Several years ago, Toledo native Aaron Harwell had an epiphany while running a traditional photobooth business.

“What I noticed was people would take their print, put it on the table, take a picture of it and put it on Facebook,” Harwell said. “I also saw everybody was taking pictures with their phones, but the bride and groom probably didn’t get to see any of them.

 

 

“The thought was, ‘Let’s create an app and see if we can capture all those pictures and put them in one spot for everybody to enjoy and do it automatically, as opposed to the whole ‘Send me an email’ or ‘Text it to me,’ which never happens,” Harwell said. “Our idea was to create something very portable and marry the two, the photobooth and the digital app.”

The result is twine.it, a local technology startup poised to revolutionize the photobooth industry with an innovative new setup that integrates social media, photo-sharing and branding opportunities. The business’s corporate name is twineLABS.

“We’re looking to do full commercialization here in another month or two,” including launching franchises nationwide, said Harwell, a University of Toledo graduate who now lives in Perrysburg.

Twine.it’s self-serve photo stations are popular at fundraisers, weddings, sporting events, parties, corporate gatherings and other events, Harwell said, and have already been used at more than 180 events throughout the country.

Users operate the system via an iPad on the side of the photo station. By tapping the “Snap It!” button on the touch-screen, a 3, 2, 1 countdown begins and a photo is taken.

What sets twine.it apart from other photobooths is that guests can download the free twineLIVE app. They scan a QR code or enter an alphanumeric code to access an album of event photos, which are uploaded as they are taken. From there, photos can be saved or shared on any social media platform and other group members can comment on the photos. A “like” feature is coming soon. Users also have the option of uploading their own photos into the event feed. Each user’s events are saved as albums in their app to browse through or share anytime. Photos can also be viewed online or sent via email for those without smartphones.

“We’re creating a temporary social network for an event,” said business partner Jon Hawker, a Perrysburg native. “What we do is create an access point for people to come into our social network without being connected any other way in advance. The idea is you get to interact with each other just for that night of the event. You don’t have to be friends before, during or after that event.”

“It’s a little tongue in cheek, but someone once told us we’re like the one-night stand of social networks,” Harwell added. “You don’t have to get up tomorrow and have another friend or follower. You just enjoy the night and the next day all your memories are on your phone.”

Les Lipski of Perrysburg had two daughters get married in 2013 and used a twine.it photo station at both receptions.

“It’s definitely 10 steps above a regular photobooth,” Lipski said. “The design is very welcoming,  it’s really easy to take pictures and it’s neat because everybody gets to see all the different pictures. We wouldn’t have had a lot of the pictures we got if it wasn’t for using Twine.”

The best part was that those who couldn’t be at the wedding, including the family’s former exchange student, who lives in Poland, were able to follow along through photos via twine.it.

“She felt like part of it and really felt like she was there,” Lipski said.

Innovative branding

Twine.it’s business model is unique, Hawker said.

“We’re not just creating access to social networks. We’ve created a social network ourselves,” he said. “We’re not competing with Facebook or Twitter or Instagram; we are in between a gap in what they can provide. It’s embracing what the current technology allows us to do in a very experiential way, where people can have fun and also create value.”

The photo station is simple to set up and take down — a twisting motion folds the lighted 80-inch column into an 11-inch suitcase in a matter of seconds.It can also be personalized or branded for each event.

Each photo can also be “branded” with a business logo, sponsor logo, message or hashtag, which is retained when the photos are saved or shared.

“Event sponsors usually get their name on a banner or website, but once the party’s over their name isn’t anywhere,” Harwell said. “Now their name is always going to be synonymous with that event. It’s going to be living in tons of people’s phones and pushed out to other social media as people share those photos.”

Harwell tested the photo station for the first time at his high school class reunion.

“I was really nervous, thinking, ‘Oh my God, I haven’t seen these people in 20 years’ and I’m bringing this thing, hoping people would like it,” Harwell said.

“I put it on and it was insane. I said, ‘I think we’ve got something here.’”

