LAS VEGAS -- An app designed to stave off boredom or give busy parents an efficient means to spend quality time with the kids launched Friday in Las Vegas.
Tabeso (pronounced ta-bee-so) is a cell phone application that allows its users to quickly find something to do – organized hikes, concerts, beer tastings – within a user-defined radius. The word comes from a South African dialect that means happiness or bringer of joy.
Much like the popular social media outlet Twitter, users of the app can follow their friends, celebrities and bands to keep posted on the latest happenings.
Tabeso is the brainchild of Joe Herrera, the company's chief executive, who just days after the birth of his fourth child, was walking out of the hospital with his wife, Jenny, on the phone discussing his idea for the app. In the real estate business for more than a decade, Herrera said he had no tech experience.
"I really believe that a housewife or a stay-at-home dad that thinks, ‘There's a better way to do this," that that person, even without a tech background, can come up with an amazing idea and succeed," he said. "But it's got to be an idea that you believe in so much that even if you fail, you're able to look back and say, ‘I would rather fail at this than succeed at anything else.' If you have that passion, I believe that you will succeed -- as long as you have support."
Tabeso already has close to one million event listings, offering things to do not just in Las Vegas, but around the world. The company has four paid employees – Herrera is not one of them – and about 150 college interns around the country and the world who find events to post on the app and market Tabeso on social media.
The founders invested about $300,000 of their own money to build and launch the app over the past 10 months.
"It was very important for us to show that we believe enough in the product to put our own money into it," he said.
Herrera said the immediate growth plan is to have as many as 25 employees by the end of the year.
"It's very important for us to stay ahead of the game, technologically-wise, because other people are going to see this idea and they're going to see the way we executed it and they are going to say, ‘Well, that's a great idea. Let's try that too,'" he said.
Like most apps, the trick is in how to make money off of it. Herrera said much of the revenue will come from commissions made from ticket sales, and eventually, event promotions.
As Tabeso enters the market and launches in the App Store, the company's initial campaign is "Be there."
"That's what Tabeso is all about," Herrera said. "Helping you be there for the people that you care about and finding fun things to do with your kids and your spouse and your friends -- and living life."
The company is headquartered at the Innevation Center in the southwest Las Vegas valley.
Tabeso CEO Joe Herrera
