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Startup Weekend West Michigan: The Pitch

This weekend I’ll be attending Startup Weekend West Michigan from 6pm Friday through 4pm Sunday.  It promises to be an awesome event, but up until yesterday I had no idea to pitch.  So I got to thinking, and came up with this idea.  What is said below isn’t my pitch, but it’s what I’ll be pitching about.  It’s kind of a far-reaching idea to put in to 2 minutes, but I think I can manage.

Your online social life and your local community are disconnected.  Maybe some people want it to stay that way, but a lot of people want that connection made for them.  I’m calling this idea, “Social Gone Local”.

It’s not that simple though.  Local businesses already have Facebook pages, Twitter accounts, and Check-in points on FourSquare.  The REAL question is, “How do I find new businesses to associate with?”.  Addressing that issue is the fundamental problem this startup will solve.

How do we solve it?  By aggregating all of the data from your social networks and building a profile of your interests, likes, and dis-likes.  With this information, we can recommend local activities, restaurants, shops, and events with a fairly good probability that you’ll like it.  Think “Netflix recommendation engine, for life”.

But what if you’re visiting a different city?  Change your location and we’ll give you recommendations for there too.

By Jack Slingerland

Founder of Kernl.us. Working and living in Raleigh, NC. I manage teams of software engineers and work in Python, Django, TypeScript, Node.js, React+Redux, Angular, and PHP. I enjoy hanging out with my wife and kids, lifting weights, and PC gaming in my free time.

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