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- [00:00]
A
Small venue is having live music or a local DJ is playing. They're either paying high fees that are getting passed along to their customers or you know, they're covering those fees. Both are not good for a small business. So, you know, we're able to decrease those prices for them and then really provide an end to end service.
- [00:19]
B
We bring in the users because the ticket's right there on the app. It's very easy to not only use that ticket, but then also now you see everything. You see your city come alive and you see it breathing, you know, every time that you open the app. Caleb Hartley and Cameron Brown are innovative, forward thinking entrepreneurs and the co founders of Charted. Drawing from their shared vision for connection and community, they are redefining how people discover and experience live events by creating a seamless platform that brings together exploration, social interaction and real time engagement.
- [00:51]
C
You're like the live version of that, right? What can I do tonight?
- [00:54]
B
You find something on the map, you find something in your city, you show up and you just have a good time.
- [00:59]
C
My name is Rudy Moore, host of Living the Red Life podcast and I'm here to change the way you see your life in your earpiece every single week. If you're ready to start living the red life, ditch the blue pill, take the red pill. Join me in wonderland and change your life. Hello and welcome back to another episode. Today we're going to talk about Ben Software, growing software company. I'm sat here today with the founders of an awesome app. It's for events bookings, all that jazz. We're going to get into it, but here are the founders of Charted. Guys, welcome to the show. Excited to dive in.
- [01:30]
A
Yeah, we appreciate being here.
- [01:31]
B
Yeah, thanks for having us.
- [01:33]
C
Of course. So, so we're talking about it a little. You know, there's a lot of competition in this space. There's some big players. Right. You're growing this sort of new sort of social gathering events app. And what I really love and I think my audience will find so interesting is you're taking this different angle, you know, like those, the big booking systems, they obviously charge crazy fees, high volume, but you seem a bit more like for the business, supporting the businesses, the ones hosting the events as well. Can you maybe kind of give us an overview if people don't know what chart it is about the app and what it does?
- [02:05]
B
Yeah. So Charted, we post live local events on a map based on your location in real time. Then we blend social media so you can find your friends, find communities and connect and engage more with Those communities in real time.
- [02:19]
A
The goal here is, yeah, kind of it's a two sided platform. So on one side we're serving the average user. They can find things in their own city when they're traveling, a lot of things that you wouldn't normally know existed. And we're really serving the kind of underutilized events. In terms of the small businesses know, a lot of people don't know that karaoke or a small venue is having live music or a local DJ is playing. So those kind of things, you know, they're either paying high fees that are getting passed along to their customers or, you know, they're covering those fees. Both are not good for a small business. So, you know, we're able to decrease those prices for them and then really provide an end to end service where they get promotion, analytics and everything on top of, you know, the ability to sell tickets beforehand.
- [03:10]
C
Yeah, well, it's really cool. Like I was saying, you know, you got these big players, right? Like the Miami Heat has some famous DJ or artists, right? And they go on Ticketmaster. And you know, even when I book tickets, it's like, you know, you spend 600 on your seat and then another 200 on your booking fees, right? So. And I love anything that supports small businesses. You know, it's the hardest phase, right? So it's kind of really cool that you're like somewhere in the middle, right, because you've got the ticket inside. But then also the visibility side, right? And figuring out kind of like, you know, people go on TripAdvisor when they get to a new city, it's like, what can I do? You're like the live version of that, right? What can I do tonight? And I really love the idea. So, so what led to the idea?
- [03:52]
A
So I was actually in college, University of Maryland. I was in Greek life and had made a very kind of simple version of the app. It was just a kind of population heat map of the campus. You could see the bars and parties that were crowded, photos there. And you know, it did its thing at the time, but, you know, never really blew up. And you know, several years went by, Cam and I, you know, got to know each other and you know, we started talking about it a little more and we said, you know, if we take the angle more from the business event side, there's a lot more value here. And so we started to grow it a couple years ago and yeah, it's been a very exciting experience.
- [04:41]
C
And what are small businesses finding in terms of like when they're starting to use it.
- [04:48]
B
Yeah. So originally, you know, we kind of attacked the ticket pricing just because there are so many fees. Like, we were just talking ago about that. So realistically, we can offer all ticketing for venues, which one gets them on the app. But if anything, it just saves them thousands of. Often I think on average around 4 to $5,000 a month if they offer any sort of, you know, decent amount of tickets and shows, you know, per week. So that. That comes with a lot of ease, one in working with the. The people that go to see those shows and then also signing up. It's like three clicks to do that. Right. And then they have an entire platform where we give them metrics on their tickets on their shows, kind of who's looking at those pages. So we kind of start with ticketing to get people in and save them a ton of money and help people get to those shows. And then they come, and then it comes with the whole entire platform that. That anyone can use to find anything around them.
