Meet Garrett Greene of Pairr in Uptown

Today we’d like to introduce you to Garrett Greene.

Garrett, please share your story with us. How did you get to where you are today?
I started my career in Experiential Marketing with a boutique agency in Dallas called The Squires Group. We helped The North Face launch their Endurance Apparel category through a promotional stunt. We planned and executed an event called The North Face Endurance 50 for their sponsored athlete, Dean Karnazes, consisting of him running 50 marathons, in all 50 states, in 50 consecutive days. We signed him up for eight live marathons, and partnered with marathons in each of the other 48 states to recreate their actual marathon course and had roughly 50 people sign up in each state to run with him. This program was extremely successful, resulted in over 350 million impressions worldwide, resulted in Dean winning an ESPN ESPY award for best outdoor athlete, was the winner of The Global Marketer 2007 Diamond Award – “Best in the World” – Category: To Re-Brand/Re-Launch a product or service, and was a top five finalist for Promo Magazine’s Pro Awards – Category: Best Use of Event Marketing, More Than 5 Markets. At this point, I was hooked on experiential marketing.

Throughout my 13+ year career, our company was acquired twice, Hawkeye Sports & Entertainment, and ultimately Publicis Groupe, so we grew our boutique agency to being part of one of the worlds largest publicly traded agencies where I was the Operations Director of the Experiential Department. I worked on experiential marketing campaigns and produced experiences for major brands such as Anheuser-Busch (Michelob ULTRA, Budweiser and Shocktop), Red Bull, Abbott, Men’s Health Magazine, Gatorade, Deep Eddy Vodka, and The Live! with Regis and Kelly Show, to name a few.

In early 2017, I was approached with the idea for Pairr by my now co-founding partner, Zach Jones. We discussed the concept over lunch, and I went home that same day to tell my wife that I would be quitting my job of 13 years to go help launch Pairr. The idea solved all of the major issues I had been experiencing with the way brand-funded events and experiences were currently being produced via push-model, and it was a win-win for the brands and consumers. Problems with consumer sourcing, how to find the right consumers vs. casting a wide net and hoping some of the right consumers would attend, how to know what kind of experiences those consumers wanted, how to find and invite them, and how to better integrate omnichannel marketing efforts into those events and experiences.

We fine-tuned the concept over the course of a year, found the right developers and built out the MVP of our product which launched in the fall of 2018. After finding our 3rd co-founder over the summer, Tinsley Merrill (who is a perfect fit and someone that filled in all of the gaps and areas where we needed help), we’ve hit the ground running and are bringing new brands, users, artists and influencers onto the platform with even more success than we had initially thought possible!

Overall, has it been relatively smooth? If not, what were some of the struggles along the way?
Overall, I would say it has been relatively smooth, not taking into account the endless amount of time it takes to launch a software product. The first struggle is obviously giving up a steady, easy and comfortable job/salary to jump into the unknown. But I knew it was the right decision from day one, so I’ve never looked back or wondered if I made the right decision. We ran into some struggles with an initial developer but were able to come out of it unscathed.

The biggest hurdle we currently face is getting brands to understand and buy into the model, as it is completely different from the way events and experiences have ever been created. However, when we discuss our model with them, we are getting about 99% positive feedback and interest in using the software, so we know we’re onto something.

Alright – so let’s talk business. Tell us about Pairr – what should we know?
Pairr’s software platform connects brands, artists and influencers to their target audience through customized, data-driven live events and experiential marketing campaigns. The marketing solution lets brands select their target consumers, create events tailored to those consumers, manage invitations and attendance, and integrate consumer generated content through the attendees’ social networks.  It can also be used to enhance existing partnerships.

We do this by allowing our users to create profiles, select the experience types they like and receive exclusive invites to experiences that are customized to them, directly from the brands they love.

Pairr solves brands’ problems of how to break through the noise and connect with Millennials and Generation Z and provides very unique opportunities to engage with their consumers.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.pairr.com
• Email: [email protected]
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/pairrexperience/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/pairrapp/

Image Credit:
Corey Rich

Getting in touch: VoyageDallas is built on recommendations from the community; it’s how we uncover hidden gems, so if you know someone who deserves recognition please let us know here.