For StoolDuel founder and CEO Erik Horbacz, his entrepreneurial journey began much like so many other innovators and small business owners.
 
“A seed of an idea got planted in my brain, and I had to start scratching,” he said of the 2015 beginnings of his social impact gaming startup.
 
His scratching has guided the Wilmington startup through development, funding and targeted rollout of a pilot program, positioning the company for a major “coming out” event at the upcoming CED Tech Conference in Raleigh. The 800-plus attendees expected at next month’s event will get a chance to hear the StoolDuel story as Horbacz presents in front of peers as well as potential partners and investors.
 
StoolDuel, which was a finalist for an NC Idea SEED grant this spring, has raised $375,000 in seed money so far.
 
“[The] source of funding has been mostly me and then the rest from business partners who’ve invested in restaurants with me,” Horbacz said.
 
Horbacz is banking on the potential for StoolDuel to take a bite out of the $56 billion U.S. mobile gaming industry, using its unique combination of location-based and at-home gaming in social environments – specifically, bars and restaurants.
 
The app aims to help restaurateurs attract customers, get them active and socializing when in a bar or restaurant, and then keep them coming back via prize-based trivia games and contests.
 
“Our app takes the same approach for popular activities like tournament trivia and Pokemon Go, using localized GPS location-based gaming where people collaboratively and competitively play these games on a mobile device both at the bar and when at home,” Horbacz said. “By gamifying the social interaction side of it, leveraging collaborative gaming, people get excited about showing up at a bar and playing together.”
 
In addition to providing a platform for customers to actually play trivia games, StoolDuel enables push notifications through email or text to stay in touch with customers, letting them know of promotions such as exclusive offers and rewards and upcoming trivia tournaments.
 
The app also allows bar and restaurant owners to see when and how long customers are playing the trivia games and which prizes they are redeeming.
 
Horbacz has been in the bar and restaurant industry for 10 years and helped open Wilmington’s Might as Well Bar & Grill. Back when Facebook was starting to get huge, he watched as mobile entertainment started stealing attention from customers, soon to be followed by losing customers to binge-watching Netflix at home.
 
Horbacz saw restaurants and bars try to use tabletop arcade games and the like, but people were only coming in and playing by themselves, not interacting with others and ordering more food and drinks.
 
“There was a big gap in the market for entertainment, something more affordable and agile. I wanted to create something more social,” he said.
 
StoolDuel went to market locally with a pilot in bars, testing and iterating throughout.
 
Plans are for a more public launch of the mobile app in the fall, coinciding with a localized sales effort in North Carolina.
 
“Our plan is to use all the information we’re gathering to improve the software and go nationwide next year,” Horbacz said.