- [05:41]
A
And then that was a big thing we heard as well, is that, you know, these other platforms, first of all, a lot of these companies rely on their Instagram pages or things like that to market the events, which really is only their existing market that ends up seeing them, unless they're paying meta or something like that. And then on top, they're not really getting any analytics from the actual process when their tickets are processed by these companies, you know, they're not getting any metrics on demographic or, you know, the locations people are buying the typical customer. They're left in the dark. Sometimes they're not even seeing, like, their own profit margin and, like, really basic stuff. So there. There was a huge gap to fill there.
- [06:25]
C
Yeah, I was gonna say, I think it's like, not only the logistics and the tracking and saving on cost, but like most small local businesses, they just have no clue even how to market their events. Right? Like, maybe they throw up like one Instagram post with like some crappy text and you don't even know what the event is. Right. Or where it is to, like, try and figure it out. Then you have to figure out where to get the tickets. Right? So. So, yeah, I think it's so great. So let's talk about expansion now. Like, what's the long term? I know you're in a few cities. Like, let's talk about how it's grown and what the plan is. Long term.
- [07:02]
B
Yeah. So right now we're kind of focused on Indianapolis and then Charlotte kind of as those are our base Camps. I'm over in Indiana, Caleb's out in North Carolina. We offer obviously Denver, New York, Miami, Louisiana, those sorts of places. Places. Really the expansion here is we want to find venues that offer ticketing and we want to beat their prices so that they can focus more on, on the things that really make those, those events fun. Through that, we're, we bring in the users because the ticket's right there on the app. It's very easy to not only use that ticket, but then also now you see everything. You see your city come alive and you see it breathing, you know, every time that you open the app. So we start in our cities and then we just continue to expand. So that's going pretty well so far.
- [07:46]
A
And it's, it's a very easy process for us as well. Realistically, nothing in our platform has to really change to incorporate a new city. You know, we have data partners, data pipelines and stuff to where we can, you know, flood the map with events happening in an area, you know, within hours. And the ticketing process doesn't really change anywhere in the US So we can realistically onboard a business in a day and have things up and running for them.
- [08:13]
C
So, so how does it look? Say I go to one of these cities, I, I'm a user, I download the app, I'm there for an event tomorrow. I'm like bored tonight. I pull it up and I just, you know, talk me through that part.
- [08:24]
A
Yeah, so you have a few options to interact with and I'll kind of phase it in three ways. So you have the map version, which is your homepage, which is you can zoom in and literally just see icons right across the street from you. Click on them, it opens up a page about the event, all the details. There will be live photos, everything in real time comments. If you buy tickets to that event, you know, you can do it right there on the page and then we'll have different list views. So just like you would scroll any other social media, you can scroll it by, you know, what's near me happening, like right now, what would I be interested in based on my past usage in the events that I seem to like or buy tickets to, or you just type straight into an AI text box right on top of the map. I want to find happy hours near me or DJ events tonight. And it will just give you a list based on your past preferences, based on your location. And you can do it like that, or you can actually have it plan out a whole day for you. You can go to something we have plan my day, and you kind of give it what you're looking for. So let's just say, like, I want to start out, you know, get some food, move to, you know, something more social in the afternoon, and then end the night, you know, doing something nightlife, like a club or something like that. And you just give it those categories, and it will arrange an itinerary for you to kind of take you through each of those things you want to do. Make sure that, you know, you have adequate time to travel between events and nothing overlaps. And. Yeah, just sets it up for you.
- [10:03]
C
And let's talk about, you know, the. The app. Fascinating. I love the idea. Great for small businesses. But this podcast also, you know, for entrepreneurs, by entrepreneurs. We're all business owners, so I always like to ask the story behind the story, like, what's it like with, you know, ups and downs of entrepreneurship, growing a software and app? You know, I've been involved in those companies. Everything takes 10 times longer than you think. Then it breaks. Then you gotta know. And you're always, I say, in a hard niche because you got to, like, get businesses and customers right. And it's this constant cat and mouse. So let's talk about the ups and downs of this journey.
