Gwinnett Resident Launches Event Website

One Sunday morning last April, Wayne Rowan of Dacula was on his way to church. He passed a high school and noticed a sign advertising the musical, Fiddler on the Roof. The performance had taken place over the weekend, but he’d missed it. During the church service, his mind kept wandering back to the lost opportunity. He wondered why there wasn’t a website letting you know what was happening in the community.

That was the beginning of www.gopherlittle.com, a new website that allows visitors to uniquely search for events by price range, distance from a set location, type of event and date.

Rowan, a building construction graduate from Auburn University who also holds an MBA, had worked as a commission salesman in the construction field in metro Atlanta for more than 20 years. Having lost his job during the downturn of 2009, he found work at the professional desk at Lowe’s, but never stopped looking for opportunities.

Using money from his retirement account, he launched www.gopherlittle.com.  To spread awareness, he purchased a used trailer and had it professionally wrapped with the company’s brightly colored green and purple gopher logo. The “little” stands for things that are inexpensive, which, he said, is appealing especially in this economy.

By day, he works at Lowe’s. But by night, he can be found driving the trailer in rush-hour traffic throughout metro Atlanta. On weekends, you might spot him at community events, distributing stuffed gophers, T-shirts and caps.

And the awareness is starting to grow. The number of people visiting www.gopherlittle.com has continued to climb and his Facebook page has more than 4,000 Likes. Online and off, he’s getting encouraging feedback. “When we’re at events, people say I wish I had known about this,” he said. “I haven’t met anyone yet who doesn’t think this is needed.”

Anyone can post events on the website for free as long as the price of admission is under $30. He also sees the site as a community service, allowing hyper-local events to be posted, including high school plays, church concerts and PTA fundraisers.

How does the site make money? Rowan charges for advertising, priority event posting and coupons, using social media to promote the events to fans.

He’s learned a lot in this field since launching the business. “I’ve been a sponge,” he said, but the hardest thing he’s practiced is patience. “I thought that three months after the site launched I would have quit my day job,” he said.  

While that hasn’t happened yet, expansion is on his mind. Now posting events from Warner Robins to Commerce and Athens to Carrolton, he’s using the Georgia site as a model and plans to take it across the country with investment help.

Rowan has the dream, the persistence and the desire. Now like so many entrepreneurs, he’s looking for more customers to make his dream a reality.