SnipSnap launches IOU app to save you from being a mooch

You know that time when you wanted to make a cute coupon for a “date of his/her choice” for your sweetie to redeem? Or when you wanted to gift a “day without chores” to your teenaged kid? Well, there’s now an (iOS) app for that.

Enter GoodFor, an app from the SnipSnap team, which launches today. It takes its name from the common IOU phrase “good for…”

SnipSnap’s flagship app enables people to “snap” a picture of printed coupons and redeem them online. After noticing a lot of people creating their own IOUs with the app, SnipSnap decided to create a dedicated app for this.

“We didn’t have a place for this in our app per se,” said Ted Mann, SnipSnap’s chief executive.

However, the team found the alternative use so compelling that it decided to build this “fun project” and put it together in just a month. It was originally planned for the holiday season, but the timing didn’t quite work out then.

To create a coupon, you simply select a background image, customize the value of the coupon, and add an additional message to the recipient. You can even choose from the app’s library of coupons if you’re lacking inspiration in the moment.

The IOU coupon can also be sent through email or text message (Facebook integration is planned for the near future), eliminating the need for your recipient to have the app installed in order to enjoy their prize.

Mann mainly sees GoodFor as a fun project he and his team built, but he did mention during our brief phone call that the rise in popularity of apps like Secret and Whisper, which are entirely based on user-generated content and some sort of “social value” (whether positive or negative), is probably related to the social behavior on SnipSnap that gave birth to GoodFor.

He also added that his team is already finding inspiration from those apps in regards to features and has already integrated a commenting feature, gamification and one-on-one messaging into GoodFor. Next, it will look to integrate such features into its SnipSnap app.

And of course, it’s not hard to figure out what kind of IOU coupons the SnipSnap team is already expecting to see gain popularity on its app. But we’re all adult here, right?