Any plans for tonight?
Kuva: Sami Seppänen
WhatsUpWasa.com is an online guide to places and happenings in Vaasa. Born to satisfy its founder’s personal needs some months ago, it’s slowly gaining popularity.
"I was looking for a homepage which would tell me what is going on in the city on a given night, so that I'd find everything that's interesting in the same place," explains business student John Seiplax (pictured), owner, founder, manager and caretaker of the site. "But I couldn't find anything like that - so I figured I might as well set one up myself."John got the site up and running with precious little investment. Strictly speaking, no official business plan has yet been developed, but the basic principle behind the economics of such a site was clear from the beginning.
"From the start, I was sure that such a site can only function well if it's free both for the visitors and for the companies whose events appear on it. Income should be generated by advertising, but the point is to give the clubs equal opportunities. A hyped gig in Fontana should get the same presentation as a small event in a smaller club," says John.
This eliminates the likes of clubs, pubs and restaurants from the ranks of potential advertisers, and John admits that the tentative steps to find other ones have so far proved difficult.
Long road to Vaasa
John has been living in Vaasa for five years. He is of Finnish-Panamanian-Irish-American descent, having grown up in Latin and North America.
"I was stuck at a dead-end job in Texas, and I wanted to try something new. Doing the military service seemed like a good idea, and I had the choice to do it in Finland rather than in the US," he remembers.
It apparently didn't cause much of a stir that at the time of his enlisting, John didn't speak any Finnish or Swedish.
"Yeah, the first three months in the army were really confusing," he laughs. "My superiors would shout at me all kinds of things, but I just shrugged and walked away; I had no idea what was wrong. Then slowly they figured out that it makes more sense to tell me what they want in English."
Still, in a trademark military move, John was put in charge of communications of his artillery unit.
"I guess we're lucky that there was no war going on at the time," he smiles.
Word of mouth
By now, he speaks Swedish well - but the main language of WhatsUpWasa is English, as the common language between Swedish and Finnish speakers as well us foreigners.
As John says, he is planning closer cooperation with the local universities and their student unions. This would be a boost to marketing efforts - which have so far consisted only of word-of-mouth, and setting up a fan-site on Facebook.
"I didn't do much advertising," admits John, "but feedback so far was positive, and now on busier days the site gets a couple of hundred visitors."
John compiles the list of events by collecting information from local newspapers, from the clubs' websites, and by walking around the city with an open eye. Visitors can also add their own events to the list, simply by filling in a form. John encourages everyone to do so, partly because this kind of crowdsourcing makes updating the site much easier.
WhatsUpWasa is also the subject of John's thesis, which he is currently working on at the Vaasa University of Applied Sciences.
"Once I'm finished with that, and I have a bit more time, I'll look into how I can develop it further," he concludes.
Tämän artikkelin kommentointi on päättynyt.