Naveen Selvadurai – Life in Foursquare Nation
In our virtual worlds, there is a small, vibrant nation of 7 million people called Foursquare – it’s actually an app that can be uploaded on your mobile or your computer but is a buzzing hive of human activity. Everybody seems to live on Foursquare nowadays; it’s a location based social networking website created in 2009 by Naveen Selvadurai and Dennis Crowley to help people to check in through their mobile devices with their friends in different locations where the action is.
In keeping with the virtual gaming spirit of the times, it’s like entering into an exciting online world of fun adventures, user points, badges and awards, depending on how often you frequent the bars, restaurants, museums and favorite haunts. This innovative app which brings people and businesses together in a win-win situation was recognized as a Technology Pioneer for 2011 by the World Economic Forum.
In fact, the company has bagged a gaggle of awards, including Best Location Based Service in the TechCrunch Crunchies 2010, a Webby Award as one of the best mobile social networks, and was a finalist in Lead411’ s New York City Hot 125.
The Foursquare world has free membership where everyone can list their favorite places and activities – to-do’s – and also give tips to other members about hot places and things to do. Foursquare also has a button that can add any location in the app to a user’s to-do list. Noted sites like The New York Times and Wall Street Journal take it seriously and have an ‘Add to My Foursquare” button, which will get them into the radar of the users. Merchants and brands leverage the Foursquare platform by utilizing a wide set of tools to obtain, engage, and retain customers and audiences.
Foursquare: From Starbucks to the Met
It has proved to be a viable revenue generating model with major companies like Starbucks and small mom and pop stores all bringing their wares to the streets of Foursquare, offering deals and fun freebies to the inhabitants of Foursquare. What is fascinating to users is the reward system with freebies and badges for the most frequent users, with the tantalizing possibility of becoming Mayor of their favorite place, be it a major museum or the neighborhood pizza place!
In fact, an icon like the Metropolitan Museum of Art has also jumped into this virtual marketplace, giving special discounts in its restaurants and gift shop to visitors who check in on Foursquare. If they check in twice, they earn a special Met Lover badge. In a recent month those who checked in received a complimentary small plate with their wine at the Met’s elegant Petrie Court Café and Wine Bar.
Naveen was working at Sony Music when he met Dennis Crowley in the same office space but working for different companies. Dennis had created Dodgeball, a company which sold to Google. Now working on the same principles, the two came up with Foursquare in 2008 and launched it in 2009. The company got funding from Union Square Ventures, O’Reilly AlphaTech Ventures, Andreessen Horowitz and some angel investors but it was already a functioning company.
“We raised funding six months after we launched Foursquare – people were already using it and were getting excited abut it and we continued building on that,” says Naveen. “This is a very easy way to do it. You just go build it and you don’t any help.”
As the partners explain on their blog, over a quarter of a million businesses have set up a presence on Foursquare: “We’ve had everything from mom-n-pop sub shops to thousand-location national chains, and everything in between. And we’ve gotten lots of feedback along the way – about making it easier to create Specials, about different ways people have been growing their business, and about tons of fun ways businesses use Foursquare.”
Foursquare: Social Networking Gizmo
As the founders like to call Foursquare –“ social + friend finder + social city guide + nightlife game thing.” It’s a handy gizmo to have in today’s social networking world. The fun freebies go from free cookies at Whole Foods to a possibility for the first five people who check in at the Toys R Us in Times Square to get their photo flashed on the big screen in Times Square!
Rather than using bland ads, businesses get to be a part of their customers’ lives with punch cards for coffee, and specials to build loyalty. The ultimate reward for loyal customers is being anointed Mayor, with big specials. As Naveen explains it: “If I’m the person who goes most often to the pizza parlor around the corner, I should be rewarded for it – I should be recognized as Mayor of the Pizza Parlor!”
Fun adventures were part of Naveen’s life, growing up as the son of a merchant marine engineer in Chennai. On his father’s final assignment, he got to travel with his parents to the Middle East and Europe. By the time he was nine, they had moved to Connecticut in the US and an American education was next. He says, “I didn’t know what I wanted to do with my life- I decided to study computer science because it was something easy and exciting and fun. I wanted to build something that I could share with others. As I got older I did carve my own path and branched out and did my own thing.”
Naveen likes the fact that computers can satisfy the artistic urge to create. “You’re a little bit of a mathematician and a little bit of an artist and you’re making things from scratch – there’s something very exciting about that.”
Naveen Selvadurai’s Tips for Newbie Entrepreneurs
Happily, Foursquare has been a rip-roaring success story and now has 7 million users, 66 employees, a big office in the East Village in Manhattan, and another smaller office in San Francisco. While earlier Naveen did a bit of everything form engineering to coding to product work, he now likes to concentrate on building and fine-tuning the platform. He and Dennis have a great team going and the atmosphere is fun and casual at work, with occasional bike rides, runs and even Karaoke evenings.
Work is still the mantra and the team is into building a better interface for users and merchants, and also researching new features for users. Lunch is usually eaten at the desk, and sometimes Naveen forgets even that and makes do with a snack heated in the microwave oven at the end of the day.
Foursquare can be clicked from anywhere on the globe, points out Naveen. “Foursquare is in India and there’s a lot of room for it to grow. The power of Foursquare is you can add any venue – we let the users use the system in any way they want to, share their locations, their tips and meet up and get together.”
For Naveen, the high point is the animated emails, tweets and messages on Foursquare that he gets from users and the interaction with his team. “It’s always a roller coaster – always up and down – it’s never stopped. I think it’s the fun things which keep driving us day to day. The team is probably the best I’ve ever worked with – we are all friendly and we’re all really smart here. I learn something new from them every day and that keeps me really excited.”
What tips does he have for newbie entrepreneurs with hot ideas and little capital?
He says, “Don’t wait to get help. You don’t need a lot of capital – you don’t have to hire a lot of people – I think you should build what you want to build – solve the problem you want to solve in the world – go build it and everything will settle around it. If it’s a good product, the markets will follow.”
Asked about the best part of being an entrepreneur, Naveen says, “I think the best thing for me is that I get to work on something I’m really excited about, building things I want to see in the world, building what I want to use every day. I’m building it for myself and for my friends. And that’s exciting.”
© Lavina Melwani
(This article was part of a series which first ran in Hi Blitz)
