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Finally, an Entrepreneur Who Can Help My Nightlife... When I turned 21, I also turned into a stereotype. I was at the local bars every Thursday night, and my friends and I became elder statesmen of late nights, philanthropists that believed in lost causes and connoisseurs of bad decisions. But, out of our element some evenings, we'd show up to dead bars, listen to terrible bands and drink at places that didn't wash their pitchers. We'd get pushed around by unruly bouncers, stared at by awkward biker burnouts and wait in line with clubbers that thought anywhere was a dance floor. We just had off nights sometimes. And it might've been because we didn't have Randy Rantz to help us. Rantz is the founder and CEO of Howsthebar.com, a Chicago-based website that gives real-time ratings of nearly 15,000 bars. After years in real estate investing, Rantz finally took his weekend priorities and made them his workweek. "A couple years ago, my friends and I would text each other bar ratings every weekend to help decide which bars to visit," Rantz recalls. "This gave me the idea to create a website where thousands of members could share bar ratings every night without even knowing each other. That's why I started Howsthebar.com. I created an extensive business plan, gathered some investors and formed a company." It was just launched last month, after some months as a beta and over two years of research and development. "Our goal for 2008 is to build up the membership, which is free. We will start selling ad space on the site in January 2009," says Rantz, who is "37 years old, which means [he has] had plenty of years to become an experienced bar hopper." But it won't just be Chicago soon. "After gaining success in Chicago land, we will focus on the college towns throughout Illinois. We plan on expanding to Wisconsin and the rest of the Midwest shortly after. Eventually, we want to have nationwide coverage," Rantz says. I'm writing about Randy Rantz and Howsthebar.com for two reasons: 1) To let you know that he's probably going to make a lot of money because college students will spend money they don't have on stuff they don't need. Especially booze. College students are the poor man's consumer, but they're also the best marketing team you can have. College students set trends, even if they don't make sense to the average entrepreneur or person (see "fixed-gear bikes"). 2) I'm going to be in Chicago later this week, so I wanted to test Randy Rantz and his website. I came up with three hypothetical situations for the Chicago entrepreneur... Hypothetical Situation #1: Hypothetical Situation #2: Hypothetical Situation #3:
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The Eagles are sooooo over-rated! Randy Rantz sounds like the name of a preschool cartoon character. It is a cool idea for a business though.
No, you read it wrong. It was supposed to read like Shakespeare, like so:
"It sounds! Music! A tone-deaf janitor, wrote while listening to elevator music during his breaks!"
"It sounds music a tone-deaf janitor wrote while listening to elevator music during his breaks."
Yes, it sounds music.
The Eagles are the absolute definition of overrated. It sounds music a tone-deaf janitor wrote while listening to elevator music during his breaks.
And yeah, maybe Plato did have it "write."
Almost a flawless segue.
This sounds a lot like yelp.com, which also integrates restaurants and other places of interest central to ones location. I find a lot of these websites helpful, even if the opinions may vary.
I don't however see how it was necessary to attack the Eagles in here. One man's estimation of 'overrated' is likely equated to sipping too much of the wrong type of alcohol. But the path to enlightenment can be a struggle. And maybe Plato had it write...I just pray you get out of the cave soon enough, Jake Kilroy. For this is the most important allegory of all.