11 · Product Experiment
Llega. La noche ya está armada.
Before building Cotorreo, I audited the business. Then I designed four versions to see if the idea deserved code.
Iterations
4
OG, V1, V1.5, V2.
Method
Audit-first
Business before screens.
Market
CDMX
Roma, Condesa, Juárez.
Status
Concept
Designed, tested, not shipped.
Premise
First decide if the business deserves the build.
The question was simple: is this a real local social system, or just a nicer planner?
The Problem
Group chats start plans, but they rarely close them. Everyone says yes, the place gets buried, and the night fades.
For who
People in dense CDMX scenes who want a reliable going-out life, plus hosts and venues that need full tables on slow nights.
Overview
I audited Cotorreo before code: category, competitors, cold-start, trust, and retention.
The idea moved from chat planning to local scene membership: recurring nights, curated tables, verified people, reliability, and familiar faces.
01
Name the category.
02
Find the real enemy.
03
Test cold-start early.
04
Know what not to build.
Evolution
Four passes to reach one thesis.
Each version removed a weak bet and made the product easier to explain.
Donde la plática se vuelve plan.
The first idea turned chat into decisions: invite, vote, pick a place, close the plan.
Risk
Useful, but too close to the group chat.
Discovery, RSVP, detail page, chat.
The first product UI looked polished but mixed planning, discovery, and marketplace logic.
Breakage
Every event had to fill alone. That is a cold-start trap.
Stop selling events. Sell a local scene.
The home became a living zone with recurring nights, waitlist, confianza, and familiar faces.
Insight
Pool people by time and zone, then form the tables from the pool.
Llega. La noche ya está armada.
V2 connected scene onboarding, night joining, table reveal, mesa chat, post-night rating, and host operations.
Thesis
The company is not event discovery. It is the trust layer for local scenes.
Category
Cotorreo does not organize events. It organizes scenes.
The sharper move was refusing the obvious fights.
Incumbent
Where people talk.
Cotorreo
Where the plan becomes real.
Google Maps
Incumbent
Shows places.
Cotorreo
Chooses what works for this group.
Eventbrite
Incumbent
Public events.
Cotorreo
Private recurring nights.
Timeleft
Incumbent
One-off stranger dinners.
Cotorreo
Recurring faces that become tu banda.
System
Five nouns hold the product together.
Keep these clear and the product stays clear.
01
Zona
Where you move and belong.
02
Noche
A recurring slot you can trust.
03
Mesa
The curated group revealed before arrival.
04
Banda
The familiar faces that bring you back.
05
Confianza
Your private record of showing up well.
Mechanics
The loops are simple.
Most of the work stays invisible. The guest just feels received.
01
Waitlist by zone
Open a scene only when there is enough local demand.
02
Reliability
Confianza rewards people who show up and protects table quality.
03
Regulars
The reason to return is a person, not a notification.
04
Reveal
You join a night, then the table, host, and place become concrete.
Design
The screens followed the thesis.
As the idea got sharper, the interface got quieter.
OG · Chat to plan
The original brand promise: turn the conversation into a plan.
V1 · Event app
A polished but crowded product: feed, event page, RSVP, and chat.
V1.5 · Scene pivot
The home became a scene, not a feed.
V2 · Scene system
The final pass connected guest, host, and venue operations.
Result
The output was not an app. It was a decision.
01
Audit before code
Pressure-test the business before opening the build.
02
Choose the category
Do not fight WhatsApp on chat. Create local scene membership.
03
Pool demand
Recurring nights concentrate people by time and zone.
04
Make trust visible
Reliability, hosts, and repeat faces make the room feel safe.
Positioning
Tu escena local, cada semana.
Curated nights in your zone. Cotorreo fills the table, confirms the people, and helps familiar faces become tu banda.
Method
Business audit, positioning, product architecture, Figma, mobile UI.
Cotorreo Green
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Forest
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Mint
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Ink
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Slate
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Paper
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