I like this and I've prototyped similar things. I think this could definitely be a complement to (or wedge into) some types of event discovery. The movie tickets is a good idea too.
My suggestion would be to have an annual plan and push that harder (like $25/month but $199/year). I say that because this seems like a no-brainer Christmas gift for people and $20 is too low.
Random feedback. I think you should get to claim your first tickets on the confirmation page (this is what I came here for :)
Since I'm only familiar with your product insofar as the Insider's Club, I was a little confused when I went to http://www.upout.com and it was relegated to a corner link to click ("...oh yeah, it's upout Insider's Club, not upout"). It's just a pivot, but maybe it should have a first class site of its own?
There's all these great Premium Claim Events at the bottom of the claim page. I don't know whether or not that's an awesome idea, but it would be great if I knew when/if/how I was ever going to be eligible for that instead of just telling me that I'm not.
The claim page says "You have 1 Claims" instead of "You have 1 Claim"
You could price this more aggressively I think, but $20 makes it an easy choice for me to sign up.
Still tweaking around with the Premium Claims concept. We don't know yet what the ratio will be between normal:premium so right now we just give them out to longstanding members. Should look though like every 4 months.
I've been using this for a bit. It's relatively cheap, and the tickets I've gotten have been worth a lot more and were pretty fun -- and not stuff I would have done myself.
We launched 2 and a half years ago on HN and have been growing a lot in SF. Insiders Club is a "pivot" in our business model. It's a subscription club that gets you out trying new things. For $20/month, you pick from 12-40 unique events like cooking classes, dance parties, tomato fights etc. You pick one and we put you and your guest on the list. No lame coupons. This isn't a use it or lose it membership either... if you don't pick anything, we automatically mail you a pair of movie tickets.
Anyway, it's been in beta since the start of September 2013 with hundreds of happy customers in SF. Signup with the code "hackernews" and get your first month free.
Would love to get some feedback on the landing page and service itself!
Oo, definitely joining! I did a similar startup in NY a few years ago. We partnered with venues in Manhattan and Brooklyn and had teams of journalists and photographers who would curate lists of events -- no more than 20 a night. We folded around the time we introduced a monthly membership that would get you perks at events.
It looks like you've followed through and done a much better job executing this! I believed in the concept then and I'm on board now.
My suggestion would be to have an annual plan and push that harder (like $25/month but $199/year). I say that because this seems like a no-brainer Christmas gift for people and $20 is too low.