Seventy-two people downloaded the app and, within three days, the 300 photos taken were seen or shared 40,000 times. Guests at a UT sorority formal took 983 photos in four hours — one photo every 11 seconds — that were seen or shared 118,000 times, Hawker said. The grand opening of Bar 145 in Columbus had 409 photos viewed 12,747 times.

“There’s so many neat opportunities for branding externally — we can make it look like anything the client wants, but the real power ultimately I think is the ability to brand the mobile experience,” Hawker said. “This is a game-changer for fundraisers. It’s amazing the spread of our pictures the night of and then a day or two after.”

Launch Pad

TwineLABS won a business plan competition held at UT in January 2013, earning them business development assistance from University of Toledo Innovation Enterprises. That summer, they were asked to join UT’s Launch Pad Incubation Program.

Only about 10 percent of startups are successful, said Launch Pad Program Director Molly Reams Thompson.

“That’s like Startup 101,” she said. “But we looked at Twine and thought that was a business venture that was worth the risk.

“What they are doing is really cool and we’re very excited about the idea. They shift the paradigm of what a photobooth experience is all about and take social media and the photobooth to an entirely different level. But what makes us stand up and take notice of them is something far less tangible. People want to be around them. It’s inspiring. That’s what we look for in the companies we bring into our program.”

Hawker said people are sometimes surprised to find out twineLABS is based in Northwest Ohio.

“There’s a really neat tech scene that’s going on that people don’t know about much yet,” Hawker said. “There’s just a lot of creative things coming out of Toledo and people don’t think of Toledo that way.”

“It’s kind of a Silicon Valley startup in Northwest Ohio, which is pretty cool,” Harwell said.

The business currently employs six people and expects to hire more soon, Hawker said. In keeping with the startup’s fun-loving atmosphere, Harwell’s business card lists his title as “prime minister of party.” Hawker is “facilitator of fun.” Julia Johnston is “princess of partytown,” Ron Durbin is “executive of events,” Mico Cordero is “chief of campaigns” and Ashley Duvendack is “primadonna of photos.”

“There is so much good stuff happening in our region,” Reams Thompson said. “Just because you’re in Toledo doesn’t mean the ideas that come out are any less valid than anywhere else. They can be just as impactful as any of the coastal cities. … We’re starting to get some traction and that’s pretty great for us. People are starting to notice.”

The beginning

After recognizing the need to intertwine the photobooth experience with social media — that’s where the name comes from — Harwell, a firefighter and paramedic with the Perrysburg Fire Department, started experimenting. Later, he enlisted Hawker, a stay-at-home-dad with a background in sales, to help him improve the app and write a better business plan.

Durbin, a Toledo native and self-described “serial entrepreneur,” was so impressed after talking with Hawker that he sold his corporate events business and invested in twineLABS.

“It was the most innovative thing I’d seen in our industry in probably 10 years,” Durbin said.

Johnston, owner of a mural painting business and former Face of FOX Toledo, joined the team after answering a call for an event host.

“When I received an email about the training I ignored it at first, but I really felt something say, ‘Tap, tap, go back to that email,’” Johnston said.

Cordero and Duvendack are both seniors at UT majoring in sales and marketing.

The team believes in keeping its business as homegrown as possible, partnering with Toledo-area companies, including Metzgers, Hanson, Elite Events and Madhouse as well as companies in Cleveland, Cincinnati and Columbus. A former Perrysburg resident now living in North Carolina developed the mobile app.

Coming soon

During April and May, twine.it plans to offer a special price of $499 for the basic photo station package. Add-ons like a slide show, extra iPads, digital uploading and more are also available.

Franchises will be available soon, Harwell said.

“It’s basically a business in a box that people can buy into and make a living from, which I think is crazy unique,” he said.

Last year, twine.it partnered with Rocket Sports Properties, the sports marketing arm for UT athletics, to set up photo stations at UT men’s and women’s home basketball games. They plan to add football games this fall, Durbin said.

Other upcoming plans include installing permanent photo stations at local bars and restaurants.

“My vision is by the end of year the majority of people in Toledo will have this app on their phone,” Durbin said. “There’s no one on the planet doing what we’re doing.”

