Donna Lee, CEO of
MascotSecret, has always eyed with envy the vacant good seats at sporting events. She thought there had to be some way to get those unused good seats into the hands of those sitting in the cheap seats. So Lee and co-founder Jennifer Jeng set out to find a way.
“This is the problem we had growing up -- we always wanted better seats,” says Lee. “You go to the game, you see all the empty seats, and we thought there has to be a better solution.”
This past summer, Lee and Jeng moved to Cleveland from San Francisco to develop MascotSecret through
Bizdom, a non-profit startup accelerator founded by Dan Gilbert, founder and chairman of Quicken Loans and majority owner of the Cleveland Cavaliers. “It allows you to upgrade your seats during game time through your mobile phone,” explains Lee. “All you need to do is open the app, put in how many tickets you want to upgrade, and then move to your new seats.”
Lee says the price to upgrade might be cheaper or more expensiver than face value depending on availability, the game, and other factors.
So far, MascotSecret has been testing the app at
Cavs games. As a Bizdom company, they have gotten the support from Gilbert and
Veritix. “We’ve had a really great response so far," says Lee. "Customers who have heard about it want to try it.”
MascotSecret recently received a $25,000 grant from the
Lorain County Community College Foundation Innovation Fund, which they will use to further develop the app. The company is beginning talks with the Indians to use the app. The goal is to sell the app to markets across the country.
“Of course we want to expand as quickly as possible,” says Lee. As they expand, the company will be looking for technical and marketing talent.
Source: Donna Lee
Writer: Karin Connelly