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Richmond is always buzzing with activities and events, but wading through all the calendars and announcements can be overwhelming. OccasionGenius attempts to help narrow the options by matching them with your interests.
Website founder Nate Marcus conceived of the startup when he taught team-building classes at Mise en Place cooking school. Marcus recalls that afterward, people would compliment him and ask if the classes were new. That’s when he realized that many great opportunities were being overlooked. At OccasionGenius, users list some of their interests when creating an account, and the site matches them with happenings collected from hosts via Facebook. Local data agency Notch teamed up with the site to tag events as free, outdoor or kid-friendly, for example, and make suggestions to users based on the tags.
“I think one of the best things about it is that it really does take into consideration who you are and what you like to do,” says Milgo Yonis of Richmond, a beta tester who’s now an active user.
Launched in the fall of 2016, OccasionGenius is free to use and brings in money from businesses looking to promote activities.
