La Salle University issued the following announcement.
Rohan Brown, ’15, MBA ’16, has been resilient as the pandemic forced him to pivot.
Rohan Brown, like most early 20-somethings, enjoyed experiencing Philadelphia’s nightlife scene.
While working toward his MBA at La Salle University’s School of Business, Brown viewed the experience through a different lens than others. He considered the long waits for service at crowded establishments and the purchasing habits of fellow patrons. He sensed an opportunity to provide a service to those in the hospitality industry.
“I realized owners and venue operators didn’t know their most valuable customers,” said Brown, B.A., mass communications/media studies ’15, MBA ’16. “A lot of information was going unutilized. Then you had consumers who hated waiting in line or trying to figure out where to go. I thought, ‘There has to be money to be made in this space. I should make an app to solve all these problems.’”
In 2019, Brown launched an app: Barley Sober, a play on words. (He credits two La Salle faculty members—Elizabeth Scofield, director of the full-time graduate studies at the School of Business, and Steve Melick, executive director of the La Salle Center for Entrepreneurship—for helping him articulate his business plan to potential investors.)
The Barley Sober app enables patrons to make preorders and accumulate digital rewards points at partner Philadelphia establishments. A Hartford, Conn., native, Brown described making steady progress with the app during that first year, growing his customer base and working toward implementing functionality to track venue occupancy and provide consumer analytics for businesses. Then came the COVID-19 pandemic. Seemingly overnight, Brown lost customers and temporarily paused operations as establishments faced reduced hours and closure.
Rather than panic, Brown pivoted.
He introduced a takeout option to the app in May, and worked to fast-track the occupancy functionality. He realized what was initially intended as a way for patrons to avoid the hassle of a crowded bar could be repurposed.
“I had to collect myself and figure out how to stay relevant,” said Brown. “We already had this vision in mind of how people should be operating within the hospitality space. With occupancy mandates, these operators needed to be able to operate in this new landscape. And I thought about the consumers and giving them a way to know where they can socialize without being at an increased risk. This functionality is a benefit to them both.”
With the future still unsettled for the hospitality industry due to the pandemic, Brown has focused on securing additional funding to implement proprietary occupancy tracking and establishing partnerships with local and national hospitality companies. Brown also has been investigating ways his app could assist the Philadelphia Department of Public Health with contact tracing.
Brown, who serves on the La Salle Alumni Association Board of Directors, hopes the agility and resourcefulness he utilized to keep Barley Sober afloat will serve as an inspiration to up-and-coming Black entrepreneurs, particularly those who are planning to enter the tech sector.
“When I was 12, I promised myself I was going to own my own company,” said Brown. “My goal is to bring wealth back to my community in Hartford as well as here in Philly. I think the best way to do that is to introduce the minority community to tech. Tech is a very powerful tool. It fuels my imagination. I do believe that those who face the most adversity in the next couple decades are going to be the ones who build the next billion-dollar tech company. I’m trying to learn as much as possible so I can share my knowledge with everyone else.”
Original source can be found here.
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