A Chat with Oliver Andersen-Cox Founder & CEO at Culture App: Ping Culture

Ping Culture is an app designed to revolutionise the way people go out, making it simple, easy and enjoyable to find incredible venues in seconds. We provide a holistic approach – anyone can book, uber to, buy tickets and everything you could possibly need to do to go out, in one place.

We have also just launched our friction-free loyalty system which links your bank/credit card through the app, and when you buy anything at our partner venues, you get rewarded the second you make the purchase (using you card, so no extra steps required!)
 
 

 

How did you come up with the idea for the company?

 
I was living in Bali on an island called Gili Trwawngan, and one night whilst cycling home I realised there was nothing solving the problem of finding exactly what you want to do on a night or day out quickly and easily, and if anything attempted it, you still needed countless extra steps to book, get direction etc – why was there nothing to make it easy for all aspects!
 

How has the company evolved during the pandemic?

 
The pandemic completely changed our business. We were initially going to launch in Cape Town as I was living there with my now co-founder – and of course the pandemic send us home. We were forced to confront the beast that is London, and seeing how the pandemic was reading havoc on the industry we were about to launch in was a game changer. We build in covid related features to help people quickly and easily know rules and regulations on a venue by venue basis, we proved a quick search to show venues that had outdoor areas and made it simple for people to get back to enjoying themselves.

We also made out dashboard accommodate all of this so businesses had a revolutionary way of communicating with customers via push notifications. People could now get updates on the favourite bars the second they were made, and this meant no more missed or ignored marketing emails!

We then saw how bars were scrapping for business and creating insane offers to get people in, meaning they were taking huge hits on their margins. So we released our loyalty system which rewarded people for spending, and actively encourage users to spend more to unlock amazing rewards from these venues.
 

What can we hope to see from Ping Culture in the future?

 
We are only just beginning and we’re going to be hitting the rest of the UK this year as well as Europe and of course Cape Town. We’ve got some awesome features coming, and they are all based on user/business feedback.

You can expect more and more incredible venues rewarding you for going out, as well as exciting events at all our partner venues with some pretty big names attending.

We’re super excited!