This article was published on October 3, 2014

What’s on your home screen? Checking in with YPlan CEO Rytis Vitkauskas


What’s on your home screen? Checking in with YPlan CEO Rytis Vitkauskas

Courtney Boyd Myers is the founder of audience.io. “What’s On Your Home Screen” is presented by Fueled, a New York and London-based mobile app development company that produces award-winning apps for big brands like Barneys to hot startups like QuizUp.


In 2012, British actor and writer Stephen Fry sent out a tweet in December 2012, “YPlan – now that’s a seriously good app. Last minute events London of all kinds booked in seconds. Free and damned smart.”

Shortly after, the startup YPlan exploded on the London scene, giving consumers a more spontaneous way to enrich their social lives through their mobile app, whilst giving event promoters a new way to reach young consumers. To date, YPlan has worked with 10,000 events and 800 event partners across London, New York, San Francisco, Las Vegas and Edinburgh, and has been downloaded over 1 million times.

We caught up with YPlan’s Founder and CEO Rytis Vitkauskas with seven questions after taking a look at what’s on his home screen, giving us an inside glimpse at the productivity habits of the Lithuanian entrepreneur and New York transplant.

1. What is the first app you open each morning?

For the first 30 minutes I deliberately don’t open a single app or check my phone. I let my head clearly put the important plans for the day in order while I wake up and take a shower.

Then, I open the default iOS mail app and start clearing the 50 to 100 emails that came in overnight and send quick notes to help expedite items during the day.

Rytis - What's On Your Home Screen

2. How many times throughout the day would you say you check your phone?

Around 50 to 100.

3. You’re the founder of one of today’s most popular apps — how often do you download and check out new apps to study their features? And how often do you download competitor apps to do the same?

I do this all the time, not just with competitor apps but with all product centric companies’ mobile products.

4. Between Maps, Google Maps, CityMapper, HotelTonight, Hailo, and Uber, it’s obvious that you travel a lot. Which cities do you travel in the most?

I do travel a lot (too much!), especially between London, home to YPlan’s HQ, New York where our main US office is, Los Angeles for the industry folks, San Francisco for our investors, then Chicago, Philadelphia, D.C., Dublin and Barcelona.

5. Hailo or Uber?

Hailo.

6. Do you have any expert user tips for HotelTonight? Is it 100 percent reliable?

I use HotelTonight regularly and my worst experience was that I got an airport hotel during a key conference time in San Francisco. Otherwise, it’s been extremely nice and reliable.

7. What should we be excited about for the upcoming Beta Version of YPlan that I see on your phone?

Top Secret! You can expect YPlan to become a lot smarter and more personalized in regards to your location, your taste, your friends, and social graph. You should also be excited that YPlan will become even more spontaneous!

Who do you think we should check in on next? Let us know in the comments below.

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