The Radar Brighton team
A Sussex student aim to revolutionise other students’ social life with an innovative app that will save them time and money.
Nick Musto, who is in the third year of a Mathematics undergraduate degree, founded the app - Radar Brighton, along with Dean Altass - a third-year Business and Law student. Their three-man team is completed by first-year Computer Science student and app developer, Tom O’Mara.
The hundreds of students who already use the app receive a huge range of information on deals, promotions and events from a number of venues. This then helps students by streamlining queues, giving instant access to promotions and tailoring nights to suit their preferences.
Nick originally came up with the idea after moving to Sussex from Leicestershire, noticing the lack of mobile apps with up-to-date information on events – particularly in a vibrant city such as Brighton.
He said, “When I first came to Sussex Uni I realised I didn’t really know where to go out.
“It’s a real problem for students who come to the city but don’t know what’s going on. With so many events and venues in the city plus the huge amount of societies holding their own events, there wasn’t really anything bringing it all together.”
Nick’s original idea was for a website with listings. However, after heading into the Startup Sussex competition he realised that it wasn’t really a viable business plan.
“The help of the Sussex Innovation Centre and the Startup Sussex competition enabled me to define how we can create value for students.
“It also helped me realise that it needed to be mobile - students on the go are spontaneous – so it needed to do more than simply tell students what was going on.“
Nick finished 3rd in the 2015 Startup Sussex competition, and is now celebrating another success after being awarded a £50,000 prize fund worth of business products and services. He came in first place in the hotly contested Young Start-up Talent final held at Sealife Brighton on 16 February.
This means that Nick can develop his business as well as the app, which he claims is “the only impartial nightlife guide for Brighton”.
He adds, “There is no Facebook (to trawl through events), meaning that in just one click you can be on the guest list for a venue. That’s never been done before – as far as we are aware.”
However, Nick isn’t just focusing his efforts on those out partying.
“We’re really trying to help students enjoy their time at university and to get more out of it.
“More than anything it is about university and campus life, rather than encouraging drinking. Although we have started off with nightlife we are going to be extending that to daytime events. We’ve also included a number of non-drinking events on there already.”
If you would an opportunity to work for Radar Brighton in either marketing or app development contact nickm@clubradar.com for more information.
Think you’ve got what it takes to develop your business idea? Applications for the StartUp Sussex competition will open again in autumn 2016.