Entrepreneur Profiles | Kristopher B. Jones
What is SpecialGuestApp’s mission?
Actor / comedian Damon Wayans, Jr and I founded Special Guest to make it easier for LIVE entertainers to get paid gigs. Our mission is to help talented people get discovered and to help them get paid gigs.
What is unique about SpecialGuestApp?
Special Guest is the first app ever to help non-managed talent get free paid gigs. Talent gets 100% of what they charge. We make money by powering talent buying for venues (like bars and restaurants), event planners, and LIVE music venues.
I think our mission also makes us unique – we are more of a movement than anything else – we are absolutely determined to open up the industry to make it more fair for up and coming and non-managed talent to get discovered and get paid to do what they love to do.
Talent or talent buyers (event planners, bar / restaurant owners, etc) can download the app on IOS or simply sign-up on web here – SpecialGuestApp!
How do you feel Special Guest App makes a difference in the world?
Special Guest helps talented people make a career doing what they love to do. We level the playing field so that “management” isn’t required to have a sustainable and successful career in the entertainment business.
How would you measure success as a CEO?
For me – success as a CEO is all about execution.
What about SpecialGuestApp that actually made it most enjoyable for you?
Without question – helping people. I’m grateful to be behind a project that is helping tens of thousands of people to be able to do what they love and get paid for it.
To what do you attribute the success of SpecialGuestApp?
Damon and I have been able to build a great team! We’ve also been very fortunate to get quite a bit of press, including most recently the Ellen Show (see video here).
Do you work locally or nationally or internationally?
We are currently focused on rolling out Special Guest across the United States, but we have plans to launch internationally over the next 18 months.
What made you choose your current location?
We have two offices in Pennsylvania and two offices in the Los Angeles area. We also have ground teams in Las Vegas, Nashville, and San Francisco.
We’ve chosen these markets to build out teams based on the density of talent and live music / entertainment venues in those markets. We are currently working to launch ground teams in Austin / Dallas, Texas, Atlanta, Baltimore, Kansas City, and more.
What are SpecialGuestApp’s goals / planned milestones for next year?
We are adding hundreds of new talent to the app per day so our goal in 2019 will be to get as many of our talent paid as often as possible!
Where do you see SpecialGuestApp 3 years from now?
I see us as the largest talent buyer in the world.