TLabs Showcase on travel startups featuring US-based TownWizard, a hyper-local event and information platform for mobiles and the web.
Who and what are you (including personnel and backgrounds)?
After years of building some of the first and most successful online brands such as AOL and Time Warner, Mike Ragsdale decided to leave the rat race and move his family to a sleepy little beach community in North West Florida.
He developed his community’s first mobile guide as a hobby to help him remember all the places he wanted to take his friends and family. Hence, the development of 30A.com and his community’s first mobile guide, that became the basis of the TownWizard platform.
With over 150 community partners worldwide, TownWizard is the premier local mobile guide platform. With the belief that no one knows local happenings better than the locals, TownWizard founders wanted to create an easy to use mobile marketing platform with tutorial/know-hows that would allow locals to gather information and promote their communities.
By offering licenses by zip code, TownWizard has proven to be an easy to use and cost-effective way for individuals and organizations to build a local guide business to earn extra income.
Since its inception in August 2010, the company has inspired locals to create mobile guides across seven countries.
What financial support did you have to launch the business?
We are self-funded.
What problem are you trying to solve?
Challenges to consumers:
- Information overload -- There are just too many unconnected mobile options: Dining (Yelp, Urbanspoon), Social (Twitter, Facebook), News/Info (Yellow Pages, the Weather Channel), Check-Ins (Facebook, FourSquare), Deals (Groupon, LivingSocial).
TownWizard makes hyper-local events and community information accessible to everyone through apps and websites.
Challenges to individuals & organizations when they want to build a mobile guide:
- Launching a mobile community guide is expensive and time-consuming.
- The technology is intimidating for local entrepreneurs and organizations.
- It’s difficult to find a simple, out-of-the-box solution to enable development for multiple platforms (Android, iPhone, tablet, etc.) with unique local appeal.
The TownWizard platform has been used to build apps and Web sites to reflect knowledge of the local scene together with all the functions of large community tools such as Facebook, the Yellow Pages, the Weather Channel, Twitter, Yelp, Urbanspoon, and others.
The TownWizard platform has been implemented to design apps with strong community building functionality, such as photo postings, alerts, classifieds, dining, shopping, social media, videos, news, check-ins, weather, and deals. Taken together, each app has the flavor of its home community, and lets consumers find the most relevant information and entertainment for each partner hometown.
- Easy... Businesses have used this simple tool to build robust local mobile guides previously limited to major urban areas.
- Fast... Partners have launched numerous mobile app platforms (Android, iPhone, tablet, etc.) in 30 days.
- Flexible... The TownWizard platform has provided tremendous creative flexibility for each market and each vertical, from resorts to college towns to industrial hubs to niche interest groups.
- Great Value... While app development alone can cost up to $250K, TownWizard has evolved into an easy out-of-the-box solution with minimal investment or overhead costs ($795 start-up fee + $249 / month).
Describe the business, core products and services?TownWizard makes hyper-local events and community information accessible to everyone through apps and websites.
These various app-based mobile guides provide authentic, not automated, hyper-local content from hometown people on shopping, dining, events and more.
The mobile guides allow visitors to experience the local flavor and residents to use it on a daily basis to plan their days/weekends and connect with their local community.
Some examples of these hyper-local mobile app guides include Grapcity.com, Westhollywoodcityguide.com and 30a.com.
Features of each hyper-local app:
- Dining
- Shopping
- Social
- Photos
- Videos
- News
- Check-Ins
- Weather
- Deals
- Alerts
- Classifieds
For anyone who wants to start a mobile guide business, TownWizard provides everything, including all the technology and support. Partners provide their local insider content, own the business and keep all ad revenue.
Tools TownWizard provides:
- Content Management System (CMS)
- iPhone, Android and iPad smart phone apps
- Companion website
- Technical support
- Step-by-step video tutorials
- Marketing, Branding and PR support and templates
- Sample ad sales guides
- Social media strategies and support
- Partner mentoring program + Partner Conference Calls
- Distribution on Google Android Marketplace and iTunes
Who are your key customers and users at launch?Key customers range from aspiring entrepreneurs on a budget (from stay-at-home moms to semi-retired couples) creating their small community's hyper-local mobile guide to businesses (such as the Sandestin Golf and Beach Resort in Destin, FL), sporting events (YOLO Paddleboarding), community events (i.e. the 30A Songwriters Festival) and other interest groups creating cost-efficient mobile apps for their audiences.
We continue to target individuals & organizations who:
- Are serious about building a business and have time and minimal capital to invest. (Less than $800 to launch).
- Are looking for business opportunities that take advantage of the lucrative and exploding mobile apps and social media marketplace for advertising.
- Are interested in getting involved in their local community and collecting information on events, news, special interest, businesses, services in local community; and managing the local community’s place to go on social media as well through Facebook.
- Have an interest in sales, marketing and business development to earn extra income.
Did you have customers validate your idea before investors?We have several customer validations and success stories, having sold over 150 TownWizard licenses in just over one year. We have not yet sought funding, but are interested in looking for investment capital in 2012.
What is the business AND revenue model, strategy for profitability?
Currently, TownWizard has a subscription-based business model (software as a service). We are also working on a revenue sharing model with some of our partners. We secure subscribers to our service by advertising in media which attracts entrepreneurs and people looking to start their own business.
SWOT analysis – strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats?
Strengths:
- Enthusiastic and committed partners: 150+ and growing
- Product: easy, fast, and cost-effective
- Relevant and convenient mobile guides catering to small communities that streamline hyper-local, authentic, not automated, information for consumers (visitors and residents)
- Creates sense of community in small towns and provides interactive platform for communities to connect
Weaknesses:
- We are always looking to scale our support organization and add additional functionality that our partners and end users want.
Opportunities:
- Large and growing industry: Google recently revealed that 1/3 of all mobile searches pertain to some aspect of the searcher’s local environment. Local online advertising represents two-thirds of all the growth next year in local advertising. Local mobile is estimated at $788 million in 2011. In 2012, local mobile will experience a 103% increase to $1.6 billion, so there's a huge and fast growing market for our product in the years to come. The opportunity to capture a large share of local advertising is a huge opportunity for TownWizard and our partner network.
Threats:
- There are a number of local advertising and mobile marketing players in the market who might replicate our model/product, including local newspapers and community websites.
Who advised you your idea isn't going to be successful and why didn't you listen to them?We were very fortunate that everyone validated our idea and encouraged us to expand and grow.
We started out from one local app in Santa Rosa Beach, Florida; locals and people who heard about this app actively reached out to us wanting to know how to participate in the opportunity.
TownWizard was created to meet demand in the marketplace.
What is your success metric 12 months from now?
- Expand in coverage - Number of locations is estimated to grow 50% in 12 months to over 200 locations
- Focus on global reach - Number of countries covered to double in 12 months to coverage in 14 countries.
NB: TLabs Showcase is part of the wider TLabs project from Tnooz.