Local Ruckus co-founders Matthew Marcus (left) and Adam Arredondo secured Sprint as a customer, partner.
Local Ruckus, one of the Kansas City Startup Village‘s original residents, has found its first major customer and distribution partner in neighborhood telecom giant Sprint.
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The site—founded in February 2011, re-launched in August 2012—provides a “hub for local businesses to manage and publish events to their websites and social media networks” and intends to be the “Associated Press of local events” for national media outlets, according to a release.
Local Ruckus will work alongside Sprint’s Pinsight Media+ team—focused primarily on mobile advertising—to leverage its API for local event content delivered as an added benefit to Sprint’s Kansas City-area mobile subscribers and then make a push to expand nationally. CEO Adam Arredondo told Silicon Prairie News the two teams already have started work over the past month to determine how best to use and deliver the content. The Pinsight Media+ team also is young—started last year—and the relationship will make for a good learning experience on both sides, he said.
Arredondo (right) and co-founder Matthew Marcus (left) first met with the Sprint and Pinsight Media+ teams while at South by Southwest in March and have kept in communication since.
“Their first question to us was, ‘How quickly can you go national?’” Arredondo said. “Our vision has always been to take what we’re doing in KC national. We want to nail it in one market before we expand.”
He said the relationship is unique in that they will work together while also delivering a product for Sprint—Arredondo said they’re essentially paying for a content license. That revenue makes it possible for the events site to grow its team, bringing on UI/UX developer Matt Miquelon and software architect Adam England, who combined have experience at Kansas City companies that include VML, Barkley, LiveOn, Engage Mobile, Perceptive Software and Sporting Innovations.
With all of the latest deals Sprint has been involved in within the community—the acquisition of Handmark and the partnership with Pipeline—Arredondo said he wasn’t surprised they wanted to engage with a local startup.
“It’s another example of Sprint taking advantage of innovation in their back yard,” Arredondo said.
It’s unclear how long it will be before the product hits consumers in Kansas City, but he said the goal is to expand into other markets in spring 2014. In addition to the Sprint partnership, Local Ruckus has secured investments from other regional neighbors, including funding from Digital Sandbox and grants through Workforce Partnership. It also recently was awarded Kansas Angel Tax Credits.
Credits: Photo courtesy Local Ruckus.
