Nationwide — Jamal Wilson, a 25 year old from Palm Beach, Florida, had a vision to change the technology world in the biggest way possible. He dropped out of college to pursue his dream of becoming a full time entrepreneur, but the path that got him to where he is today did not come without its roadblocks. In 2010, Jamal moved to Tallahassee, Florida, to play college basketball and to pursue a degree in Computer Technology. These plans did not transpire as intended. In 2012, Jamal realized that school was not for him and he started to skip class, which eventually led to him dropping out. This turned out to be a blessing in disguise. He started educating himself on the methods of computer programming, in an attempt to come up with ideas that would have a major impact in the tech world. Unfortunately, he did not have the funds to support these ideas, at that time. In 2014, Jamal started working at a call center, but quickly realized this was not enough money to support his ultimate goal. Two months later, he got hired at BMW and Mercedes as a salesman. Jamal worked harder than he ever did in his life by working 60+ hours a week. He was on a mission to make his dream a reality. Jamal worked at BMW and Mercedes for 3 years and became the number one sales person in the store for 2 out of 3 years. In addition to that, he achieved numerous awards and was one of the top ranked sales people in the region.
After such perseverance, on January 28th, 2017, Selfie Radar was launched on the App Store. But the application idea came about in 2015 when Jamal approached his cousin, Alexander Logan, the CFO of Selfie Radar, about an idea that would give anyone in the world access to people based on activity and location. Alexander saw the vision of Selfie Radar and the huge potential it had to change the way we meet people. Growing up in Tallahassee, Florida, Alexander always had a passion for numbers. He attended Florida State University where he maintained a 4.0 GPA and a B.S. in Actuarial Science. Afterwards, he re-located to Chicago, Illinois to work for Willis Towers Watson, a Fortune 500 insurance consulting firm. From there, he gained experience with big data and modeling financials and insurance products for large corporations such as McDonalds, Caterpillar, AIG, and Nationwide, to name a few. His experience is not limited to just modeling and data manipulation for insurance companies; he has also gained expertise in analyzing data for litigation projects, for clients such as Reed Smith LLP and Lincoln Financial. Such attention to detail has proven to be crucial to Selfie Radar’s success. Between Jamal’s sales and marketing experience and Alexander’s financial and modeling expertise, Selfie Radar has the potential to be the next biggest tech company on the market.
The application, Selfie Radar
Selfie Radar is an application that gives people the ability to connect with the world through selfies, based on an array of activities and location. Users have the ability to take a selfie and upload it with a category (or what Jamal and Alexander call “Radar Rank”) that describes their activity and displays their current location, by city and state. The application houses many different Radar Ranks to choose from, such as Campus Selfie, Exercise Selfie, Game Time Selfie, Landmark Selfie, Party Selfie, and many more. The application also allows people to filter their dashboard to view any activity they want to see, at any specified location. For example, if a user attends a Miami Heat NBA game, they can choose to see everyone that posted a selfie in the arena by filtering on the “Game Time Selfie” Radar Rank and filtering on “Miami, Florida.”
The application inherently encourages interaction between users. Users have the ability to like selfies, search other users, send private messages to other users, follow other users, and view another user’s gallery. In addition to the aforementioned features, Jamal and Alexander wanted to reward users for their participation within the application. Selfie Radar contains a page called “Featured Selfie” that gives users the opportunity to have their selfie displayed for an entire day, for every other user across the application to see. To be featured on this page, a user must have the most activity within a 24 hour period. These activities include liking other people’s selfies, following the most people, and posting the most selfies across different Radar Ranks. The promotion opportunities through this page are endless.
Why is it a safe alternative in the social media world?
One element in which Selfie Radar prides itself is being an extremely safe and positive form of social media. Jamal and Alexander decided to eliminate the ability to comment on other user’s selfies.
With bullying being such a widespread act in the social media world, they wanted to provide a safe and positive alternative to the unforgiving nature that accompanies the option to comment on people’s photos. Another epidemic surrounding the social media world is a phenomenon called “catfishing”. Catfishing is a deceptive tactic involving people creating fake profiles to construct a false identity. Selfie Radar effectively eliminates this kind of activity. In order to post selfies on Selfie Radar, a user must have their locations turned on and can only use the camera built within the application, which only allows for usage of the front camera. With these elements in mind, Selfie Radar has become a safe application for people of all ages to enjoy.
What is next for Selfie Radar?
Jamal and Alexander acknowledge that without user participation, Selfie Radar cannot live up to its full potential. Their main focus is and will always be on gaining the maximum amount of participating users possible. They have been off to a promising start. Selfie Radar has not only reached people all over the United States, in states such as Florida, Illinois, and Georgia, but it has also reached people overseas in countries such as Slovakia, the Netherlands, and Germany, to name a few. Selfie Radar is currently only available on the Apple Market, but Jamal and Alexander plan to launch Selfie Radar to the Android Market very soon. Jamal and Alex have been participating in interviews about Selfie Radar across the United States and will continue to do so, with the hopes of leading the next biggest social media technology company.
