Joshua’s already
given enough advice and inspiration in his first and second parts of this
interview to demonstrate he’s one who still believes in achieving his dreams. What follows
will only add more proof to my assertion and will, perhaps, convince you to chase your own dream.
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Among the many accomplishments you have one of them is
the creation, marketing and selling of an App. Can you describe where your idea
came from and how it has now unfolded into something big?
My app, Drunk
Mode,
hides your contacts for up to 12 hours. It prevents you from drunk dialing your
friends. The app, while an interesting and now successful idea, also has a good
story behind it. My technical co-founder, Justin Washington, and I always joke
about Drunk Mode being a ‘happy accident.’
In the summer of
2012, I was flirting with the idea of building an app. At a block party at my
university my first semester, I received a few drunken calls. From this real
life experience the idea for Drunk Mode came to life. The problem was that I
had no idea how to develop an app. I was more interested in learning the
process of mobile development and had no intention of making it into a
business. Honestly, this project became successful due to numerous happy
accidents.
After talking to 17
different people, I met my developer and my now my best friend, Justin, on a
bus after leaving from a political rally. He turned out to be the best friend
of a girl I had a huge crush on in community college. Such are the way
connections happen in the world today. Similarly, he had no idea how to develop
a mobile app but we both agreed to make it happen.
Two huge milestones
occurred from October 2012 to April 15, 2013 at its release. We visited Willow Tree
Apps as part of a class trip through my marketing teacher, Professor Foutz.
During the trip I had the opportunity to ask over 20 questions about mobile app
development. In January, I found a Stanford Series online that Justin then used
to get a very good platform to develop IOS/Objective C.
The next happy
accident occurred when I was selected to participate in the Love Connection
through the student
newspaper. There
I met the reporter, Allie Griswold, who helped us get an article in about our
app published (thanks also to Valerie Clemons). This article coincided with our
release date of Drunk Mode and within the first week we had over 700 user
downloads who paid $1.00 for the app. This led to more coverage, this time on
TV, a CNBC 29 interview the next day, and
that led to being listed on Yahoo on July 3rd.
Now we have over 14,000 downloads with 34% of our sales coming internationally.
We decided to make the app free and
since then we have a 30% - 40% growth in downloads a month.
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| First Drunk Mode |
Today, the Drunk
Mode Team is made up of 9 people and we are still growing. Using our cash flow we
are moving into creating EZ Buttons for drunken behaviors. By April 15th,
we will be releasing 3 new features for the app: 1) Hangover - where it answers the question of ‘what
happened last night’ by helping you recover your SnapChats/images and showing
you a movie slideshow of events; 2) Hype Map - where you can write anonymously
how the party is/was, answering the question – “is the party good?”; 3) Breadcrumbs - this feature will show you where you went
the previous evening via a GIF like Map.
Looking back at this
so-called ‘happy accident’ I can truly say it changed my life. When I
originally transferred to my university, I envisioned working on a project in
Plasma Gasification (the ability to turn carbon waste into energy). Now two
years later, I have ventured into technology and its wonders. While my focus
has changed, I still plan to work on contributing to helping the world’s energy
issues. In addition, I want to use technology as a way to earn credibility as a
businessman and to earn the clout to have an equal say at a table even though I
am extremely young.
Recently you have started yOptimize. What is it and how
is the business going?
yOptimize uses social media
data and business strategy to drive value for businesses whether it be high
organic growth or viral campaigns. We focus on three segments of clients. First
are small businesses and authors that are not trying to grow nationally, but
they are trying to grow in the local community. Second, we focus on high growth
firms that usually have a fair amount of Angel or Seed Capital for growing
their users. We help these companies go viral on social media. Third, we work
with people who have remarkable ideas and who are looking to raise seed money;
for them, we set-up and run their crowd funding campaigns. We work together via
our strategic partnership with Hartford Labs for both our Series A/Angel
Clients and our clients trying to raise money via crowd funding.
Putting it simply,
yOptimize is more human version of Google Adwords for social media. yOptimize’s
core service is focused on using social media as a megaphone to drive results
for a company’s brand. yOptimize focuses on five areas to drive ROI for brands.
First, we use different tools and data to identify a firm’s target
segment/customer and specific social influencers in this segment down to the
individual profile. We look into which social media communities this segment is
a part of and we generate a massive list of potential leads to target over the
course of the social media campaign. Second, we aggregate close to real time
social media data to analyze what this target segment is saying via social
conversations (what they are saying online) and we subtly engage with these
conversations through acknowledging their statuses or tweets and/or commenting
on them. Third, we then begin to drive a promotion campaign with the intention
of increasing in sales/downloads by targeting very specific communities. Just
like Google AdWords, it’s a numbers game, but we can target close to 2 million
millennials just in the U.S. alone. Fourth, we than start to build a community
around each of these social networks by fostering conversations and content
curation with those engaged with the target social media community that then
leads to organic social media growth and ROI. Fifth, we do work with SEO,
Conversion Rate Optimization, and Web Development/Design but in the perspective
of ensuring the success of the whole digital marketing package.
