New Web site based around events

As “digital natives” they had plenty of Web experience and came up with a company called Swindlr.

“We wanted to connect people and businesses through pictures and events,” Hawkins, 23, said. “We didn’t know how to solve the problem we had. We knew what we liked and what we didn’t like. We grew up in technology and we used things like Facebook and MySpace and used some really expansive communities of social networking.”

Hawkins and Masterson had experience working with the popular iPhone, known for its vast number of applications that can provide a variety of tasks or entertainment.

For the last two years they worked with their idea and added advisers to their team. They have seven people working on the project, which finally has been released to the public with www.zappn.com. Zappn is the new kid on the block in the social networking world.

“We started with so many ideas and tried to smash all this stuff together,” said Hawkins, who grew up in Blue Springs and graduated from the University of Missouri-Kansas City. “Then we decided to keep it simple. We just wanted to focus on events. That’s what Zappn is, just the event portion of social networking.”

Although the focus is events, the user experience utilizes some features that have become popular on other sites. Users can invite friends to events, like they can on Facebook or Evite; they can post pictures and comments during an event, like on Flickr or Twitter; and they can continue to post pictures, comments and feedback after the event is over, like on most social networking sites.

Hawkins and Masterson also emphasize the site is not just for big events. The site is as useful for events like birthday parties and bridal showers as it is for concerts or football games.

Zappn.com can be used on a computer or with an iPhone application. The site is only about three weeks old, so Hawkins and Masterson are using feedback from some of the early events to get a feel for the user experience.

“One of the things we’re doing is creating a to-do list,” Masterson, 26, said. “We want to listen to that audience and even if it’s negative, try to spin that into a positive. When people say we need to do this or that, it’s kind of interesting, because sometimes it’s like ‘Why didn’t we think of that in the first place?’ But we have a laundry list of to-do’s and a bunch of things we want to roll out as soon as possible.”

Their goals for the site go beyond the limits of the Kansas City metro area.

“This is where our home base is at, but we do have plans of spreading elsewhere in the next few months,” said Masterson, who grew up in Olathe and Overland Park. “The biggest city we are looking at is Chicago. There are a few big events in Chicago like the Taste of Chicago or the big music fest Lollapalooza that we want to get in with. Those are huge events with thousands of photos, and we want to grab that and put that on our site. There are other smaller cities we want to be in, too.”

Hawkins and Masterson said they plan to create representatives for the site in select metro areas around the country to spread the word about Zappn.

“We want to have Zappn ambassadors,” Masterson said. “They will serve two purposes. First, it’s someone on the ground in a major city in the Midwest and possibly, nationwide. Secondly, they’re our brand ambassador. They’re the link to the community. They can hear that feedback from the community and judge the next best thing event to go after. We don’t know what the best events are. It also gives the community or city access if they do have any issues. You can’t call a company like Facebook. But our Web site is all about the back and forth communication between people.”

Hawkins said “it’s huge” to have a Web startup like Zappn originating from the Kansas City area.

“We could have gone to San Francisco or New York, but cost wise that’s not feasible,” Hawkins said. “Right now in technology, it can really be done anywhere. Brock and I quit our other job to focus on this 100 percent. … We went to an event at the Kauffman Foundation and they were amazed to see a Web startup. It’s not something you see every day here, but we want to make it work in the Midwest.”

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