For more information, visit twine.it.

An eight-person jury deliberated for about two hours April 15 before finding liquor store clerk Nicholas Thompson guilty of selling alcohol to an Ottawa Hills teen whose friend was killed in an alcohol-related crash later that night.

Lucas County Court of Common Pleas Judge James Bates sentenced Thompson, 38, to six months in jail, the maximum penalty possible for the misdemeanor charge.

Over the course of the two-day trial, Thompson was found to have sold a bottle of vodka to Blake Pappas, a 17-year-old friend of Brian Hoeflinger, on Feb. 1, 2013, at Foxx Liquor Store on Dorr Street.

Pappas, now a student at the University of Cincinnati, and another teen, Michael Geiger, now a student-athlete at Michigan State University, testified April 14 that the three friends met at Hoeflinger’s house after school, where they pooled their money and drove to Foxx Liquor to buy alcohol.

All three boys, who were seniors at Ottawa Hills High School, entered the store and chose a 1.75-liter bottle of Belvedere vodka. Pappas then purchased the liquor for about $50 without being asked for identification while Hoeflinger and Geiger browsed nearby.

Hoeflinger, 18, died from injuries sustained in an alcohol-related crash later that night. Bates asked the jury to disregard any references in testimony to the accident or Hoeflinger’s death and focus only on the sale of the liquor.

ALSO: Friends of Hoeflinger testify at liquor store clerk’s trial

However, in comments to the jury after sentencing, Bates referenced Hoeflinger’s fatal crash and said some judges don’t seem to take the crime of underage sales seriously, noting that he felt the $150 fine Thompson received for a prior offense was inadequate.

“It’s not much of a deterrent,” Bates said. “That’s one of the reasons I imposed this pretty harsh sentence as it relates to this case.”

“This man is the source of a leak,” Lucas County Assistant Prosecutor Charles McDonald told jurors during closing remarks, referring to Thompson’s September 2012 conviction for the same offense. “The defendant is a gatekeeper in our community, [or] should be. He’s the last line of defense. … He said yes when he should have said no.”

“He seems to have developed a bad habit,” fellow assistant prosecutor Louis Kountouris said.

The prosecutors showed jurors photos of the five employees who were working at Foxx Liquor on Feb. 1, 2013, concluding that “by process of elimination” the clerk who sold Pappas the alcohol had to have been Thompson. Only two employees matched the white male description given by the teens and the other man, Adam Meglitsch, had testified April 14 his job was to stock shelves and he never worked the register. Meglitsch is also shorter and more than 10 years younger than Thompson.

“One by one it becomes obvious, irrefutably, that the conclusion is the defendant matches the witness description. Nobody comes close,” Kountouris said.

Thompson’s attorney Rick Kerger argued that someone else bought the alcohol and gave it to the teens.

“Records show Nick Thompson worked that night, records show he sold a bottle of Balvadere, but no records show as to whom he sold it to,” Kerger said.

The buyer paid cash and surveillance footage from the store is recorded over every 10 days, so the footage from Feb. 1  was gone by the time investigators seized the shop’s DVR machine on April 16, 2013.

Kerger also referenced the purchase of a $1.29 mini bottle of wine that appeared on the receipt with the vodka, which neither teen mentioned.

“Blake tell you about that? Michael tell you about that? Nobody told you about that. Because they didn’t buy it. Somebody they gave the money to bought it,” Kerger told the jury.

McDonald scoffed at the explanation of someone else purchasing the liquor for the teens, telling jurors they had no reason to lie since investigators promised they would not be charged if they cooperated in the investigation.

“Mr. Kerger has mentioned Person X — this mystery person who has never been mentioned until just now — who he claims bought the alcohol,” McDonald said during closing remarks. “Why would these two young men, bright, futures ahead of them, risk everything to fabricate a story for some unknown mystery person?”

A written statement made by Thompson during the April 16, 2013, search of Foxx Liquor indicated he didn’t remember the specific Feb. 1 transaction but could have sold alcohol to Pappas without carding him because he recognized him as a regular customer. That’s “not a defense,” McDonald said.

