With networking being so crucial to all businesses, brands and business people, it is crucial that this traditional practice moves with the times and harnesses the opportunities and enhancements brought about through technological advances. Moreover, with business people having less time than ever before, it is becoming more difficult to ‘network’ in the traditional sense. Mobile and ‘smart technology‘ advances are starting to turn things around, making networking that bit easier.
TechRound recently caught up with Oliver Stevens, the founder of a clever new app, the turnleft app to get the backstory and drive behind this new networking app.
How did turnleft Come About?
After seven years in the trading world, after seven years staring at an array of computer screens, after seven years of letting down friends and family due to work, I realised my passion for the corporate and regulated environment, that incurred no human interaction, had died. With the entrepreneurial fire trying to escape and my innate desire to meet people and be creative I decided to take action and start listing off all of the business ideas I had come up with over the years. Upon thinking of a few “this is the one” ideas, I decided I needed to meet investors and entrepreneurs to discuss those ideas – it was then this need to network and meet people which stemmed the idea for what became my recently launched startup turnleft – what I like to ‘objectively’ call, the must-have app for business networking!
What’s the Driving Force Behind the App’s Success?
turnleft is all about creating and maintaining relationships – even Richard Branson says “succeeding in business is all about making connections” so any tool that can optimise this is super valuable – and this is what turnleft does – it helps you to build strong professional relationships by connecting you with key people at home and away.
The clever thing about the turnleft app is it has 2 functions. Firstly, it allows you to network and connect with people when travelling, by showing you BEFORE you go, who else will be in the same place at the same time, and secondly, there is the “nearby” function which when shows you who is around you right now! Any frequent business traveller knows the unending hours of idle time. These hours outside of scheduled meetings are often spent alone doing nothing, wasting time in the airport lounge or sitting in your hotel room eating room service.
What’s the Main Target of the App?
What if there was a way that you could add more value to your business trips, whilst also increase satisfaction and experience? turnleft makes better use of this idle time by connecting business travellers before, during and after travel. By showing who will be in the same place at the same time, you can discover, message, connect and arrange to meet new contacts that can enrich and add value to these trips – turning your downtime into an opportunity.
Talking a little about the nearby function, this is a fantastic tool that whenever and wherever you are, you can use to instantly see if there any people or business prospects around. More and more people work from coffee shops, co-working spaces and on-the-go with their laptop. Everyday there are 1000s of cases of two people sitting in the same place and if they only knew who the other person was, they would reach out and say “Hi” knowing that new real face-to-face connection could provide real business value – this is especially important for freelancers and SMEs where most of their business comes from networking.
With the workforce and the largest demographic of those on-the-move for work fast becoming millennials, who are tech-savvy and most likely to reach out to others for networking benefits, now is the perfect time for both individuals and companies to use turnleft to reap the rewards of the networking opportunities it can provide.
The turnleft app is now available via the AppStore. To find out more about the app visit: www.turnleftapp.com or follow @turnleftapp on Twitter.
