‣ Company: Phantom Force
‣ Founders: Justin Boreta, Dean Grenier and Allan Lavell
‣ Mission: To help anyone become an artist
‣ App launched: 2015
‣ Team size: 3
‣ Go-to emoji: ✨
Image-filtering apps often present a more polished version of reality – more dramatic sunsets, prettier portraits. Hyperspektiv, by contrast, turns reality into psychedelic art.
“It’s really an exploration of artistic and creative ideas that are only accessible through technology,” says Dean Grenier, who founded the app with Justin Boreta and Allan Lavell.
The trio launched Hyperspektiv back in 2015, when, as Grenier puts it, “we were just kind of these misfits who wanted to make cool stuff”. He and Boreta are electronic music producers and DJs; when they connected with Lavell, a developer, they felt another potential creative outlet taking shape. “It’s such a strange, beautiful tool,” says Grenier. “The effects you can create with are amazing and romantic and really interesting to us.”
Grenier chatted with us from his home base of Berlin about self-funding, the challenges of success and staying true to yourself.
How did you get Hyperspektiv off the ground?
We’ve always been 100 per cent self-funded – we’ve never taken VC money or investments. We had investors come to us and say, “You guys should make this famous-movie filter or that famous-show filter,” but we always said, “Yo man, cool, I’m sure there are people who want to do that. But we have a viewpoint.”
What’s been your biggest challenge?
Transitioning from an art project to a growing subscriber base was a learning curve for us. We had to improve our internal processes, scale our team intelligently, and take it all a little more seriously. It was also a big deal to go from one-time purchase to a subscription model. All of a sudden it was like, “We’re selling this in an ongoing fashion. We’re accountable.”
Is that the price of success?
I think any time an artist, a band, a TV-show producer makes something that’s straight from the heart, the market comes along and says, “Can you do it bigger?” You can curl up into a ball and say, “I can’t do this,” or you can say, “Let’s try scaling that thing.” We didn’t have a lot of experience to reference. We were just scrappy guys who worked and lived at the intersection of art and technology – though more on the art side.
We didn’t have a lot of experience to reference. We were just scrappy guys who worked and lived at the intersection of art and technology.– Dean Grenier, Hyperspektiv co-founder
What’s been most satisfying about this project?
Watching our community of artists and creators on social platforms. Every day, we get to see how the tools we made are used in new and beautiful ways. There’s this guy who got tapped to do visuals for the musician Erykah Badu. There’s footage of Erykah with Hyperspektiv images behind her. He’s a really talented young artist, he made a beautiful thing, and he’s part of our community. It’s so rewarding. It means more to us than money.
What advice would you give to others who want to create and share?
You have to be madly in love with what you make. You can’t try to follow trends or capitalise on moments or cash in. Can you say, “This is a wonderful thing, whether anyone uses it, without any success or acclaim or praise”? If the answer is yes, follow that.
Phantom Force is a part of the App Store Small Business Program. If you are a developer and would like to learn more about the program, follow the link below.