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| Joshua (second from right) and friends |
As for the history
of yOptimize, we officially started in October 2013, where our first client
came from my mentorship, WealthMinder, which is a software company that is
trying to center itself as Turbo Tax for personal financial goals. They use big data to ensure clients meet
their financial goals. In November, we will add BriogeoHair to our marketing portfolio
that is a Hair Care Brand. We had a small contract with a local attorney in
Wheaton Maryland, Campos Law, and we recently added to our client portfolio
Jayne Cox, who is the author of “Jefferson from Boy to Man”.
With our partnership
with Hartford Lab we have added two amazing clients to our
portfolio, one is Smart Diet Scale, which is a smart plate/scale where you
place your food on the scale, and with the help of a mobile app it keeps track
of exactly what you eat via the weight and the food name. The second is
Petzila, which is essentially a baby monitor for your dog -- you can watch your
dog anytime, anywhere’ in addition, users can play with your dog via its mobile
apps and connected toys anywhere in the world.
While we have been
around for only 5 months it has definitely been a ride. The hardest part for me
was developing the ROI Model so we can assure at least 4x ROI for a company. I
can happily say we have come a long way to meeting this model. We also have
used technology and data to streamline the process to be able to compete with
bigger players. Finally, the social media user acquisition space is a bit small
and ageism works to our advantage here: we are young talented undergraduates
and post graduates who have grown up using social media networks. The amount of individuals who can make a
company like this run smoothly is minimal due to the perfect storm of
knowledge, passion, and work ethic.
If I were to give advice
for one starting a consulting firm or even a startup it would be from my
experience with yOptimize: hustling, mentorship, and strategic partnership will
ensure your firm’s success. We would not have succeeded had it not been for the
mentorship of those around us who are in many ways an unofficial board of
advisors. Similarly our strategic partnership with Hartford Labs and
collaborative hustling has allowed us to grow exponentially.
A short while ago you gave what amounted to a great education to some students who are hoping of creating a web presence for a project they are working on. You had an exceptional approach and a step-by-step process for what they needed to do. Can you share some of these things you have learned about data and making contacts through social media?
As stated above,
yOptimize specializes in making ideas and products go viral by leveraging data
and communication as a premise. However, this concept can be applied to
anything including yourself. To put this in perspective everyone should build
their own brand and be able to exert as much control as possible.
Now that I have some
success my brand and reputation makes it easier to do more business and launch ideas. Here is my process.
First, I keep an active presence on LinkedIn and Facebook. I do no anything out of line
so I do not have to edit my Facebook page. I use Facebook as a way to
communicate great ideas and things I’m working on to my friends. This in many
ways helps me with crafting a brand as an entrepreneur, public speaker and a marketer.
On LinkedIn, I do this on a professional level.
Second, I try my
best to control my full name on Google. The reason why is that potential
clients or just individuals in general will search my name on Google. What
comes up? Usually my website, www.JoshuaAnton.com, my YouTube Channel
with all my speeches, and other media related articles like on NVCC’s website, Cavalier Daily, CNBC 29, etc. This allows
me to control my brand on Google.
Third, there are new
things I’m working on too. At the moment, I do not have a huge presence on Twitter, but since I want to portray myself as a
knowledgeable entrepreneur and social media marketer, I am starting to build my
Twitter account in. To build my Twitter account, I’m following a two-step
method similar to what we do for yOptimize. First, I scheduled great
entrepreneurial and marketing content over the course of two weeks through
Hootsuite. Second, I have made a gigantic list of every single entrepreneurial
mentor in the space and I’ve started following them. My goal is to use my
Twitter account to find more entrepreneurial mentors and center myself as an
influencer for social media.
Similarly, I have
also started writing a blog with three other amazing entrepreneurial friends,
Sean, Alex, and Andrew, in our mastermind group called www.IvoryPunch.com. This allows me to attain some authorship and entrepreneurial
street cred.
As for how I
leverage social media contacts; the secret is providing good content that’s
worth following and commenting about. More importantly, I also need to do remarkable
things in real life. Social media is just a way to blast what already exists to
a wider audience. However, you have to have something worth remarking over to
take advantage of what social media has to offer.
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| Joshua's 23rd birthday party |
You were recently interviewed for a radio station for
all you do. What was this like? You seem very comfortable talking to people in
person and through the media, but you also had to overcome some challenges in
your public speaking. I find this story inspirational on many levels. Would you
be willing to talk about how hard you had to work to become the great speaker
you are now?
Being interviewed by
WTJU was an amazing experience. I had never been interviewed by a radio station
before and it was not too frightening. In fact, it was really laid back.
