Digipals

What do they actually do

Digipals is building an AI‑native group chat where each person has a personal AI agent that uses context you opt in to share (calendar, location, photos, and chat history) to help groups coordinate. In chat, it can suggest times everyone is free, find nearby places, make reservations, split bills from receipts, and prompt photo sharing after meetups (YC profile).

Today the product is in an invite‑only/waitlist phase with early access rather than broad public availability; the company is part of YC’s Fall 2025 batch and lists a three‑person team (YC profile).

Who are their target customer(s)

• Friend groups who try to meet up IRL: Plans get stuck in long threads, availability is unclear, and people bounce between maps, reservation, and payment apps instead of deciding quickly.
• Couples or housemates who share plans and expenses: Keeping calendars aligned and splitting shared costs cleanly from receipts is tedious; follow‑ups after outings are easy to forget.
• Casual event organizers (dinners, trips, game nights): Collecting RSVPs, booking tables/tickets, and reconciling who paid what turns simple gatherings into administrative work.
• Long‑distance friend groups who want to stay close: Passive feeds don’t surface the updates or memories that matter, so people miss moments and need repeated prompting to share photos and life events.
• Tech‑savvy early adopters curious about AI: They want auto‑scheduling/reservations/bill‑splitting convenience but hesitate to grant calendar, location, photos, and chat access without clear control and privacy guarantees.

How would they acquire their first 10, 50, and 100 customers

• First 10: Hand‑recruit 10 intact friend groups from founders’ and YC networks; do white‑glove onboarding (link calendars/photos, run a live plan + reservation + bill split) and compensate time to capture detailed feedback and fix observed breakdowns.
• First 50: Give each initial group limited invite codes that bring in whole groups; host a few “onboarding dinners” coordinated entirely in‑app; target co‑living houses, campus clubs, and Discord communities, rewarding groups that complete a plan via the app with extra invites or perks.
• First 100: Run a city‑limited beta with a few local restaurant partners for reservations made through Digipals; invite waitlist groups to a coordinated launch weekend, and track organizer‑level referrals so successful hosts get extra invites and a lightweight concierge channel.

What is the rough total addressable market

Top-down context:

Consumer coordination inside messaging and lightweight social planning sits adjacent to mainstream messaging and reservations/payments. Even a small share of active group‑chat users who plan IRL could support a sizable consumer subscription/affiliate market.

Bottom-up calculation:

Focus first on US urban friend groups that plan at least one outing per month. If ~8 million “organizers” generate or pay ~$12/year through affiliate fees on reservations, premium features, or payment rails, that’s roughly a ~$100M US SAM; global TAM could be several times larger as geography expands.

Assumptions:

• “Organizer” = the person in a group who initiates/coordinates plans; they drive most bookings and payment flows.
• ARPU blend comes from reservation/booking affiliate fees, optional premium features, and light payments/bill‑split monetization.
• Penetration targets near‑term US urban cohorts first, with expansion to other countries increasing TAM 3–5x over time.

Who are some of their notable competitors

• WhatsApp: Where many friend groups already plan. Group chats, polls, and events mean Digipals must win attention within the same planning workflows (feature roundup).
• Doodle: Popular group time‑finding and scheduling tool; Digipals’ in‑chat automatic time matching overlaps directly with this use case.
• Google Assistant / Duplex: Demonstrated autonomous booking (e.g., calling restaurants), a direct alternative to the promise of programmatic reservations inside Digipals.
• Splitwise: Default app for splitting expenses with receipt scanning and payback flows; Digipals’ bill‑split widget competes with established habits.
• OpenTable: Entrenched restaurant booking network/APIs; Digipals will likely need to integrate with or outperform these services for reliable in‑chat reservations.