Northside Innovation: Speaking with Joah Spearman of Localeur
Each month Northside Innovation, the tech and innovation conference that occurs during the annual Northside Festival in June, gathers top founders and thought leaders, who–over BBQ and beer from Brooklyn Brewery–speak on topics relevant to the community.
April’s meetup theme is Building Technology to Craft the Live Experience. We’ll be hearing from startup founders and seeing the awesome interaction designer, James Patten, talk about his work. In anticipation for Monday’s meetup, we chatted with Joah Spearman, who co-founded and runs Localeur, about his company and favorite Brooklyn whiskey joint.
What is Localeur?
Localeur is a community of locals who share recommendations on their favorite places to eat, drink and play. Our mission is to help people experience local wherever they go. We launched at SXSW 2013 with just Austin and now we are in 14 major US cities and have been named the Best New Startup in Austin and a top travel app by The Today Show, TIME, Men’s Journal and others.
What was the amount of time between when you and your co-founder talked about your company’s idea and the time you started working full time on it?
My co-founder Chase White and I worked at Bazaarvoice together, him on the product design team, helping clients leverage user-generated content, and me on the operations side, leading their travel market strategy. This was during their 2012 IPO year so it was highly relevant experience for us making the decision to pursue our own startup. He shared a travel experience he had where he wanted to “experience local” with me in fall 2012 and I felt I shared that situation on trips I’d taken so we spent a few months talking about – mostly via email and short coffee meetings – what this idea could become and how to solve the problem we’ve experienced on trips of not knowing where locals hang out before actually pursuing this full-time starting January 2013.
I love the Chill app. It’s sleep noises, which come in handy when you sleep as little as I do but really need to catch up after a trip or two.
You live in Austin, but what’s your favorite bar and/or restaurant in Brooklyn?
I absolutely love Char No. 4. It’s a great place for brunch, their Shrimp & Grits are awesome, and the whiskey selection is hard to beat in all of Brooklyn.