Is there a worker who hasn’t dreamed of going out on his or her own? The entrepreneur’s path is not an easy one, yet some accept the challenge. One group of Atlantans did, founding a company called TripLingo. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution first wrote about the business in February after its formation. Here, in the second part of a continuing series, is a closer look at its first three months in business and the people who built it.
Three months of 18-hour workdays without pay. An endless amount of greasy takeout food. Countless fitful naps on the office couch. And for the seven entrepreneurs behind TripLingo, it all came down to this moment. Would Apple accept their foreign-language app and put it out for sale to millions in its iTunes store, or would it turn them down?
The words from his co-founders froze the man who conceived the company, Jesse Maddox.
“We’ve been rejected.”
Eighty product iterations, $50,000 in startup money from friends and family, and all that human capital — possibly lost.
No, not really. We were just kidding, they mercifully told Maddox. We’re in. We’re in.
It’s a warm Thursday night in early May, and Atlantans have cause to party, for this is Cinco de Mayo. The sangria is flowing inside an arty warehouse space in Midtown, but here there is another reason to celebrate.
Maddox and his six fellow founders of TripLingo are officially putting their app for sale. The rollout is a landmark achievement in their effort to hit it big with their product, a foreign-language learning tool they say is unique, in part because it helps travelers easily speak like natives.
It’s an ambitious goal. Only a fraction of startup ideas turn into companies, and just a tiny subset produce a viable product. Fewer still earn a profit. But ambitions demand an outlet in the truly entrepreneurial.
“Time to launch this baby into the world,” says Maddox after polishing off a homemade video to be shown to party guests.
The 25-year-old Maddox isn’t stretching it much to call the app his baby. The Marietta native conceived the idea while traveling around the world after college and thinking there had to be a better way for travelers to learn how to speak like natives.
He first pitched his business plan Feb. 1 to a room full of tech geeks at a competition called Start Atlanta. There, he attracted a half-dozen like-minded souls, none of whom knew each other at the time, but all of whom were drawn to the idea and to him. They signed on for the exhausting, exhilarating ride.
Sometimes the load is too much. After working into the wee hours one night, Maddox slept through his alarm and missed a meeting with a possible investor. All was forgiven and the meeting rescheduled: the investor understood.
All but one member of the TripLingo team that was there in February is still with the firm now, and they are all here tonight, as they have been just about every night for the last 90 days.
Becoming a team
There is Vince Baskerville, 27, who’s editing the video with Maddox. He has another full-time job, so he’s been coming to the office after that gig and working from 5 (or so) p.m. to 5 (or so) a.m. When he had a week off at the day job, he “vacationed” at TripLingo. As he works on the video, his wife, Crystal, decorates the space. She’s OK with Vince’s hours; if he’s happy, she says, she’s happy.
There is Ross Rankin, called the “adult supervision” at 40, with the street cred of a successful startup veteran who’s “been there and done that.” One of two parents in the group, he has a 9-year-old son who he hasn’t been seeing as much as he’d like. But he and his wife agree: Work hard now and it might lead to a big financial return down the road. Then he’ll have plenty of time for family. Oh, and he loves the work.
There’s Pratik Patel, 38, the other experienced hand, who holds a daytime technology job and who’s respected enough in his industry that he’s often called on to speak at conferences around the country. He also has twin boys and he misses them, but like Ross, it’s a temporary means to an end.
There’s James Martin, 24, a crack graphic designer and illustrator. He has a branding agency by day, but he’s at Trip-Lingo most of his other waking hours.
There’s Dan Nussenbaum, an international student from Venezuela who’s finishing his degree at Georgia Tech. He hasn’t been around as much as the others lately because of a heavy academic load.
And there’s Katie Elizabeth, 27, the “girl” in the group, outgoing and driven, who was brought on only a month or so ago to head up marketing strategy after one of the original seven founders left in a split that everyone terms amicable, but which seems to have left everyone a little sad.
Three months together might not seem like much, but the long hours and the constant stress of the project, with its self-imposed launch deadline, might have blown apart other groups.
“We’re all very much the same type,” explains Patel. “We’re entrepreneurs.” They have different interests and varied backgrounds, he says, but a “common goal.”
Rankin says the reality in such a group is that “you can be king, or you can be rich.” Following Maddox, they’ve opted for the latter.
While he’s the largest shareholder, with a slightly bigger (though not a majority) stake than Rankin and Patel, Maddox exercises his power in a subtle way, other team members agree. All voices are heeded.
Maddox, however, speaks to the investor groups. And he is the one who will address the hundred-plus here tonight, discussing the app, the work that’s gone into it, and the team behind it.
Guests include Jesse’s parents who note how smart and focused he’s been from his youth through his days at Brown University. There also are the friends who, with family, put up the $50,000 that’s helped get TripLingo to this point. That covered the rent, equipment costs and other expenses. Salaries haven’t been a problem: The team is sacrificing those for now, hoping to cash in later.
Also in the crowd are potential investors. The team is looking to secure $100,000 for the next phase of development. That will let them bring on one member full time, fund additional language offerings and implement marketing plans. Maddox says they are close to landing that investment, in return for an equity position.
The hardest thing
Getting to this moment was a bit touch-and-go. Because of their perfectionist tinkering, the team didn’t submit its app to Apple until about a week before the party. They were confident they’d be approved, but it wasn’t a cinch. So, when his colleagues pranked Maddox, it struck a nerve.
“I was just kind of blank,” he says.
“I didn’t say anything,” says Rankin, chuckling at the recollection. “I just let the blood drain out of his face.”
Given a moment to savor, Maddox felt relief wash over him.
“It was a good feeling,” he said. “I called my mom.”
The good group vibe demonstrated by the practical joke, and how it was taken, has carried beyond the office. Team members have held barbecues, gone out for late beers, played bocce together and met one another’s families and friends. They’ve become friends, not just colleagues.
The fond feeling extends to Matt Stigall, the one founding member no longer with TripLingo. Despite his departure, he’s at the party and gets a public shout-out from Maddox.
Maddox calls the breakup “the hardest thing” he’s had to do.
Stigall, 26, a marketing strategist, says, “There are no burned bridges. It was more or less mutual.”
He says he had too many other commitments during the first couple months of the launch and couldn’t put in the necessary time.
“I’m proud of what they’ve accomplished,” he says, but “it’s kind of a bittersweet moment. It’s my baby, too, and I have to look in from the outside.”
Now, the real work begins
For all the bonding, the founders recognize the app has to sell if they’re going to keep going together.
Patel notes the overall uncertainty of such a venture.
“This is where we find out if the rubber meets the road,” he says.
Maddox figures 1,000 apps sold in the first month is a reasonable goal. It’s probably enough to show investors the viability of their product, and further the buzz.
The thinking is that while most sales initially will come from leisure travelers, long-term success will derive from the ability to sell services to companies, government and the military, entities with large numbers of employees who travel a lot and need to learn the local lingo fast.
In the first several days after the launch party, TripLingo sells “a couple hundred” apps. Not out of the park, Maddox assesses, but not bad, either. Much, however, remains to be done.
