Kyle
Imagine if you lived in a game. No, not virtual reality or something you could play on Google Glass, but if you had a game to complement your real life? That’s what Canadian entrepreneur Philip Barclay is doing with his latest startup, appropriately called “YourExtraLife.
“YourExtraLife is a game for real life. It’s all about venturing out of your comfort zone and trying new things, inspiring your friends, and discovering inventive people. You complete creative real-life challenges by taking pictures, and you unlock harder and harder ones as the community validates your photos,” Barclay told Nibletz.
YourExtraLife essentially takes a mobile online game and brings it offline, which seems to be a popular trend with startups these days.
We got a chance to talk with Barclay about YourExtraLife. Check out our interview below.
What is your startup called?
YourExtraLife
What does your company do?
YourExtraLife is a game for real life. It’s all about venturing out of your comfort zone and trying new things, inspiring your friends and discovering inventive people. You complete creative real-life challenges by taking pictures, and you unlock harder and harder ones as the community validates your photos. We already released a total of 125 challenges for 5 different themes: romance, culture, nightlife, altruism and gourmet.
Who are the founders, and what are their backgrounds
Philip Barclay – CEO – Studied Advertising, had a blog with 200k+ readers. Takes care of the growth and marketing strategies.
Gheorghita Catalin Bordianu – CTO – M.Sc. in Computer science from McGill. 4 years of experience in startups, used to be the Platform Director at Silentale. Takes care of our platform.
Samuel Dion-Girardeau – CCO -Currently doing his M.Sc. in Linguistics. Takes care of the content creation (he is behind all these awesome challenges!)
Samuel Chenard – CFO / Designer – Studied accountancy (yes!) – Takes care of the design and the video production.
Where are you based?
We’re in Quebec City right now.
What problem do you solve?
The routine and the passivity. We realized a lot of people needed more incentives to try new things and get out of their comfort zone.
Why now?
It was the perfect moment: mobile phones are powerful (and intelligent), millennials get bored easily and they are looking to be mind blown, brands are looking for new ways to reach/connect with people on their phone, social medias made a lot of people passive.
What are some of the milestones your startup has already reached?
-We raised seed money.
-We launched a kickass product.
-We made it to the front page of the App Store in several countries, including Canada, U.S.A., UK, etc.
-We reached 10k users in under a week.
-We have a major partnership with one of the biggest music festival in the world: Le Festival d’été de Québec.
-Some major blogs (The Next Web, TechVibes) covered our story.
What are your next milestones?
-Raise Series A
-Hire
-Partner with more major brands
-Release 5 more challenge trees
Where can people find out more? Any social media links you want to share?
This Boston startup gamified the asthma inhaler for kids.