“The law in Ohio is that … if a defendant checks for an ID on a certain date and that person comes in again and that person asks for alcohol and if that person is a minor, regardless of how many times before he’s asked for his ID, the defendant is guilty,” he said.

Thompson’s statement that he could have made the sale is “not proof beyond a reasonable doubt,” Kerger argued.

The state called five witnesses on the first day of trial, including the two teens. Two witnesses were called by the defense on the second day: Earl Mack, a retired Ohio Department of Public Safety agent who worked in alcohol enforcement for 26 years, and Foxx Liquor part owner Andy Jarbou.

Jarbou, who was among the five employees working Feb 1, 2013, testified that Thompson always wore a hat and glasses, facts Kerger noted the two teens did not mention in their initial descriptions of the clerk. Jarbou also testified that after the September 2012 Foxx Liquor sting in which Thompson sold alcohol to an underage patron working undercover, he was suspended for four weeks and retrained on checking IDs. Reminders to check IDs were also posted by all registers, Jarbou said.

“I don’t care how many signs Mr. Jarbou [posts],” Kountouris said during his closing remarks. “There’s signs everywhere [on the road, but] does everybody follow the signs? No.”

Mack testified that when he worked as an agent he was not permitted to wear a mask during store searches or interviews as Agent Michael Hakeos did at Foxx Liquor during the April 16, 2013, search. Thompson’s lawyers had questioned whether Hakeos, who testified April 14, had intimidated Thompson by leaving his mask on while interviewing him. McDonald noted that Mack’s boss at the hotel where he now works as a part-time security officer is one of the part owners of Foxx Liquor.

Reactions

Kerger said he accepted the verdict, but questioned the judge’s sentence.

“The jury didn’t accept our explanation. Their verdict is their verdict,” Kerger said. “The thing that’s odd is during the trial [Judge Bates] kept out all references to the Brian Hoeflinger crash and then he used that as the fact to enhance the sentence. Seems like if it was in for that it ought to have been in for the trial.”

Even though the accident wasn’t the focus of the case, Kountouris said he hopes the verdict will bring the Hoeflinger family some closure and also set a precedent for other cases involving the sale of alcohol to minors.

“It’s a huge problem and this unfortunate incident brought the whole thing to light. It was magnified by the loss of the Hoeflinger youth,” Kountouris said.

Hoeflinger’s parents, Brian and Cindy Hoeflinger, were in the courtroom both days along with their children. Brian said that although nothing will bring back their son, they hope the sentence will send a strong message “that institutions that sell alcohol can’t sell to minors and expect to get away with it without having consequences.”

“For us it was important because it’s a first step in a chain of events that have to keep happening to stop kids from gaining access to alcohol,” Brian said. “Our son died and it was alcohol-related and we can never bring that back, but we can certainly try to stop it for the future.

“It does send a message and I think the judge did want to send a message and I think the prosecutor’s office wants to send a message that this won’t be tolerated,” Brian said.

Cindy said she is frustrated and heartbroken that her son and his friends were able to obtain liquor so easily.

“If they would have checked IDs or whatever and found out they weren’t old enough, we would have then found out, and then we could have taken steps as his parents to discipline him or take care of it,” Cindy said. “I have a right to believe my children are not allowed to buy alcohol until they are 21. That is a law. So I should have a reasonable expectation that my son can’t walk into a state liquor store and buy alcohol.

Although noting his son was still the one who chose to drink the alcohol, Brian said he agreed with McDonald’s description of liquor store clerks as gatekeepers.

“That source that provided that alcohol was the first step in a whole chain reaction that led to our son’s death,” Brian said.

“We have no way of predicting, but if they wouldn’t have gotten that alcohol that night I think it’s reasonable to assume that perhaps he would not have gotten in that accident that night,” Cindy agreed. “At the end of the day it doesn’t matter, but at least the message was sent out today that it’s not acceptable.”

Since the accident, the couple have founded an organization Brian Matters, www.brianmatters.com, and become national advocates against teen alcohol use and abuse.

Foxx Liquor had its liquor license revoked in August 2013, but still sells beer and wine.