DropPoint is an adventure app and blog meant to challenge students to get outdoors with incentives like gift cards and coupons, according to Jordan Taylor, founder and app developer.
“Essentially, it’s a link between social media and advertising for local businesses,” said Taylor, a senior from Utah majoring in business management finance with a minor in entrepreneurship.
Taylor said he will be entering the Willes Center Great Ideas Competition this Winter Semester.
“It’s similar to an AllTrails app where people can go on and they can find different adventures and locations on a map,” explained Taylor. “One thing that sets DropPoint apart from the other applications that are similar is the ability to send out challenges.”
The challenges are the way Taylor hopes to get students and other young adults outdoors. Each challenge will include an outdoor activity with specific requirements the user will then need to accomplish.
Taylor elaborated, “The challenges can be really specific, such as hike Laie Falls, and at the top you have to post with a Foodland grocery receipt, or it can be as generic as have a campfire and post a picture of it.”
The interface will be centered on posting pictures or videos of users accomplishing the challenges that are sent out. Once the user has posted the completed challenge, they will qualify to receive a certain number of points.
Taylor continued, “Once the user uploads their post on DropPoint, then we will issue points to that user. And when you accumulate a certain amount of points, you will be able to redeem them for a gift card or other monetary rewards.”
Taylor’s target audience is students and young adults living around BYUH. This is what he says will bring advertising opportunities with local businesses.
“So for example, I will be able to go to Foodland and say, ‘If I incorporate your business into one of my challenges, I will need a dollar for every user in this twenty-mile radius.’”
While it is meant to provide entertainment for students, Taylor made it clear this is a business idea that he has been working on for many years.
“Drop Point originally started as an idea I had because after I got off my mission, many of the people I knew were spending a lot of their time just scrolling through their phone. Endlessly scrolling, scrolling and vicariously living their lives through other people’s social media.”
Taylor said he has always been a little bit more adventurous and wanted to share his love for being in the outdoors with those who might not have the natural inclination to do so.
Due to challenges with funding, the DropPoint app is not available yet to be downloaded, but Taylor said he has pushed ahead by launching the DropPoint blog in late Sept. this year. He said he hopes to begin to build a following and also a revenue stream to finance his dreams to launch the app.
“This is where my girlfriend Jezzica comes in,” emphasized Taylor. “She has single handedly done the blog. She works for a professional blogger, and so she knows how to monetize blogs.”
Jezzica Smith, who is originally from Arizona, moved to Hawaii after meeting Taylor while they were both studying abroad in Jerusalem. While he never personally asked her to help, her expertise in the business led to her fully developing the design and interface of the blog and the app prototype.
“Our joke is he's the ‘brains’ and I'm the ‘looks’ since he came up with the idea and I do all the designing,” confessed Smith.
The blog includes several features including specific pieces written by Taylor and Smith on individual hikes to do as well as group features such as “25 Must Do Activities on the North Shore.”
Taylor added, “We just launched the blog during the last week of September. So there is still material and content being uploaded and we hope to get one post up per week.”
A key component of the Great Ideas Competition is the creation of a video to assist with the pitch. To create the video, Taylor received help from BYUH alum James Astle who graduated in 2015 and continues to live in Laie. Astle said the project has been fun and something new to try.
Even with the support of his girlfriend, friends, and the business staff, Taylor is still amazed the project has gotten this far. “It feels like there is a challenge about every ten feet. There is a lot more work that goes into it than I would have originally anticipated,” admitted Taylor.
Eventually, Taylor said he hopes to spread his user following from BYUH to include the BYU campuses in Rexburg and Provo, but for now he is focusing solely on BYUH and the Laie community.
You can check out DropPoint and Taylor’s current adventure commentary at DropPointBlog.com.
Writer: Patrick Campbell