- [10:39]
B
Yeah, that's. That's been the most interesting. Probably the part that's where the growth really comes from. And, you know, that's where you find out if you're really. You're really built for it. I mean, we knew we had a good idea that could create value. But then, just like you said, the chicken and the egg, right? Do we get users first? Do we get businesses first? Will the users come if they're businesses? Will businesses want to be on our app if we don't have users? So kind of battling, you know, what feature development, who do we attack first in the market? How do we position ourselves in the market? That can be a little difficult. But I mean, realistically, we just kept showing up every day. I know how, you know how silly it kind of sounds, but we show up every day and we keep working on our products, and then eventually, once we realized we could beat the ticketing market, we realized that's the way that we can attack this chicken and egg situation. So that just becomes so much easier. So really, it's just kind of about showing up every day. It's good when you have a co founder, especially one that you can value and trust, because there are days when I'm down and I don't know that really moving forward in certain Directions will be the right thing. But then he says, hey, I just finished this feature and then I get a new idea and then we just keep bouncing off each other and going. So we've been doing that for a couple years now. So you kind of just keep going, you keep your head down. You know, you get a lot of no's, but that just means you pivot your business model so you can fit the market better.
- [12:01]
C
And what about any other lessons, like on an app software? I know they're hard businesses to build out.
- [12:08]
A
Yeah. So I'm kind of the technical end here. And it's been a process of, you know, using different services, replacing this with that. A fair amount of trial and error. Very first time we released a beta version, we had people using it and from a very tech savvy spot, I designed the app. It was a little complex, not necessarily as intuitive for a brand new user. And we got some feedback like, this is great. I don't really know how to use it though. So, you know, then it's massive redesign where, you know, now I have to put my frame, okay, what if I never saw this before and it wasn't like my idea? How do I position, you know, the app to where someone can come in on their very first use and be like, oh, this is super simple, I understand what's happening here. So, you know, user feedback is super important. And then, you know, just making sure that you have thorough testing. We went through a period where it's kind of difficult to. When you're developing quickly and there's only two of you to thoroughly test everything. And next, you know, some niche bug seems to happen on one specific type of device that you didn't have any idea about and then you're rushing to get a fix out. So I'd say those are kind of the two places where we've learned the most, is just, you know, to make sure you, you can have a lot of confidence in your product through adequate testing and listen to the users.
- [13:49]
B
And if I could add one last thing, the network. I mean, you always have to keep building your network. Right. I mean we, we got here because we worked really hard. But then also you have to keep going out, you have to keep talking to investors, you have to keep meeting people and then you keep finding other businesses, you know, that are startups that are also working towards that same end. I mean, we've been able to collaborate even, you know, pre revenue with other companies like Digi Discount, for example, so we can offer discounts directly through the app. For the events. You just kind of continue to build that network and you keep moving forward and then you just, you know, you find opportunities that way.
- [14:24]
C
Good. And then, last question as we wrapped today, where do people find you? Right. Whether they're, you know, an entrepreneur, they want to network with you more on building a business app, software, or a potential small business wants to get on the platform or a customer to try it out when they're traveling or in their city. Yeah, give us some info on that.
- [14:44]
B
Yeah, you can go to charted app.com. you can sign up there as well. Otherwise, we are on the iOS store. So right now we're only on. On iPhones, but we're also working on getting on Android in the next maybe two weeks or so. So check your app store, check the website, or follow us on socials at Charted app.
- [15:04]
C
Love it. And any. Any last. Any last thing you want to add about what's next for you guys where, where people can maybe follow the journey along, what to expect over the next year or so.
- [15:16]
A
Yeah, we have some exciting stuff coming out with something like we like to call submapping. We'd like to start moving into a little bit of the larger event market where you have things like festivals, where you have kind of a map inside of a map where people can actually see where specific vendors, certain stages are and, you know, lists of who will be performing at those stages and things like that and be able to do, again, all the ticketing through the app, but, you know, be able to really zoom in on some of those spots to just get really informative information. Yeah.
- [15:55]
B
Imagine every. Every, you know, sports game you go to, you all of a sudden you have a map of the entire venue. You know where your seats are, you know where your friend seats are, you know where the concessions are. We'll be able to do all of that automatically in the app. So the experience is you. You find something on the map, you find something in your city, you show up and you just have a good time.
- [16:15]
C
Love it. All right, guys, well, that's a wrap, everyone. Hope you enjoyed today learning about these guys, the app, the. The entrepreneur journey, and awesome idea. So wish you best of luck. I know you know this app route of a business, it's not a sprint, it's a marathon. So keep. Keep churning along. You're doing great and I'll be watching, so. All right, guys, take care. Thank you, everyone. I'll see you soon. Thank.
- [16:45]
B
You.