Let’s Go to the Party.

An Uber Developers guest post from Paperless Post by Kaspar Alexander

There’s a party tonight, and it’s time to get dressed (what’s the vibe at that place again?), round up your friends (ugh, why are they always late?), and figure out how to get there (wait, was that East or West Village?). Suddenly, getting from Point A to Point B seems like an insurmountable task.

Paperless Post is a digital platform for online and paper invitations that connects millions of people in the real world. We have two main cohorts of users with very different needs: the hosts who are doing the party-planning and hoping everything will go off without a hitch and the guests who just want to go and have a good time. In the last year, we’ve been thinking more about how to minimize friction for the latter (especially on mobile where most of our cards are opened), and we started with a complete redesign of the invitation-receiving experience.

It didn’t take long after that for us to realize that one of the main hurdles that partygoers have to get over is actually getting to the party. Though travel might seem like a simple task, it’s a hassle to lookup the venue address, get directions, plan your trip, and coordinate with other guests. Using the addresses that hosts enter when creating an event on Paperless Post, we realized that we could team up with Uber to help hosts and guests achieve their partying goals.

On the day of any Paperless Post event, when an RSVP’d guest goes to view the invitation on the mobile web (presumably to look up the info they need to get to the party) they will see a new icon that says “Ride there with Uber.” Clicking through will launch the Uber app with their destination pre-filled with the location of the party — no typos or misremembered addresses included. (Guests who don’t already have the Uber app will be taken to the App Store to download it.) Easy breezy. Now, attending the party is as easy as a few taps of your thumb.

This beta integration with Uber is a first step towards improving what we call the “guest journey” so they can focus on what matters — enjoying the event. (You can try it out for yourself by creating your own invitations.) Early adoption data is encouraging, and we’re excited to explore more integrations that reduce friction for hosts and guests alike to solidify our commitment to making Paperless Post a better platform.

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Comments, feedback, and suggestions on this feature or the larger product welcome below or directly to Kaspar Alexander (Sr. Product Manager) at kaspar@paperlesspost.com.

Many thanks to Andrew Weiser (Product Manager), Jessica Karle (Lead Product Designer), Joe Natalzia (Software Engineer), Stephanie Shih (Editorial Director), and the team at Uber. Paperless Post is hiring. We would love your help building what’s next.