During the insanity that was Miami Music Week, there was a single group that stood out against the others, Radiate. I had the chance to meet Philip and Michael in person, learning about the app and their story. My mind was blown and I knew I had to share their vision.
The app combines the Facebook EDM group experience that we all know well with a festival app, showcasing everything you could need to know about a fest, plus a Tinder-like “Hey” function that allows you to reach out to other individuals going the same fests you plan to go to, or you can swipe. The catch is, it’s not just for dating.
It’s the all-in-one package a dance fan could ask for. Radiate fills a social gap, centralizing key needs that fans have been desperate to have for years. On top of this, Radiate are masters of the tech side. During festivals they bring in their own WiFi, (including servers, a network, and routers) allowing Radiate users to maintain service/communication on the app, even when the local cell tower e is flooded and inaccessible – a very typical issue experienced at all festivals. This allows dance fans to have a place to share their best moments at events with their friends and others no matter what.
Between the innovation they’re bringing to the EDM universe and amazing technical know-how to back it up, Radiate is the most promising concept I’ve seen in years. We sat down with Philip and Michael, the two founders of Radiate, to get a hands-on feel of all aspects about the app, from inception to future plans and beyond, read the interview below.
Philip and Michael, thank you for doing this interview! How did you two meet?
Michael
We’ve known each other since we were 12 through the sport of fencing; we were both on the national circuit which is a fairly small world. About a year ago, Phil was running refFinder, a site to hire fencing referees, and I was working at Google as an engineer, but also working insanely hard to build my own app after hours (called Ubble). We ran into each other at the Ivy League fencing championships, and I invited him over to hangout/work with us at Google (after hours of course). He had an idea for a dating app for festivals, named Oxytocin. I loved the idea and we started working on it together. After much deliberation I turned the entire codebase of Ubble into this early version of Radiate, and the first iteration of Radiate was born.
Was their a moment/day when the idea of Radiate hit both if you and you both looked each other like “this is it, we need to do this.”
Philip
Sure was! It was the day Michael took the forums he created in Ubble and decided to plant them in Radiate. That was the day we realized we weren’t just creating a dating app, we were creating a place where people could meet.
Michael
It was no longer just “Tinder for Ravers”, it could turn into something much much bigger
Philip and Michael being..Philip and Michael
Radiate is such a perfect name, as cheesy as this is, it’s perfectly PLUR – embodying communal and soulful vibes, which dance music is all about, how did the name come about/evolve?
Philip
The name Radiate came about after banging our heads against a Google whiteboard for a few hours when we decided the original name we had for the app “Oxytocin” wasn’t what we wanted the app to be called. It was probably 1am, the app was a few weeks away from being released and Michael and I wanted to come up with a name that as you said “embodies the communal and soulful vibes” of music festivals. It was a lot of fun – we kept throwing names out and seeing what stuck. After we found a couple that had the right meanings, we’d check for synonyms, remove a few letters, and keep the brainstorm moving forward. We almost named it “Ravel” and almost kept Michael’s first project’s name “Ubble” but then I blurted out “Radiate”, our eyes met, smirks occurred, and we had ourselves a name. The reason we settled on Radiate as a name is because it encompasses the underlying values of what we wanted to make/are making. Michael and I realized early on that people have the ability to spread their energy to each other, not in a spiritual sense, but if I’m happy and I go up to someone who’s sad and start talking to them I can influence their mood. You can make someone happy by being happy yourself. If you’re negative, they’ll probably be negative but if you’re positive, they’ll be more likely to be positive alongside you. Radiate is about bringing enough positive, fun, open, and caring people together in one place so that together we can share our energy with the world and make it so it’s ok to high five a stranger on a New York City subway without getting glared at.
What’s the coolest/craziest meet-up/connection stories you’ve heard happen because of Radiate, any love stories?
Philip
Haha ok, this is a good question. Aside from Holy Ship January being a place where people told us they were able to meet up with Snails, Valentino Khan, and Tommy Trash becuase of the app, the craziest story was when a car full of kid’s on the way to Moonrise 2015 got a flat tire, one of them was venting/asking for help on the app, and sure enough somebody came through, helped them swap out their tire, and a rave caravan was born! It wasn’t like they were next to the festival either, if I remember correctly they were coming from Virginia haha. There have been a few love stories too, some of which involve a few friends but I don’t think I should get into too much details about those #BroCode 🙂
Wow that’s interesting, all because an app connected the community at the right place and time! What are some of the craziest/coolest Radiate events that have affected you two in the real world?
