Hello Everyone,
My interview was scheduled last week, but due to an issue coming up on Mr. Logan’s end, I had to send him the questions I had planned and let him complete them virtually which is below. He provided some great insight and some powerful advice. I enjoyed learning more about his start-up app, hope you guys do as well.
Thanks,
Ty Harris
1. What was your major in College?
Computer Engineering (Minor-Mathematics)
2. How were you able to incorporate your major in creating your application?
My major exposed me not only to coding in different languages, but also on how software engineering teams worked across time zones to deliver quality applications and solutions to their clients. This allowed me to better inform my partners about decisions regarding the technical aspects of the application.
3. Who all contributed to the creation of Grant 3?
Myself, as well as my friends and business partners John Kinsler, Wesley Tate, Todd Lewis, Joey Fleming, and Shakespeare Hall.
4. What was the inspiration/reasoning for creating Grant 3?
My friends and I had gained a reputation on campus (Vanderbilt University) for knowing which local nightlife locales were going to have the largest presence in the “college crowd.” We also would have small get-togethers, called “pregames”, in which we created nightlife experiences (drinks, party games, ice breakers, etc.) within our space. John Kinsler realized that this was information, when given to the right people, had the power to influence the social scene within a university. He wanted to provide this information to others in a way that made anybody who used the service feel like they were receiving the “VIP” treatment every night.
5. Were there any competitors who had similar ideas for an app? If so what was your competitive differentiation that set Grant 3 apart from the others?
At the time, no. Grant 3 was a completely original idea which leveraged the “power of the crowd” to inform app users to effectively predict which venue would be the most popular, using the location of other app users to give an accurate picture of the nightlife scene.
6. How were you guys able to measure the effectiveness of your app?
The application used geolocation of our users in respect to the location of our participating venues. Each venue would contain a “head count” based on the number of users within the proximity of the confines of the venue: if the users (with their phones) were inside, then the app would record them being in the venue. The counts would then be posted to a live aggregated feed that would show the count for each venue.
7. How did you guys organize and prioritize which event to go to on any given night?
We worked with venues to use the app as a vehicle to promote themselves to our base as well. Venues could offer specials (drink specials, no cover, discounted “VIP” treatments, etc.) at their discretion in order to increase traffic within their establishment. It basically was a mini-club oriented Groupon built into it.
8. How were you all able to gain credibility and promote your app?
Believe it or not, word of mouth. Even though this was a smartphone application, we still had to build and maintain relationships with the nightlife community in Nashville as well as people within the Nashville general and college social scene. Relationships were definitely a huge factor in keeping buzz about Grant 3 afloat, both for the app as well as our reputation.
9. What was the biggest challenge you guys had to overcome to get the app up and running?
Lots of things. Speaking with our app team late nights only to have a test the very next day so we could maintain our grades at school. Vanderbilt is not an easy school being a full-time student. Adding the business meetings of being an entrepreneur was like working 3 jobs, especially for money you didn’t have at times. It definitely put a strain on me at times.
10. What advice would you give someone just starting out trying to be a successful App Entrepreneur?
Two things: 1) Network. You never know who is connected to who and who could introduce you to your next opportunity. Treat everyone with respect and make them feel appreciated and doors you didn’t even know existed will open. 2) Research. When committing to an idea, the landscape shifts constantly. In order to keep up, you have to stay in the know. Without that information, you could be on the rise one day and have all come crashing down the next. Information is power and the only way to maintain it is to keep searching for it.
