Senior finance major Russell Malone and technical co-founder Mizzou student Bobby Hardester launched Crank, an interactive social hub for UA students at the end of January. Two months since the app’s launch, the platform already has over 2,000 downloads, averaging 100 downloads a day.
The app seeks to address the difficulties of organizing campus social calendars when the events and organizations are decentralized. This campus social hub serves as a “real time discovery tool” for students to keep track of campus and community events.
“If you want to figure out what’s going on on campus, whether it’s a club event, a philanthropy event or even a fraternity party, it’s scattered across disappearing Instagram stories, a bunch of different group chats,” Malone said. “So what we figured is, if we could put it all in one place and create a culture around real time discovery to make it so much easier to discover what’s really going on and what’s worth going to as a student.”
As Malone and Hardester prepared to launch Crank, they reached out to the University’s Business Honors Program for support. The founders were paired with a team of high-achieving business students, Charlie Merrell, Ryann Turner, Samuel Mateski and Ava Barrientez, to organize the platform’s information, events and organizations.
“We have students who work on our social media, students that are on the app full time, monitoring the content, students that are helping outreach to investors, helping onboard new organizations. It’s really been phenomenal being able to work with such a great program,” Malone said.
The app brings a new face to social communication. Unlike social platforms like Instagram or YikYak, Crank provides an interactive platform designed specifically for making social event planning easier for students.
“If you state that you’re going to an event, then your friends can see it. Where you compare to YikYak or other anonymous chatter apps, ours is solely based on event discovery, so students are talking about what they’re going to, what’s worth going to,” Malone said.
Not only does the app bring social events on campus to light, it engages small businesses and community organizations with the student base on campus. Already, the Crank team has worked hard to ensure the success and student approval of the app, constantly using input from users and business advisors alike. Malone said the process has expanded his understanding of the entrepreneurial process.
“We’ll hear real time feedback pretty much throughout the day,” Malone said. “We’ve had eight different updates since this came out a month ago, and the app does not look remotely similar to what we started with, and that’s really just because we had the luxury of being here on campus and receiving feedback in real time.”
Any student organization, local business, one-time event, fundraiser or any other type of social gathering can be listed on the app as long as interested parties engage with the platform.
“I’ve been blown away by all the organizations and just how incredible this campus is and how much there is to do to get involved on campus,” Malone said. “With the backing of the University and the honors program, it has been the most rewarding experience.”
