New Flex app can rival Facebook and Instagram

New platforms based on sharing pictures or videos for example have become increasingly popular.

Now Wayne Berry, of Plumley, has created what he believes will be the next big rival to established social media platforms Facebook and Instagram.

The founder and managing director of JAW Digital, a digital marketing agency, is developing a new app called ‘Flex’.

Wayne with his partner Holly and son Arthur

Flex will allow users to show off their purchases – clothes, holidays, cars, for example – and be rewarded for their brand loyalty, while providing companies new data on who is buying their products.

And dad-of-one Wayne is now looking for investors to help him make his dream a reality.

The 38-year-old said: “Flex is a social media network to rival Facebook and Instagram. It needs £500,000 of investment to build a platform at the back end – the management suite – and for us to develop a user-facing app at the front end.

“I had a bit of a Martin Luther King moment – I literally had a dream. I used to collect expensive, rare Adidas trainers.

“So what you would do is pay £400 for a pair of trainers, then you’d take a picture of it, put it on Instagram and show all the other Adidas fans and they all say ‘wow, where have you got them from?’

“What do you get back from Adidas? Nothing. When you buy stuff and you show off about it, you get a bit of noise back from their friends, but the brands don’t get involved.

How the new Flex app could look

“These are the same brands paying tens of thousands of pounds every year so-called ‘influencers’ to try to drive that level of interest.

“What Flex will do is make the average social media user an influencer by notifying a brand when someone uploads one of their products to social media.

“The more you upload, you can unlock challenges and accolades and the more you become known in that community.

“I’m using that basis to reward shoppers. Let’s say you do five Adidas brand purchases in six months, you’ll get an Adidas emblem added to your social profile to say you’re a recognised collector of that brand.

“There are literally billions of pounds spent every year by all the top brands advertising their products on social media and the communication between end user and brand is almost non-existent. We’re offering the brands a whole new data set.

“Facebook and Instagram have spent millions trying to turn their platforms into a shopping and sharing platform, but all they’ve done is watered down the social media experience and we’re constantly hammered with adverts.

“I’m taking that whole functionality out and putting it into Flex and rewarding shoppers for their brand loyalty.

“It will change the way people shop, it will change the way people and share. It’s almost making a game of shopping.”

Wayne called his new app Flex, after the street word for showing off, and says once the investment is secured, he would look to have it up and running within 12 months.

“It’s a real lifelong passion for me," he added.

"I want to put a bit of feeling back in social media. We’re offering something very different to what I feel are outdated social media channels now.

"It has to go the furthest. It’s an extra data set for brands they currently don’t have. I truly believe it is the next frontier in social media.

“I need half a million to build it, I need all the brands on board – its super complex software. Some of it already exists, but we’re going to invest a whole new algorithm to social media.

“I genuinely believe it’s a Facebook moment, an Instagram moment, a Linked-In moment and that’s what we’re going for."

Should Flex become the success Wayne believes it can be, he will donate two per cent of all profits to help underprivileged children.

Not only is he looking for investors, but Wayne has launched a crowdfunding campaign to help get Flex off the ground.

More details on how to invest or donate can be found at flexapp.uk/.