Planning a Super Bowl party? It shouldn’t take three group chats, a shared spreadsheet, and a Facebook invite that only half your guests even open to make it happen.
Whether it’s Super Bowl Sunday or any other day of the year, event planning and logistics bog hosts and guests down, making in-person gatherings harder to pull off.
Birmingham-based entrepreneur Joshua Gilmer built his startup Luau to solve exactly this problem. And now he’s ready to prove that meeting up IRL (in real life) doesn’t have to be so hard.
Getting The Luau Started
Whether you are looking to host a birthday bash, playdate, or a casual hangout, Luau streamlines the party planning process. The Luau platform gets all the details together, including the crafting of the verbiage and the imagery needed for the invite. The platform then takes care of sending out and tracking RSVPs…and even sends out invites and reminders at the best time for those being invited (perhaps in the evening after kids are asleep).
Guests do not have to download another app, making it even more convenient.
Gilmer sees it as a platform that can help busy parents, professionals, and even college students lessen the stress and headaches around keeping up with their social calendar.
Luau also offers PartyPass™ devices and an upcoming check-in feature that uses NFC (near field communication) tech for a tap-to-invite option.
Yes, exclusivity is part of the appeal of the feature. But so too is risk and compliance. This can help Luau become a trusted tech platform on college campuses and inside fraternities and sororities.
While the company still has a small early user base, Gilmer said he is already seeing a lot of repeat customers, suggesting that the platform has a stickiness with busy individuals and families. As the platform scales, Gilmer said he sees more of an opportunity to tie in with other platforms, like OpenTable, or Airbnb, or babysitting apps, to help further streamline the party planning process.
AI For Your Social Life
Underpinning Luau is Kai, the AI agent that answers guest questions and wrangles RSVPs. But it also analyzes a user’s social life and reveals opportunities for social growth.
Sure, Partiful, Eventbrite, Evite, and Facebook Events already exist. But Gilmer isn’t trying to build another event platform. He’s building what he calls a “social life operating system” that tackles a deeper problem: The relationship drift that quietly erodes adult friendships.
The Founding Story
Gilmer, a UX designer, worked at several marketing and advertising agencies before jumping to work inside Regions Bank. But he was drawn to the rush of the startup world, joining the fast-growing Birmingham startup Linq in 2021.
In a startup, he liked the fact that he could “have an idea on a Monday” and then build something that people use soon after. One idea he couldn’t get away from: Could tech help improve people’s social lives?
Gilmer, who hosts upwards of 40 dinner parties and get-togethers a year, and was frustrated with the lackluster experience of the tools available. So he started working on the idea for Luau in late 2024. He went through the “idea validator” program Velocity at Birmingham’s Innovation Depot.
For him, it is beneficial to be building something like Luau in the city.
“Birmingham is fast becoming an investment hub for future-of-family (FoF) tech,” he said, pointing to examples like Halogen Ventures, Moxi, and Wyndy. “And FoF makes sense. Birmingham is family-friendly. Our culture isn’t just an amazing food scene. It’s little league games, play dates, and movie nights. A lot of people think Birmingham is construction, healthcare, and that we should stay in our wheelhouse. But I’d say we prioritize family, and see having kids not as something that is diminishing your life’s potential, but cementing your life’s legacy. We are uniquely cognizant of the pain points other parents feel (like logistical planning fatigue), and can build a better future for them.”