Interactive tech

Jeffrey Shafer was in downtown Fort Myers watching a friend play in a quartet when inspiration for his companion Pokemon Go app, Poke Trainer, came about.
“I saw all these people walking around town and I wondered what they were doing,” says Shafer, “So I asked my friend and he said they were all playing Pokemon Go.”
Having little knowledge of the augmented reality game, Shafer kept investigating, asking questions until he stopped at monumental one: Can you chat and connect with people playing nearby? The answer was no.
“I started thinking there's got to be a way to make money on this,” says Shafer.

Armed with just enough knowledge of the game, the 28-year-old communications and marketing executive created a platform to connect people with a general interest to play the game and to enable people to meet others in their community who enjoy playing the game.

“It's no different than if you joined a softball league and wanted to make friends,” says Shafer, a Florida native. “It's a tool to connect people to do a particular activity.”