Chris Hendrixson of Blue Seat Media
Chris Hendrixson is founder of
Blue Seat Media, a sports app company.
How did you start your business?
In October 2011, I left my full-time job working as a graphic designer to pursue my own ventures. I wasn't sure exactly what I wanted to do but I had a few ideas.
After a short vacation to San Francisco and Silicon Valley, I spent the winter pursuing a hunch that turned into the Cincy Lineup app, which delivers Cincinnati Reds lineups to mobile devices on game day. I worked with a developer to get the iPhone app built and it went live during spring training.
In May 2012, my good friend and long-time collaborator Jeffrey Wyckoff resigned from his corporate position to join me full time.
How did you come up the idea for your business?
I am a lifelong Reds fan and Cincy Lineup was simply something that I thought would be cool. I didn't really see the app turning into much at first and it was never my intent to evolve it into anything beyond that initial iteration.
Now, I am looking at Cincy Lineup as the modest first step in a pursuit to build mobile and tablet apps that enhance the experience of being a fan.
What resources here did you take advantage of and how did they help?
I've been involved with the Cincinnati Cocoa Developers Meetup group that meets in Mason every month. Those guys have been awesome and have been a huge support. I am a designer who doesn't know how to code, so rather than trying to learn on my own, I decided to learn as much as I can about the developer community. I used to think they were all just a bunch of video game nerds. Well, that turned out to be true, but these are the guys making the world go around, slaving away to actually build out ideas, and I've learned a ton from them.
What inspires you?
The amazing, paradigm-shifting innovation in technology that I have seen in my lifetime. In the 80s, personal computers made powerful tools like word processing and gaming available to the masses. The Internet connected millions of computers around the world in the 90s.
Now, we are in the midst of the smartphone era, in the beginning of the tablet era, and the era of connected TV's is lurking right around the corner.
There are enormous opportunities to use technology to have a really positive and meaningful impact on the development of humanity and this is extremely inspiring to me.
What’s next for you and your company?
We are working on an exciting new feature for Cincy Lineup called "Game Ball." You could think of it like fantasy baseball, except that it’s for each individual game and simple enough that a kid can use it.
Look for a beta version just in time for the 2012 postseason starting in early October.
Interview by Robin Donovan