Tuesday night tacos and trivia is always a fun weekly ritual, but when the night is over you’re waiting another week to get your fix. We live in a world of sharing, but when it comes to trivia there is nowhere to post questions with likeminded friends (whose love for fun facts from the 80s runs deep). Here to fill our minds with more genius than Jeopardy is TrivNow, a new app that takes on trivia. We recently sat down with Sal Principato, the man with all the answers.
After a few failed attempts at medical school (we value perseverance), Principato switched gears and looked for new opportunities. After graduating from UGA, Principato learned to program while simultaneously launching his first startup and soon found untapped potential in the pub trivia industry. Principato recalls, “while at a pub trivia event with a friend, I was tasked with running up our team’s answers to the host. I remember thinking to myself at the time how insane it was that I could send a message to anyone on the planet instantly, but I had to walk up my trivia answers. It just didn’t make sense.”
After personally experiencing the inefficiencies of trivia and learning how overworked hosts are (you try tallying scores written by drunk people), Principato set out to find a solution. “We have created a powerful tool to help entertainers, emcees, and educators do their job with less effort. So in that respect, our competition is paper companies (step aside Dunder Mifflin). We feel it’s time to move trivia from a static medium to a digital one. Our goal is to empower users with an easy way to create engaging trivia questions and promote the sharing of those questions with others. The breadth of sharing functionality we offer is truly unmatched by trivia apps in the marketplace. Users can deliver a set list of questions at a live event, send questions to friends one at a time, or simply add a question to a category for people to play through at their own pace.”
“Opportunity doesn’t just exist within the pub trivia industry. Questions are a fundamental component to learning, and the majority of questions you are asked in an academic setting are strictly text-based questions delivered on static mediums. With TrivNow, a teacher can work with faculty (and students) to build a powerful curriculum-focused resource of questions to use in tests, quizzes, and homework. Imagine how engaging a video quiz would be for students.”
“While most gaming apps adopt a revenue model relying on in-app advertisements, we want to establish a more diverse revenue model and are currently building up prizes (think free appetizers, haircuts, and t-shirts). We are currently testing the Atlanta market, but bar owners have the strongest interest so far. As players earn points playing TrivNow, they gain the ability to redeem their points for real prizes at local shops, restaurants, and bars. It’s really a cool model we’re developing and I’m excited to get prizes in more areas around town.”
Last Fall, Principato started hosting corporate events at T.MAC for companies like Guinness and RCG (Restaurants Consulting Group). TrivNow currently has 1400 users and 4 locations participating in prizes. The team is currently scaling operations to bring prizes to more locations in Atlanta. Play on.
Follow TrivNow:
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TrivNow
Twitter: https://twitter.com/TrivNow
