Phi Delta Theta saw great potential in Hunter McPherson when he was only a 17-year-old high school student in an entrepreneurship competition. A Phi Delt alumnus offered Hunter $10,000 for a 50% stake in the company Liv Live, and he quickly declined. The two later became good friends, and Hunter was recommended to the Missouri Eta Chapter of Phi Delta Theta at Missouri Western State University where he continued to evolve Liv Live.
“Liv Live is an application that allows users to interact with their ever-changing, real-world social network – from a few yards to a few miles,” said McPherson. Hunter’s idea for Liv Live was sparked in 2012 when he and a friend organically grew and managed a social media following of 1.5 million followers. He analyzed that the highest spikes in their social media interaction took place during massive events such as the Super Bowl, GRAMMYs, etc., because people could easily relate to the content being posted at the exact time they are experiencing it.
Hunter says that platforms like Twitter, Snapchat, and others miss out on including individuals who are around us at any given time. The philosophy of Liv Live is that in real life our real world social network includes our friends and family, but it also includes people sharing the same real-time life experiences that we are.
The desire to put Liv Live in motion came in 2016 when Hunter went to Tahoe, California with his mentor and business partner, Michael Droz. “We were in the area, and we wanted to know if a local concert was worth going to, if people were still hanging out at the lake and where to go. We realized that we wanted and needed Liv Live for our own personal use and began to quickly understand all of the other potential-use cases in our daily lives that Liv Live had to offer,” McPherson said.
The Liv Live prototype is being built and is set to be completed by mid-October. Hunter and Michael are building a team of top engineers to have Liv Live in app stores in December 2016. A major component of the future of this app is their application for Y Combinator, one of the world’s most powerful start-up incubators that gives investments, guidance and network exposure.
“Be ready for social media to actually start mirroring real-life human interactions,” Hunter said.
