Students across the country — and campus — are getting hooked on Hooked, a new food locator app.
The app serves as a conduit through which users can discover short-term, exclusive offers — or Hooks — offered by businesses in their area.
Joey Turman, a spring 2015 Kelley School of Business graduate, is the company’s sales and business development representative in Bloomington.
“There is nothing like Hooked on the marketplace right now,” Turman said. “Hooked has all exclusive specials — you can’t get these deals anywhere else.”
After downloading the app, users can sift through a newsfeed of deals available around them. Hooks are displayed based on location, which means location services on the mobile device must be turned on.
Once the user has decided on an offer, they simply show up at the restaurant and tap “Get Hooked” before checking out.
In order to redeem a Hook, users must show their cashier or server that they “Got Hooked.”
Users must be inside the business within the deal’s time frame.
Hooked works with a variety of national chains, cafés, delis, pubs and local shops, according to the company’s website.
Since its successful launch at the University of Austin, Hooked expanded its reach to 11 schools and now IU-Bloomington, according to the company website.
Turman said more than 5,000 IU students have downloaded Hooked after three weeks.
“We are having the most success here out of all of our 10 new college markets that we just launched,” Turman said. “A lot of them are huge schools, like Ohio State, and IU is the fastest growing market thus far.”
Hooked offers its IU users deals and coupons in real-time at more than 45 different Bloomington restaurants and restaurants inside the Indiana Memorial Union..
People interested in creating a Hooked account can do so directly through their Facebook account or by entering their email, password and a few additional details.
Hooked is a free app that is available for both iOS and Android, and it can be found in the iTunes app store and Google Play respectively.
Hooked is not offered in the Windows app store, which Truman said the company is working on.
Turman said the company plans to launch ten new college markets across the country this spring.
Turman said there were roughly 125,000 Hooked users nationwide.
“We are growing at such an exponential rate,” Turman said. “It is so fun and just such a great experience to be a part of.”