Michael
Holy Ship January was the event that made me quit my day-job at Google and work fulltime on Radiate. Not only was it my first true festival experience, but it was the first time I saw how much people loved the app, and how useful it was. It also helped that we brought *smuggled* a server and routers onto the ship so that people could use Radiate while on Holy Ship, without needing internet connection. When people actually thanked me for making Radiate, I felt this immense proudness, that made me really realize that I was doing the right thing with my life.
The hustle and drive there is commendable to say the least, it’s clear you care about your users first, down to each moment. Many festival goers hope to find love or good friends at one of few locations where they have a common connections with others – electronic music festivals! What other festival apps do you admire/look up to, but what makes Radiate particularly different?
Philip
So right now there isn’t a festival app out there that we can say we admire or look up too. The best thing we see are these user-generated Facebook groups where amazing people who are in the scene create an “unofficial” facebook group where everyone gathers.
Michael
Basically we look up to anything that can foster a strong, connected community. Whether it be a facebook group, or an event itself.
Philip
Yep, but to give credit to the folks who start the groups and run them like Mama and Papa B from Holy Ship, are the people who I aspire to be like.
They create these groups just like we did for the community not just themselves. They saw a need and filled it with the tools at their disposable, it’s damn awesome.
Philip
What makes Radiate different though is that we bring everyone together and give them the tools that we thought would be the best to foster a community. You get a forum where people going to the same festival can meet and discuss openly about anything and everything, you get a tinder-like swipe mechanic that allows personal connections to be made without clicking the “add friend” button on facebook, and then you have your maps + set times.
Michael
On a high level, we’re trying to make it OK to say “hey” to anyone and I don’t think any other app does that. Other festival apps don’t have social components like this. Dating apps are super restrictive, and are only about dating and Facebook is so tied to your identity, so you’re afraid to add someone as a friend when you don’t know them, even if you want to meet them right now.
Those are some insightful details on the mindset behind Radiate – Radiate is gorgeous in design and is very much a bug-free, seamless experience. Did it take much time to clear most bugs to make a smooth experience?
Michael
Awww shucks.
So currently, I’m the only engineer (and had been working fulltime engineering at Google up until Feb 2016). Meet, an NYU senior, has been helping out a good bit lately too (he made our current website), and we’re looking to grow the team soon.
It took about 6 or 7 months to get Radiate into beta/launch which happened last August. Radiate has been an iterative process, where we get the app to a stable state, see what our users think, and then change it based on their feedback. While most of the bugs get caught by our automated tests, analytics (shoutout to fabric.io), or by my anal eye there have definitely been few that slipped through. For the rest we thank our users, who are on top of reporting issues to Rad within the app.
Bluntly, why should fans care? How can Radiate enhance the experience before, during, and after a festival for an individual? Why should they spend time on the app?
Philip
Fans should care because a couple of festies, made an app for festies that does exactly what a festival app should do. We go to music festivals for more than just the music, we go because of the community, and that’s what Radiate provides. Before you walk through the gates and have your wristband scanned you can find new friends to meet up with, get tips from people who went last year, speak to the artists that are performing (on a personal level), and experience basically everything except for the sun on your face and the bass in your body (unless you use the app on a sunny day next to a subwoofer, in which case it’s basically a music festival if you ask me :P). During the event you can see what people are doing, posting about, get notifications about special events (if we’re working with the festival), see what people are saying about the stages, and so much more. The one thing about Radiate being used during the festival is that it will always vary, you never really know what kind of shenanigans you can get into by using it while you’re at the festival. After the music ends, you’ve given your last festival high five, and you’ve trudged back to your car you can use the app to find missed connections (which we know we all have from a festival, I’m still looking for a wonderful human named Tabitha – if you read this find me haha) re-live the experience you just had, and generally keep the festival going.
Michael
That’s one of the main things about Radiate, is that festivals never end on it. It’s a constant party until we all meet up in person next year (or before because we arranged a crazy impromptu off-season meetup.) So many unique variables that make it a great thing.
What general ideas would you like to apply to Radiate in the future, will it expand in ways you can discuss about right now?
Michael
So currently, we have the android app on the way which will be out in a month or so, and then after that the real fun begins.
Philip
*Insert dramatic music here*
Michael
So one of the problems we’re solving is network connectivity at festivals, so we created intranets. We bring essentially a copy of our infrastructure along with a server and routers to let people use Radiate without needing to be connected to the internet. Which we successfully did on Holy Ship, and will do with some of our upcoming *unannounced ;)* partnerships. We also will be integrating streaming virtual reality into the app, so you can “be there” in Radiate with the help of a Google Cardboard, or a VR headset. Not only that, but we want to live stream music from each stage to an interactive map in Radiate, so you can always know what’s playing
The thing is, we’re an events app, and we don’t just want to make our app better. We want to make events better. Also I have a HTC Vive preorder coming in a week or two which we’ll bring to festivals.
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