Want to be an entrepreneur? You should try traveling around the world. It was taking that kind of approach that inspired Jesse Maddox to create an app for people that want to, well, travel around the world.
In just over a month, Jesse has taken the steps necessary to launch his new app: TripLingo. The basis behind it is simple. For only $10, you can download the app to your phone and use it to learn how to speak to people in different languages, reports AJC.
Maddox revealed his idea to the public in January at StartAtlanta. That’s the Friday night-through-Sunday night marathon pitchfest where entrepreneurs seek to attract the technical, legal and financial support of others to turn their ideas into a functional company by weekend’s end.
TripLingo emerged from a crowd of contenders as the winner, and Maddox left the event with a team of seven supporters who have since become his business partners, a critical development, he emphasizes, in building the business. The company added $50,000 in seed capital from acquaintances and has moved into an appropriately communal working space in Midtown called The Hub Atlanta where the partners, most of whom still have day jobs, come in for hours at a time, sit at long tables and work their laptops.
The crucial rollout of the smart phone app to the consumer public is planned for early April, fast-track development by any measure.
“All the trophies are great,†[Maddox] said, referring to the competition victories. “It’s sort of validated our idea and business model. And it opened a lot of doors that we might not have been able to approach, let alone open. But we’re focused on building something that will change the way millions of people travel. We’ve got big plans for our own journey.â€
Screenshot from TripLingo