Las Vegas - Frederick Hutson was serving time in prison for moving a mountain of marijuana when he came up with a million-dollar idea for Internet startup Pigeonly.
"I was in my cell and wanted photos from my family and knew there had to be a better way to do it," Hutson said at the Collision technology conference this week in Las Vegas, where his company is based.
"My goal was not to build a data company, it was just to make it simple for a guy to get pictures from his girlfriend."
Hutson spent slightly more than four years in prison after being caught in Nevada putting his entrepreneurial zeal to work efficiently routing marijuana shipments through a business he owned.
"It was lots of marijuana," quipped Hutson, who was 24 years old when he was sent to prison in late 2007. "I was always ambitious."
Along with frustration over getting pictures from loved ones outside prison walls, he felt that US inmates were charged astronomical rates for phone calls.
US prisons don't offer Internet or allow mobile phones. Meanwhile, lifestyles have shifted to sharing images, messages digitally.
"I noticed this huge population of people that no one was paying attention to," Hutson said.
AFP
