The Concept
Flaggpole is a place-based social network that connects people through important places. At these places, which may be a neighborhood, park, local business, church, school or sports facility, people can put down a Flaggpole and build a community around the purpose of that place.
Based on the purpose of each virtual community that is formed, members of that Flaggpole can use the increasingly popular technique of micro-messaging to organize effective communication and achieve meaningful objectives.
In addition to user-to-user communication, Flaggpole also offers various channels in its communities to receive hyperlocal news, coupons, alerts, announcements and more, all targeted directly to a specific area.
At the core of our platform, Flaggpole connects people through places that are relevant to them. Whether you’re in Silicon Valley, Moscow, Beijing, Mumbai or Des Moines, you don’t have to be there to be there.
The Team
Our team is split between two cities – Seattle, Washington and Des Moines, Iowa.
Aaron Donsbach, Co-founder
@donsbach
Aaron’s experience includes Senior User Experience Designer at Amazon.com and acting as a senior designer at several other firms. He has created successful user experience designs for both small and Fortune 100 corporations. At Amazon he led the design and development of the critical ‘product view to check out’ user experience. Aaron is an expert at designing user experiences that are engaging, productive and lasting. He has a Fine and Applied Arts degree from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee.
Nate Heinrich, Co-founder
@nateheinrich
Nate’s experience includes management at John Deere’s GPS-based Intelligent Vehicle Systems group and working in product management for two of their largest global software applications. These programs involved $20M in development and deployment in 109 countries. In 2006 & 2007 Nate was an expatriate in Germany and has worked in over 40 countries. He has an MBA from The University of Iowa and completed the Professional Development Program from The Wharton School of Business.
Jerry Segler
@jasegler
Jerry Segler has been a software engineer for 15 years, including experience at a consultancy, a GPS data management company and Amazon.com. At Amazon Jerry assumed several Senior Development roles including the Amazon catalog scaling techniques needed for optimal customer experience. Jerry attended the Computer Science program at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
Mike Templeton, Community Manager
@miketempleton
Mike Templeton has 8 years of community management experience, including time as the director of web strategy at the Iowa Hospital Association managing their web presence and leading the company’s social media initiatives. Mike got his start in 2001 moderating automotive enthusiast forums, later moving into blogging and managing content for web properties. Mike majored in marketing and has a bachelor’s degree from the College of Business at Iowa State University.
