You’re Parisian, have a business degree but find working a mundane work week fills your life with a routine you’re really quite bored of. What do you do? Move to San Francisco. Undoubtedly, packing up your things and moving to foreign country to start a technology company is easier said than done. Especially when your don’t have a degree in technology.
That didn’t stop Souheil Medaghri, Arnaud Ferreri, or Julien Dao. The three friends who grew up in Paris have been friends since childhood and all of the time together spent playing video games, listening to music, and going out ended up being the inspiration for their startup OneFeat.
Living Life, And Doing it Well
Onefeat, an iOS app, aims to make a distinction between the kind of satisfaction brought about by buying material goods and what makes life truly worth living, experiences. The simple things in life are the ones that bring us the most joy, they believe, and with this in mind Onefeat hopes to “Gamify” the everyday.
Medaghri explains that this is done by creating a mission on OneFeat (or choosing from thousands of available missions) and then uploading photos to show your friends and the rest of the world that you achieved it in order to earn points. The more people like your photo, the more points you earn and thus your path to greatness has begun.
For example, say you choose a mission which has for its goal for someone with long hair to cut it all off and instead get a mohawk. Oh yeah, you have to die it pink and blue too. Well, the first step is to grab the bull by the horns and cut. Easy enough. Then you have to take a stellar pic of you with the mowhawk. As a visually oriented person, I’d say the photo is more important as the act.
As Medaghri puts it, “Photo is the next check-in for experiences.”
The Act, Not the Location
Other sites have concentrated on the actual location of the event or experience but what’s to say someone in a suburb of Warsaw doesn’t really know how to live it up. C’mon, we all have those friends from back where we grew up who are still there. They know how to live, we know it well, and none of it is based on whether or not they’re in New York, Rio, or Tokyo.
As Medaghri puts it, “Locations are such small parts of our lives compared to all the amazing things people can do everyday. We are missing a big chunk of what real life is. Let’s forget about geolocation for a while.”
Different, But How?
The emphasis on the action itself and not the particular location at which the action took place is what sets the vision of the OneFeat App apart. In addition, the use of the photograph in the context of digital social world lends itself to a particular kind of knowledge or evidence. As Medaghri explains, “ …using photography as proof, because it is the most emotional, simple and universal way to express the fact that you are doing something social elements.”
Of course, these missions aren’t limited to the extreme. They can be as meaningful as, “giving my Dad a bear hug every day this week.”
Onefeat App’s aim is both simple and wonderful because they understand experience is what counts. Experience teaches and when we’re lucky, it’s enjoyable.