Similarly, in
regards to speaking, I’ve learned 3 lessons through my metamorphosis to being a
public speaker. First, anyone can do
public speaking as long as you have something to say that’s worth remarking
about. This also means you can overcome any stage fright or speech impediment
if you try hard enough. I would never have guessed in my wildest dreams that I
would be doing public speaking. Throughout middle school and high school, I was
in special education, I had an IEP and I underwent speech therapy for all 6
years. I had a huge lisp and I could not pronounce the ‘TH’ or ‘S’ sounds when
I spoke. Overtime, I learned to pronounce ‘TH’ sounds although I still have a
small lisp with ‘S’ sounds, but I’ve learned to mask it a bit. I overcame stage
fright during my first so called speech. To compete for a $200 scholarship I
had to memorize the Bill of Rights word for word and recite it to 10 American
Legion People in uniform who were looking at the Bill of Rights. I learned that
most speeches are not like that. Every speech has been easier from then on. I
was never scared to speak impromptu, because I realized that your audience only
knows if you make a mistake if you tell them.
Second, I learned
through working with my friend Laura. She’s helped me on 75% of my speeches, and let me
understand that speaking is never about you even when it’s your motivational
story. It’s about catering a message to an audience in a very short amount of
time that they can relate too and that will change their lives. If you can do
that then you will be successful. I learned this lesson when I started speaking
to elementary school students last summer. It was a very big shift in terms of
audience and I had to really put myself on their level. With that group I
opened up with Pokemon and catered my story to be more relatable and
understandable to 8-year-old kids. Honestly I was more scared talking in front
of this audience than the CEO of Unilever during the United States round of the
Unilever competition.
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| Joshua speaking at Kennedy Center |
Third, as with many of
my entrepreneurial projects, I learned how to venture into this territory and
pursue public speaking. By the time I started stating that I was a motivational
speaker, I had conducted over 20-30 impromptu speeches as Student Government
President. I had also been honored to give three keynote speeches: one at the
Kennedy Center, the other two at GMU for Future Quest, and the NVCC Pathways Program.
This was a 3-year process before I actually pursued public speaking as a career
choice of sorts in May 2012. From there I had one video portfolio and I sent
this out to four different high schools. Herndon High School and Katie Radda, my
sister’s counselor, helped make my first school speech a reality. I did my
first official paid keynote to the Herndon High School Senior Class in December
of 2012 and from there I started to speak about 4-6 times a semester. Today, I
have expanded my public speaking services to not just motivational speaking but
also to social media seminars on topics like how to develop a mobile app, and
beginners investing.
My effort in public
speaking has been, at one level, a 5 year entrepreneurial project and it’s
still my favorite. The best part about being an entrepreneur/speaker is I can
showcase what I have done. I get to tell my story from the perspective of once
being on the verge of homelessness, of being designated a special education
student who had ADHD and a speech impediment, and because of money and family
issues, a student had to start out at a community college. But the message I
try to convey is simple: It’s not about where you start, it’s about where you
want to be.
You are getting ready to graduate and are preparing what
seems a very long list of things you want to do. Can you talk about your short
and long term plans?
In the past 5 years,
I have run 3 races. The first was the race to survive, the second was the race
to my dream school and the third was the race to my dream career. As I get
ready to graduate from my university, I will be half done with my personal
marathon. Of course my immediate plans are developing yOptimize as a powerhouse
marketing firm that can quickly make start-ups go viral while assisting those
financially who may not have all financial resources to make an idea happen but
have the work ethic and drive to do so.
There are always
more races and challenges ahead. The next 3 races are as follows. My fourth
race, upon graduating, I would like give back to my community through a
socially driven entrepreneurial project in the Northern Virginia area to better
the lives of the students there. My fifth race, is to develop a national
entrepreneurship project that betters the lives of individuals nationally. If
Drunk Mode works out and we can prevent millions of youth from drunk driving
then that goal may be achieved. Finally, I would like to do something that will
transform the world on a global stage and I have a few ideas about with working
on our Plasma Gasification Project to
develop a mini-India in terms of IT Outsourcing in third world countries,
specifically Africa. These are my short term and long term plans over the next
6 years.
Honestly, if there
was one word to categorize this feeling it would be thankful. I would never
have guessed that I would be where I am today. Sometimes I look back nostalgically
and just say wow. I cannot believe 5 years ago, I had just been kicked out of
my house, let alone what I was going to do with my life. I am just thankful
that I can give back to those who need it. If I never had the people invest
their time, mentorship, and in some sense their love in me, I would not be
where I am today.
What advice do you have for younger future entrepreneurs
about how to prepare for success?
If I could give two
pieces of advice for any young entrepreneur it would be the following.
First, find a mentor
that has been successful and has achieved what you want to do in life and ask
him or her to mentor you. This worked wonders for me. My second piece of advice
is more a philosophical standard that will allow someone to find success: the
most important thing in entrepreneurship is knowing what question to ask and
where you can find the answer. This skill will ensure you are always learning
and transforming ordinary risk to calculated risk by eliminating uncertainty.
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Joshua still believes in the American Dream. He should. He’s overcome more than most, yet he
optimistic outlook on what’s in front of him and ahead of him should be a
lesson instilled to others. I am lucky he has taken such time and care to give
a detailed account of how he has come so far in such a short time.
I hope to be able to
update this interview from time to time, as I know Joshua will have new successes
and new bits of wisdom he can share. If a movie were made about his life so far,
many would not believe it to be true, but Joshua’s better than fiction. He’s the
real deal.
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| Joshua and friends |
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