Aidan Augustin

Story by: Jacki Donaldson

Aidan Augustin calls himself a Gainesville evangelist.

Like many, he came to the city to attend the University of Florida (UF), and he loved the place so much that he stayed. Aidan, who lives downtown and walks and bikes just about everywhere, is a cheerleader for Gainesville’s culture, from coffee shops and nightlife to Depot Park and monthly Art Walk events. He also has a deep affection for UF even though he did not complete his intended engineering degree from the prestigious university. “Halfway through my junior year, I hit pause on school to work full-time on a startup,” Aidan said.

Aidan, the 28-year-old co-founder and president of Feathr, a software company that builds marketing tools for conference, trade show, and festival organizers, started working with his co-founder on Feathr’s concept while still in college and then left school to focus on his business, which he incorporated in 2012. Most of Feathr’s growth has occurred in the past three and a half years, and the company now has 50 full-time employees and three offices and doubled its revenue in 2018.

Aidan attributes much of his early momentum to the support he received from Gainesville’s startup community. Feathr was one of the first businesses to move into the Innovation Hub at UF (now UF Innovate | The Hub) just as the building was opening and unveiling its state-of-the-art technology incubator. “The Hub played a key part in our early entrepreneurial journey,” Aidan said. “We are one of their success stories, and now we try to pay it forward.”

Feathr was not an instant success. “Like most entrepreneurs, we were too emotionally attached to our first idea,” he said. “You have to test, validate, and gather market feedback, and in our case, we moved from one idea to a second idea to a third idea, which finally clicked and took off.”

The three distinct chapters of Feathr history include the original product, a mobile app for digital business cards; the second product, a mobile app for conference and trade show attendees; and the final and current product, a suite of technology to arm marketing teams with the tools to promote their events.

Feathr is no longer an app but rather a living, breathing online toolkit available by annual software license.

Customers, most of them nonprofits, renew to stay current and receive new features and capabilities. Aidan said that Feathr’s recent success is the fruit of several years of failing, screwing up, and learning.

“Hopefully, this is just the beginning,” he said. “We have aggressive goals for the next three years.” Aidan is still hungry. “Feathr is still small in absolute numbers,” he said. He and his co-founder, Aleksander Levental, aim to keep growing their business — and their employees. “We want to do right by our team,” he said. “We offer not only good financial compensation, but also an exciting work environment with the opportunity for rapid personal growth.”

As the president of startupGNV, a local non-profit that helps aspiring entrepreneurs, Aidan also works to grow the next generation of Gainesville startups.

“One of the things I love most about our community is that people operate from an abundance mindset rather than a scarcity mindset,” he said “Feathr received a lot of mentorship and support in our early days, so I’m excited to play that role for others.”