Community Highlights: Meet Charlie Hartsock of SetJetters

Today we’d like to introduce you to Charlie Hartsock.

Hi Charlie, please kick things off for us with an introduction to yourself and your story.
SetJetters was originally a TV idea, a travel show that explored the world through the lens of famous movie sets, like visiting Tunisia, where Star Wars was shot. This was all being developed in 2019, so you can imagine what happened to a travel TV show in 2020. I am a longtime writer, producer, and actor in Los Angeles, and adventure filmmakers Erik Nachtrieb and Viv Smith teamed up to turn SetJetters into an app. We fleshed out our team to include geographer and film tourism expert Kate Edwards (who’s been to the Star Wars set in Tunisia!) and our CTO and engineer Karl Norsen, who makes the magic happen in the background embracing the Covid-inspired remote working opportunities, our team is spread across the globe in Seattle, Los Angeles, and Sydney, Australia. We’ve spent two-and-a-half years building the app and our film locations database and gaining early users. We’re working with film offices, tourism offices, and local businesses worldwide to help them leverage their film catalogs and business ecosystems.

Would it have been a smooth road, and if not, what are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced along the way?
An exciting challenge has been opening people’s eyes to the impact of film tourism. We’ve found it’s one of those “if you know, you know” situations. They stop you immediately and say, “Yeah, we know!” we’ve met people who understand film tourism’s scale, the money it brings into an area, and the obsessive fandom behind it. Those people have become our first users and partners.

But there doesn’t seem to be a middle ground! We’ve spoken with some investors who are amazed that people would design a trip around what movies were shot there. But we’ve learned that people understand it; it’s just a matter of discovering what films they love. We had one woman who was not getting it. I told her about the droves of people in New Zealand for Lord of the Rings locations and the tourism boom Croatia has seen from Game of Thrones, and her eyes were glazing over. Then I took a guess and asked her if she watched Sex and The City. Her eyes lit up, and she told me she was just in New York and did a Sex and The City tour. Then the penny dropped! Suddenly she told us about how she went on a shopping spree on Rodeo Drive and asked the shop attendant to take a photo of her trying on a dress in the same shop as Julia Roberts in Pretty Woman. We told her about our Shot Sync camera that helps you do just that! So learning how to educate and sell has been a fun challenge; it’s different for every person, but fortunately, everyone has a favorite movie!

Thanks – so, what else should our readers know about SetJetters?
SetJetters is the first mobile film location app that allows users to search, find, visit, and share their interactions with filming locations worldwide. Whether traveling or sitting at home, Setjetters increases the fan’s emotional connection to film and TV content by giving them access to and connecting with the familiar and the other-worldly film locations from their favorite TV shows and movies. With the help of SetJetters, travelers have a new way to discover the world or rediscover the local streets of their city. SetJetters also provides film and tourism offices an exciting new way to leverage their film connections through our Beyond-the-Frame economic portal that allows tourists worldwide to learn more about the activities, businesses, and local cultural heritage opportunities near movie scene locations.

Are there any important lessons you’ve learned that you can share with us?
In tech, they often discuss building your Minimal Viable Product (MVP) first. The most basic version of your product and see that it technically works and people want to use it. What we’ve learned, though, is that that process isn’t one neat step! It’s an ongoing process. One of the lessons we’re slowly learning is to trust ourselves. We have a wonderful group of investors/advisors, and we’ve sought advice from people who have more means and are, to date, more successful than we are. Still, if we implemented all the advice we’ve received, our product roadmap would be confusing and conflicting! We’d have gotten in our way if we’d listened to all of it! It’s tricky because it’s not like we were given bad advice. There’s an old saying, “Plays are not written; they’re rewritten” The same goes for building apps! On the contrary, the advice has been great. Still, our lesson has been about figuring out what advice applies to our particular stage and then applying it correctly and effectively.

Contact Info:

• Website: SetJetters.com
• Instagram: Setjetters
• Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/setjettersapp
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/setjetters-inc/
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/SetJettersApp
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@setjetters

Image Credits
DCHIDDENGEMS