Boulder is an active community — sometimes overwhelmingly so. It can be difficult to keep up with every show, drink special, yoga class, art exhibit, open-mic and campus event.
Screenshot of Lokalite.com's Datebook page.
Enter Lokalite.com, a comprehensive local online event directory of Boulder’s plentiful community happenings. The site will soon launch new features that allow the user to create a personalized, social-media-friendly datebook with thousands of local events to choose from.
CU grad, Co-founder and Owner Will Powers knows that Boulder residents need to be a part of the action.
“Lokalite is a way for students and professionals to get out in their community and experience what Boulder has to offer,” Powers said.
Powers transferred to CU in 2008 and said he felt overwhelmed with Boulder’s opportunities.
“I didn’t know anyone or where the best places were to get a good beer and burger on a budget,” Powers said. “And the idea all came together.”
With fellow Leeds business school classmates Powers created the Lokalite business plan as a capstone project for the entrepreneurial studies certificate. After they got support from an investor, the site launched in April 2010.
“The business community responses were great,” Powers said. “Businesses in general spend too much time working in their business and not on it.”
Advertisements and event listings are free for business and organizations to submit online. The only limitations on content are personal events like birthday parties — although Powers believes the future of Lokalite might include a feature for private events.
The new launch feature allows users to aggregate a personal datebook with Lokalite content. The events can be easily selected and dragged into the user’s datebook; the day’s plan can then be shared with Facebook friends.
“It takes so many texts and calls to tell friends a plan for the night — dinner downtown at this time, then that show at this venue, and last call at that bar. Make a description for the plan and send it out — the datebook makes it all so much easier,” Powers said.
The launch will be a beta public release, meaning the feature is a work in progress. Most importantly, Lokalite wants and needs user feedback to connect business, individuals and the community.
“Tell us what you like, what you don’t like — we will listen.” Powers said.
In September, Lokalite began hosting promotional events as a marketing tool and to bring awareness to Lokalite’s role in the community. Powers and the Lokalite crew are listening Thursday nights at the Sink to users, potential users and the funk band Free Bear. Free Bear saxophone player Danny Meyer thinks it is a good thing to work with a company that has a goal of connecting people to the community.
“It is such a selfless approach to a business to find ways that best connect all elements of the community and the advertising world,” Meyer said. “I recently used Lokalite to learn about art shows. It is a great resource for artists and musicians to share what they are doing and find what others are up to. It gives you access to things you otherwise might not know about.”
Sophomore environmental studies major Swithin Lui used Lokalite for the first time and was pleased with the content and design.
“I had never heard of these events before and I am interested in going to them,” Lui said. “This provides a diverse range of interests and activities to be a part of, which is a nice change from just going out and drinking.”
Meyer thinks Lokalite’s benefit to Boulder’s community members is valuable, with a unique twist.
“The internet and the way it allows us to communicate may be viewed as dividing personal interactions and local communities,” Meyer said. “Lokalite instead connects businesses, events, and people in an important and needed way.”
Powers and the co-founders understand the Boulder experience and want to share it with students.
“There is so much to do with four years in Boulder,” Powers said. “Let Lokalite help you find it.”
The new datebook feature will launch in the upcoming weeks, ready with Lokalite’s expansive database of Boulder’s events and activities.
Contact CU Independent Staff Writer Amy Moore-Shipley at Amy.mooreshipley@colorado.edu
