B U S I N E S S
Exploring New Places
Lifestyle app Skorch curates and recommends local spots PHOTO CREDIT: BLACK LACQUER DESIGN
are up-to-date with pictures and people’s experiences. “I don’t know if I can pick a favorite part of the app because it’s my baby, I love it all,” Petrauskas said. “But I love the community of people it has brought together. The social functionality keeps the people coming back.” Users also enjoy seeing what spots on the map others are visiting. Some of the most popular places in Santa Monica (and two of Petrauskas’ favorites) are Élephante Beach House and La La Land Kind Café. Élephante Beach House is best known for its food and great water views. La La Land Kind Café is a popular spot for coffee and is known for hiring foster youth. Another feature on the app is
being the first to discover a place on Skorch. If a user comes across a location that isn’t on the app, they can add it to map list and be a “discoverer” of the new place. It will be reviewed by Skorch’s team to make sure it is legitimate and accurate. Once it passes that step, it will pop up with the other “Skorch-worthy” spots for people to visit. The person who added it to the app will be featured for discovering the spot and will be credited for finding it first. “I love seeing users out and about exploring new places, especially after COVID-19,” Petrauskas said. Skorch getskorch.com PHOTO COURTESY OF SKORCH
Santa Monica resident Lane Petrauskas is the founder and CEO of Skorch, a new lifestyle app. By Haley Beyer ane Petrauskas moved from Boston to Los Angeles in 2014 to be closer to her brother and to pursue work in the marketing and advertising industry. While living in her first apartment in Santa Monica, Petrauskas came up with the idea for Skorch. “I was frustrated from my time traveling in my twenties and during my move to different states because I wanted to find fun places to go, but I didn’t trust the reviews of random people,” Petrauskas said. Petrauskas’ background in creative marketing and advertising made the process of creating and building the app easier than it might have been for most, but she still needed a
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team in the tech industry to help with the physical creation of the app. “It’s a natural process for me to come up with an idea as a concept and then execute the vision,” Petrauskas said. The app consists of a heatmap of specific places in 15 of the biggest cities in America including LA, New York and Chicago, and has also branched out to Toronto. The map changes color from cool to hot, and spots with high temperatures are popular while places with cooler temperatures are not visited as often. There is also a list of different locations with a scale showing the color of the place that corresponds to the heatmap. Skorch is especially popular because it is a social app as
well. The user creates their account and posts photos and captions when they’re at a “Skorch-worthy” location to help add to the average rating of the location. These posts can be seen by anyone else who is interested in the same location. “Our brains work very fast now with the creation of social media, so it was important to create an app that has quick snapshots of information on the platform and focuses on social and visual stimulation first,” Petrauskas said. The locations on the map range from restaurants and bars to coffee shops and various attractions. Each location is considered based on the character, ambiance and vibe. The popularity is based on the social interaction. All the posts
Skorch is a social app that features a heat map of userrecommended places to visit in 15 of the biggest cities in America. APRIL 7, 2022 THE ARGONAUT PAGE 15
