Will Lucas dreamed about the domain name  “thankyouaga.in.” Now he is acting on that dream to provide a means for people to celebrate the good in their lives.

Lucas, founder and CEO of thankyouagai.in, said the idea was inspired by a dream he had the night of Sept. 11 this year. He didn’t dream about sitting at a desk and looking at his computer, but instead dreamed about the domain name. After checking GoDaddy.com, he saw the URL was available.

“The day after this dream, I thought, ‘What do I say if Oprah asks me what does thankyouaga.in mean?’” Lucas said.

The concept of thankyouaga.in is “collecting the good.” Lucas is focusing on the mobile application, but he is having a website created as well. Users are expected to only post about the positive aspects of their lives. The point is to create a community on the Web that is supportive and celebratory.

Will Lucas

“It’s meant to be the second thank you after you’ve thought about it, the one that means something,” Lucas said.

Celebrate the good

Lucas said he doesn’t want the good that happens in people’s lives to be drowned out by everything else. An example he gave was how the happiness of someone getting his or her first job could be drowned out by the football game on television. He said he wants people to be able to celebrate the good and look back on it when having a bad day.

“My favorite feature is the ‘looking back’ button, which allows [users] to look back and realize life is not so bad,” he said.

The logo, which is a smiling face shaped like a thought bubble, is meant to show why people are smiling, Lucas said, adding that he wanted it to be playful.

Lucas was motivated to try designing the mobile app and website himself. He bought books about development but eventually hired someone to help.

Similar but different

Lucas said thankyouagai.in is similar yet different from Twitter and Facebook. The app will provide the emotional connection similar to what people get out of Facebook, and it will have the micro-blogging function of Twitter. Users can select hash tags that reflect what is posted. Users will also be able to flag abusers on the app.

“The value proposition is going to be different than Facebook and Twitter,” Lucas said. “Rather than following someone, you listen to them.”

The app went live in the Apple App Store at 3:36 p.m. Tuesday, Nov. 8, Lucas said. Fifty people signed up the first day and about 30 joined the second day. The app is also available for Android. The website is scheduled to be open soon.

About 30 users who are either friends of Lucas’s or engineers from San Francisco tested the beta version. The feedback was positive.

“They have been using it several times per day and for the right reasons,” Lucas said.

In the future, Lucas said he hopes to have companies advertise on the website. There is presently no revenue model; Lucas has invested about $2,000 of his money into thankyouaga.in.

Bouncing ideas

Philip Cunningham has been working on the strategy and marketing aspect of thankyouaga.in. Lucas said he met Cunningham a couple of years ago through Greater Toledo Urban League, a local nonprofit organization.

“At some point I heard about what Will was doing,” Cunningham said. “We met up and started bouncing ideas off of each other. I took this on as a challenge and it pushes me to be better.”

Cunningham said a goal is to not let the app be one that “never gets to see the light of day.”

“People put out apps, and they never really get to the apps store front page,” Cunningham said. “A lot of times, new apps don’t get the downloads.”

Cunningham was one of the beta testers and said it was a new experience for him. He recently switched from an Android to the iPhone 4.

“I’m really excited to see what happens when there’s a ton of people using the application,” Cunningham said. “I felt like I was on the cutting edge.”

With a small budget but big goals, Cunningham is being as creative with advertising and marketing as possible. He said he is using multiple programs and websites to spread the word, and Cunningham and Lucas are using their connections in Toledo to help push the message.

“People can literally go and talk about the good things in their lives,” Cunningham said. “I feel like it changes the way people look at their lives because [they] look for it in a different way.”

Cunningham said there will be commercials on YouTube and other websites, which will include people talking about the good happening in their lives.

“I think it’s bigger than just a mobile app,” Lucas said. “I don’t know where it’s going, but I’m still realizing the value it’s bringing to people. I know it’s bigger than me, and I realize how it can help people. I feel blessed that it was given to me.”

Tags: thankyouaga.in, Will Lucas

This entry was posted on Tuesday, November 15th, 2011 at 1:53 pm and is filed under Featured, Star, Uncategorized.
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The city has been abuzz for the last few weeks about its native son Will Lucas, founder and CEO of Creadio and thankyouaga.in. Surviving a busy week of press flurry about his radio business and phone applications, he is living in the moment. But allow me to give you a bit of back story about Lucas’ experiences growing up in Toledo, the enrichment he received from its resources and how he gives back to his city.

So far, life’s journey has been interesting for the young man who embarked on a radio career at the tender age of 17.  While he was in high school, he attended a Teen Summit where he met Charlie Mack, the program director of the then-new urban radio station in town, The Juice FM 107.3. After explaining his interest in the music industry, Lucas became an intern at the station and soon hit the airwaves, quickly dominating his time slot.

He later began professionally writing and producing music, but inside was a young entrepreneur who didn’t know exactly what he wanted to be; he just knew he “wanted to be great.” Today, a mature Lucas is focused and the world is about to take notice of how great he can be. He is known on the airwaves as King Keyser, a popular radio personality playing Hip-Hop and R&B weekdays from 7 p.m.-10 p.m. on Toledo’s Hot 97.3. He is the founder of Kings Academy, which holds an annual lock-in for young boys featuring professional male mentors who take the time to come out and encourage the youth in the program. The many hats worn by Will Lucas have helped fuel his entrepreneurial spirit and as a result he is inventing technology capable of impacting the world.

Let’s start with his business-based radio program Creadio, a radio service that offers radio programming tailored to companies, complete with advertisements exclusively for and/or from that company.  Lucas has currently secured accounts with 100 McDonald’s across the country and all six Toledo-based Andersons stores.

Pushing his career beyond music is his creation of phone applications, or apps. Having no prior knowledge in application development, Lucas began educating himself by reading books while actively searching

for a developer. After months of searching and a disappointing lack of response, he found a developer through the power of networking. It could not have come sooner, as this crucial piece to his puzzle was discovered the day after he conceived his current project, thankyouaga.in. Imagine social media that is made up of good news only. The concept is like Twitter in function, but unlike Twitter it is exclusively reserved for the positive news in your life. The application is available through iPhone in Beta form and just recently became available for Droid phones.

Martini Rox: Describe thankyouaga.in and what do you want it to do for the world.

Will Lucas: Thankyouaga.in is the emotional connection of Facebook, the micro-blogging functionality of Twitter, along with the reward mechanism of Foursquare, all put in a big bucket of “thankyouaga.in is collecting the good.” Negative news is easy to find, but with thankyouaga.in it’s a super-long stream of constant flow of good news.

Martini Rox: What stage are you in with thankyouag.in and how can people get this application?

Will Lucas: The first step is to go to thankyouaga.in. It goes live to the public and it will be in the Apple app store and on Google’s app store on Nov. 15. Already looking to the future, Lucas will launch vinyu.com, a “check in” style phone application that will allow users to socially network with friends through locations they check into around the city. Will Lucas is a product of Toledo’s vast resources and actively gives back to his community.

He is featured in October’s issue of the business magazine Black Enterprise, on stands now.

As we continue on …

Tags: King Keyser, Martini Rox, McDonald's, On the Rox, thankyouaga.in, The Andersons, Will Lucas

This entry was posted on Tuesday, October 18th, 2011 at 11:05 am and is filed under On the Rox, Star.
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