(From left) Will Buller, Tom Duong and Christopher Kingsley are part of the team behind 42, which is based in downtown Lincoln.
Last week we explored the path that led Christopher Kingsley, the founder and CEO of 42, to his startup’s March relaunch, which was backed by $1.5 million in funding from Nebraska Global and Nelnet. Today we’ll go more in depth with the company and learn about what makes it tick.
“42 is the evolution of what we’ve been doing the last couple of years,” Kingsley said of his company, which before its relaunch was known as Roundscapes. “We have been acting as a digital agency and a vendor and predominantly what we are trying to do is get away from just being a vendor for a lot of other agencies.”
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He continued: “We really just noticed that our best work was going to other shops for them to go to their clients, and while we enjoy making our clients look good in front of their clients, sometimes we just saw some of our best stuff not being reflected in our work, and so it’s really just a cool opportunity. 42, as I see it, is a cool opportunity for us to let the world know what we’re capable of and do it under a consolidated brand identity that was a choice.”
42 will continue to produce integrated digital campaigns but also work on software. The company has a development arm, 42 Labs, that’s currently working on two software products. The first product is an augmented reality platform currently in private release. This will be free in its initial release and will always remain a free product at its base level with premium add-ons offered over time. The product will be publicly available at the end of 2012.
The second product is an extremely private group management suite. This product will be released to open groups on college campuses this summer. They will beta with just under 20 large, national student groups and right now it’s in private release with three large global organizations.
“I think what 42 is most about is that we can build what is real; we’re simply trying to figure out the best way to build things that are way cooler than real,” Kingsley said. “What’s so inspiring about living in this time is that it’s not a pie in the sky dream anymore. It’s something we do on a regular basis, and it’s real.”
42 now has a team of 25 employees based in downtown Lincoln (above). 42 has an office in San Francisco and may open one up in New York as well, but Kingsley said the startup will continue sourcing staff from Nebraska.
For more from Kingsley about the two products in development at 42 Labs, see the video below.
Credits: Photos courtesy of 42. Video by Kate Ellingson.
