Meet Rodney Witcher, Creator of Pluckshot

If you have been following Black Web 2.0 for the past few months, you are aware we had the first annual NewMe Conference which included a segment called The Pitch. Out of hundreds of contestants, the fourth place winner this year was Rodney Witcher and his creation known as Pluckshot. Let’s take a closer look at what makes Pluckshot a service to keep a close eye on. I was able to ask Rodney a few questions about Pluckshot and his future plans.

What is your future vision for Pluckshot?
My future vision for Pluckshot is for it to be THE one-stop-shop for finding socially relevant multimedia content on the web. While, Pluckshot is currently just about photos on Twitter, the ultimate vision is for it to reach much farther than Twitter and to be about more than just photos. Right now it is too hard to keep track of all of the photos, videos and audio content posted to the web by people and entities I’m interested in.

My frustration around this problem is what led me to start building Pluckshot. Much of what I envision Pluckshot to be is inspired by a company I admire greatly, Mint. I love how Mint aggregates and organizes my various financial accounts into a single place, giving me unique and keen insights into my financial data.

When designing Pluckshot, I often ask myself, “How can I build Pluckshot to do the same thing for my photos, audio files and video files, that Mint does for my bank accounts, 401K, mortgage, credit cards, etc…”. This alone, is a powerful concept from the perspective of individuals gaining a clear and concise view of their own content, so, imagine, how much more powerful it becomes when you open up those same insights into all the multimedia content of people and/or entities you’re interested in. This is a very powerful concept that I believe is desired by a large number of people.

What are your plans to make Pluckshot a profitable venture? Funding? Angel Investors?
I have a number of ideas on how to make Pluckshot a profitable venture. I’m still doing research, however, to determine which business model and/or models make the most sense, both from a short-term perspective and a long-term perspectives. Pluckshot is designed and built with the mindset that, we are creating a product worth paying for, however, the ideas powering the product lend themselves to very unique and interesting potential business models.  With this being the case, I am exploring a variety of revenue generating models, many of which look very promising.

I do plan to eventually seek getting funding for Pluckshot. My mentors and advisors have extensive experience raising capital and working with investors and we are currently discussing various options around obtaining this funding and how best to proceed.  The main focus right now, however, is to prove user adoption and retention along with a true validation of the concept.  Once achieved, gaining a solid seed round will be the next goal.

What is the next project you are focusing on?
Right now, my primary focus is on Pluckshot and how to achieve the goals we’ve currently set for it. If you mean, next steps/phase for Pluckshot, then I would say that creating an API to allow other developers to leverage the Pluckshot platform and building mobile applications for both Android and the iPhone are the next larger scale/major “projects”.

About the Author
I am a developing social and digital media junkie on an adventure through life. Right now I am on the chapter in the book where I live in Los Angeles. Reach me on twitter @ahr19. Thanks for reading my post.
See all posts by Amani.