Sean Hyatt just needed some juice.
When the Denver native and his longtime friends Matt Reiswig and Kristin Reiswig were traveling in South America last fall, Hyatt recalled an afternoon when their phones were at “dangerously low” battery.
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“It was midway through the day, and we noticed a sign outside of a cafe that said, ‘Charge cell here,’” the now-45-year-old said. “And we found something we’d never seen before.”
When they walked in, they saw a kiosk with a QR code affixed to it that dispensed portable phone chargers. The trio paid for the batteries, plugged their phones in and went to a nearby restaurant to grab lunch and some drinks. At another nearby kiosk, they dropped the chargers back off.
“It’s almost like renting a scooter,” said Hyatt, who is the CEO of a private equity firm and also runs an event business. He was raised in Aurora and got his MBA from Metropolitan State University.
By February of this year, he and the Reiswigs started a similar outfit in Denver. Since then, they’ve helped charge phones in 25 bars and clubs around the city, like The Church and Charlie’s off Colfax.
Instead of building out their own machines, the three, who operate under the name Massive Technology, are the biggest local distributors for ChargerGoGo. That business got its start in 2020 in Las Vegas, Nevada, and has since grown to have 6,000 stations across the country, it says.
“When we kicked this thing off, there were maybe a dozen or so machines around the Front Range,” Hyatt noted, explaining that the deal with the Nevada-based company isn’t exclusive. “But otherwise it’s pretty new territory. We’ve quickly become the largest and fastest growing distributor in Denver.”
Customers download the ChargerGoGo app and pay $6 for an hour of juice. Each additional 60 minutes of the fast-speed charging costs $2, and the average rental time so far has been 46 minutes.
And if clubbers accidentally leave the battery in their pocket or purse, it’s an extra $15 per day it goes unreturned. They can also buy one outright for $45, Hyatt said. He’ll go out and replace chargers with new ones if they aren’t returned.
“You can go out and have a smoke, hit the next bar and then return it the next day if you’re stumbling home,” he added. “We make money either way. We don’t care if they return it or not.”
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As for the machines, Massive Technology buys them outright before placing them, which are free of charge to the clubs and bars they sit in. Hyatt said he pays around $1,200 per kiosk, which holds eight chargers. Some places have multiple kiosks throughout their space.
He’s also bought a larger, 32-battery system that runs $5,500, which sits in Club Vinyl at 11th and Broadway. His group hasn’t taken on any investors and it has paid $30,000 to get the business up and running.
One of Hyatt’s smaller machines, which are the dominant type he buys. (Courtesy Massive Technology)
Hyatt said his revenue has doubled every month since starting in February, mainly through better signage and advertising on the kiosk’s screens. Eight of his 27 machines have been paid off so far.
He’s also eyeing mountain town restaurants and bars next for his machines to make up for the slower winter nightlife around Denver. He said healthcare and hotels are ripe for ChargerGoGos.
“First and foremost, it’s a free amenity to bars,” Hyatt said. “So it’s really easy for a bar owner to say, “Yeah, let’s place it. Let’s try it. And if we like it and our people love it, we can keep going from there.”
So far, that’s been bearing out at Jaguar Room, at 1941 Market St. Lindsay Law, the general manager, called having Hyatt’s machines a “no-brainer.”
Her staff would routinely be asked over 50 times a night to charge people’s phones behind the counter. Having four stations across the multi-floor club gives her an easy thing to point to.
“We don’t like holding onto people’s property, all the way down to jackets,” she said.
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