BY IRIS B. HOLTON
Sentinel City Editor
Garrett Johnson and his partner created an electronic generated messaging vehicle with the idea of helping his nephew’s charter school. At the time, Johnson never realized that the idea had the potential of a universal application.
He and his partner raised $2 million in funding after completing YCombinator for institutions such as Menlo Ventures and for public figures such as Jeb Bush.
Last month, Johnson was featured in Black Enterprise Magazine advising others on how to raise venture capital funding.
“The original idea was to help my nephew’s charter school communicate more efficiently. Many minority or poor families have limited access to computers and emails, but everyone has a cell phone. We made SMS a serious organizational business utility, which has attracted a lot of early interest,” Johnson said.
The website entitled SendHub, was created and introduced last summer, designed to help improve teacher to student communication.
The idea that has received enormous support is a group texting platform that enables someone to send one text message to groups of 10, 20, or even 200 people they may need to reach. Each user creates his or her own contact database and controls the messages they send and the program is free.
Johnson said, one person who uses the new electronic tool is Ricky Sailor, founder of UnsignedPres.
“Every summer Ricky takes high school students on a tour of colleges to meet with coaches, other athletes and potentially try out for scholarships. We have more than 40 parents worried about their children, the need for updates can be incredibly time consuming.
“Our platform enables anyone to create cell phone databases and send group text messages.”
A Tampa native, Johnson is the son of Mr. and Mrs. Nate (Carmen Brown) Johnson. He graduated from Tampa Catholic High School with honors. He continued his education at Florida State University, where he graduated magna cum laude with a double major in Political Science and English. He was also a member of the school’s track team and set several records as an athlete.
Johnson earned the Florida State Golden Torch Award given to the FSU student athlete with the highest grade point average.
Following graduation, Johnson completed his Master’s Degree in Migration Studies in 2006 as a Rhodes Scholar at Exeter College, Oxford University in England.
