.

The app’s developers are Maxwell Holloway, an electrical engineer who attended Vancouver’s Crestline Elementary School with Trent, and Matheus Iser, a Portland State University student the other two men found through Craigslist. Holloway coded the iOS version of the app for Apple products; Iser was code writer for the Android version.

Trent and Holloway are not new to technology entrepreneurship. They previously developed an Internet shopping website called Peeka, which they sold because they lacked the resources to help it grow, Trent said. The new owners secured $700,000 in funding and the site at one point was valued at over $3 million, but it nevertheless went out of business.

With Quid, the developers expect to make money with a 5 percent transaction fee, which will be split between the company and the credit card provider involved in the transaction. The site developers’ strategy is to build the site with add-on features and expand into new territories, perhaps establishing a national presence.

Trent says they don’t have time to worry about others copying their idea.

“We can win by doing what we do best and not worrying about what others are doing,” he said.

Loading...
Columbian Business Editor