During his senior year at North Carolina State University, Brandon Kashani—a chemical engineering major—decided to take an entrepreneurship course. It was then that his startup, CheQRboard, began to take shape.
CheQRboard provides customizable templates that enable venues to create interactive educational experiences for guests. Venues can then place QR codes for guests to scan, providing them with access to things like fun trivia questions, audio tours and informative facts.
Kashani said they also place a large emphasis on accessibility through their utilization of AI to automatically translate all content into 96 different languages.
The software is also versatile for venues. It empowers them to easily update templates without having to change out QR codes, and also helps them collect engagement data such as visitor demographics and contact information.
“Our core mission is to provide venues a piece of technology to help them educate their visitors on their offerings and whatever impactful topics that they’re working on in a fun and gamified way,” Kashani said.
The road to CheQRboard
In the early stages of CheQRboard, Kashani focused on creating wearable tracking devices for children to wear in crowded public areas. But after he raised money and built a team, the COVID-19 pandemic shut down their operation and dried up the market for the product.
The team pivoted, shifting its focus to wearable devices for children and mobile apps for parents that took them on guided tours or adventures through outdoor venues.
“Along the way, parents could educate their family on all the different points, sort of like an interactive scavenger hunt that is child-driven or a new way to adventure outdoor venues without a paper map,” Kashani said.
Once the product launched in five different places, the hardware became challenging; the team had to rely on venues to manage, sanitize, rent and maintain the products. Kashani and the team soon realized there was a market for the back-end software that controlled the product without the need for a wearable component. So they explored connecting that software to a customizable QR code.
In the last 12 months, CheQRboard has launched in 30 different venues including zoos, museums, botanical gardens and historic sites.
“Our margins went from 25% to over 99% by removing the hardware component,” he said.
Their largest partnership to date is with the North Carolina Aquarium. While they work with large venues that can have almost 1.5 million annual attendants, however, Kashani said they also partner with small venues like the Utah-based zoo, “Zootah,” which has 40,000 annual attendants.
Many of the businesses CheQRboard works with are nonprofits that rely heavily on donations to sustain their operations. Current tactics like cash boxes and digital donation pages, though, are not user-friendly and bring in less money.
CheQRboard allows venues to easily create donation campaigns that support one-click contributions through Apple Pay or PayPal—a more effortless process that encourages more donations.
The software is free for guests to use, while venues are charged an upfront installation fee and a monthly subscription costing between $1,000 and $2,000.
QUICK BITS
Startup: CheQRboard
Co-Founders: Brandon Kashani (CEO), Steve Yauch
Founded: 2020; pivot in 2023
Team size: 11 full-time
Location: Raleigh
Website: www.cheqrboard.com
Funding: Have raised pre-seed & seed
Currently, Kashani said their biggest challenge is growing their team to best fit the needs of the company as it continues to expand.
“Who you need from no customers to one customer can be very different than who you need from 1 to 20, and that can be completely different than who you need from customer 20 to 100,” he said.
He added that everyone at CheQRboard, however, is very aligned with the company mission. The team has also recently welcomed a few new members (and last fall was named one of GrepBeat’s 2024 Startups to Watch!)
Kashani said he is currently looking for introductions to potential partners. As they work with zoos, museums, botanical gardens, historic sites, city parks, festivals, state fairs, breweries, and more, he said CheQRboard is applicable for many different uses.
