As one of Downtown Project’s first investments in 2012, the team from CatalystCreativ has had a front row seat to watch the growth of downtown Las Vegas.
“CatalystCreativ is an experience studio. We help brands engage consumers with an expertise in millennials. We do this by strategy, consulting, and implementation of experiences both on and offline,” said Amanda Slavin, CatalystCreativ CEO and Founder.
Downtown Project was CatalystCreativ’s first client, and the team has worked with them for 2 and a half years on an experience called Catalyst Week. During the fourth week of each month, CatalystCreativ partners with a new co-curator individual or organization to create Catalyst Week, an experience for 40 influencers and tastemakers that provide a window into Downtown Project in Las Vegas.
“We have brought 2,000 influencers and thought-leaders to downtown Las Vegas and have provided 250 free talks to the Las Vegas community as a part of these catalyst week experiences,” explained Slavin.
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The next project for the CatalystCreativ team is the launch of their app called Catalyst Connect.
“Catalyst Connect is almost like a “tinder” for passions and expertise, starting locally in Las Vegas and then spanning to other cities for visitors and locals to connect on shared interests,” Slavin said. “It came about because we have been introducing so many visitors to locals and each other every time they come to Las Vegas, and we thought how can we create a platform that will do it for us? We also wanted to be able to measure the connections, and Catalyst Connect not only lets you search for people who have similar passions, allows you to message them, but then measures the data.”
The CatalystCreativ team has been conducting a beta with their Catalyst Week users for the past three months to learn more about how users will use the product. They will be fully launching the app in summer 2015 for the public to use.
“I hope that this app acts as a facilitator for connections for visitors and locals in a more organic way, and that we can start to create more opportunities for collaboration,” explained Slavin. “Our goal is to create more connections between individuals in an authentic way and make it easier for visitors to fit into the downtown Las Vegas landscape. Our target customer are visitors to downtown Las Vegas, companies invested in by Downtown Project, Zappos employees, and anyone that has an organization spanning all over Las Vegas that has to do with making the world a better place, such as nonprofits and small businesses. This is not exclusive to any one group.”
At this time, the CatalystCreativ team needs strategic users who want to be a part of building the community of the app by consistently sharing content and building relationships. Anyone in the #VegasTech community who has interest can reach out to Amanda Slavin and her team here.
In the coming months, the CatalystCreativ team is staying busy creating new and exciting experiences in downtown Las Vegas.
“We are currently working on Life is Beautiful, producing and curating the Learning Section, which we are really excited about, and are always looking for brands to get involved as well as are still open to speakers,” said Slavin. “We are also working on a great partnership with Wendoh Media, who owns Life is Beautiful, around an inspirational platform and experiential campaign next year!”
