We were lucky to catch up with Jake Price recently and have shared our conversation below.

Alright, Jake thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. What sort of legacy are you hoping to build. What do you think people will say about you after you are gone, what do you hope to be remembered for?

I want to be remembered for giving the gift of time. I hope to make the world more efficient & more informed. To give people information that they can use to make better, less wasteful decisions. Time is the one thing we can never get back – once it’s gone, it’s gone. I hope to create a world in which you spend less time searching for answers and more time doing the things you love to do, whatever that may be. If I can build things that give the world time back, I’d consider that a life well lived.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

I caught the entrepreneurial bug in college at UIUC when I started my first mobile app company – a utility that enabled digital payments in an otherwise cash-only setting. This venture, along with my studies of entrepreneurship and information systems set the foundation for the years to come. The app fizzled out for a bunch of reasons but I realized I was missing some skills that I’d need to grow for the next one to be successful. So, I spent the last six years gaining those skills at Walmart as an omnichannel product manager, building tech tools for customers and associates at its Auto Care Centers. Now, armed with the skills I had lacked, it’s time to once again fly on my own – this time with Agent.

Agent is a free mobile app utility for your contacts. I created it on two core hypotheses:
1. your contacts are barren – they don’t contain sufficient information relative to an individual’s digital footprint.
2. your contacts are out of date – even if they have relevant information, that information is likely to be inaccurate because it is your responsibility to keep that information updated, instead of the person to whom the information belongs.
Agent was built with everything your operating system contacts app can do, plus four key capabilities.
The first is search – users can discover other users by searching for their name, phone number, or scanning a QR code (like Venmo). Competing apps all rely on your immediate proximity to the person you’re trying to connect with, an inefficiency that Agent has overcome.
Second is agency – when you connect with someone on Agent, you decide which information you want to share with them. The app is called Agent because our users have agency over their information, choosing who gets access and what they get access to.
Next, we have feeds. Log in to your various social media profiles and Agent will create a chronological feed of your social activity that displays right in your contact with connections you share it with.
Last but not least is currentness – once connected, users effectively have a read-only copy of one another’s information. So if user A updates their email address AND is sharing their email address with user B, user B will automatically see the latest information when they next look at user A’s contact.

We often hear about learning lessons – but just as important is unlearning lessons. Have you ever had to unlearn a lesson?

Perhaps a bit controversial, but I no longer believe in the ideology of taking a minimum viable product (MVP) to market. When I was introduced to entrepreneurship and tech ventures, the status quo was to build something extremely minimal, see if there is organic adoption and interest, and continue building (or not) from there. While I absolutely still believe in rapid iteration and the importance of gathering early feedback, I think we are now at a point in 2024 where people expect a certain performance & feel of a new app that they’ve downloaded. Accordingly, I have had to exercise extreme patience in pushing Agent out to the masses while my team and I ensure its scalability & performance.

What’s been the best source of new clients for you?

Agent is a networking tool for your contacts, so we’re focused on tapping into networks that already exist. If you’re on a midwestern college campus this fall, you’ll be hearing about and (hopefully) using Agent. Agent is only as valuable to its end user as the number of that user’s contacts that are on the app. To meet this challenge, we’re marketing to already formed networks (universities) and the sub-networks (student organizations) within it. College students are closely connected to one another and are constantly forming new connections. Their information is always changing with new addresses, companies, and even phone numbers – a conundrum that Agent solves with ease.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.agentcontacts.io
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/agent.contacts/
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/at-company-inc/
• Other: App store: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/agent-contacts/id1577208858
  Google play: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.attechnologies.at