Travis Manigan: Hygge’s Resident Servant CEO
Written by Meg Seitz · Photography by Julia Fay
“Tell me who you are and what you do,” I asked as I pressed record on my QuickVoice app.
He sat there for a second before responding.
“I’m Travis Manigan,” he said. “And I guess I just serve.” A big, bright smile broke across his face. {Continued below}
Manigan is the Founder and CEO of GAMEPLAN an app designed to serve students in the digital space. He started forming the ideas for GAMEPLAN in 2006. He was teaching 11th grade history in Fayetteville, North Carolina.
“I remember asking the students what they wanted to do – what they wanted to be – when they graduated or went to college or even after that,” he remembers. “And only about 10% of my kids knew what they wanted to do.”
Manigan understood that lack of direction.
“In high school, I would have been labeled troubled, but I was just having fun,” he says with a short laugh. “It caused me to sit out for a year though; I ended up at community college before being able to play at Fayetteville State.”
Now, as the teacher in this high school classroom, the former Defensive Tackle was thinking of a whole new game plan – this time to give students that much-needed direction.
At this point in cultural time, Facebook was a fresh, new platform – gaining traction quickly. That got Manigan thinking: Why not build a digital place for academics, so that college recruiting relationship (whether it be academic or athletic) can start through this platform versus where it typically starts – when a student registers to take the SAT.
“GAMEPLAN is about giving students a purpose and a path,” Manigan notes.
“Let me be honest about entrepreneurship,” he says. “This has been its own trilogy. It’s changed the way I get excited about things; I’m so used to hearing ‘no’ that it’s dulled my senses; I’m both proud and unsatisfied; but, I just keep plowing through.”
Manigan is part entrepreneur, part politician.
Before teaching, he interned on Capitol Hill. After teaching, he returned to politics – working for several years on the congressional staff in the district in Fayetteville. He then served as Outreach Director, taking on speaking engagements across ten counties from Fayetteville to Charlotte for Larry Kissell, U.S. Representative for North Carolina’s eighth congressional district.
“Politically, I’ve always worked in a staff position,” Manigan notes. “But entrepreneurship is different in that now I am the person; I am the politician. I’m the one who has to step out there and do what needs to be done; I’m the one everything relies on.”
And Manigan, who is a husband and father of three, is pulling out all the stops to get what needs to get done, done.
He’s been working on GAMEPLAN for over 10 years now. He’s been through several different, small incubation-type environments, he’s pitched in competitions for funding, he’s talked to hundreds of people. And he’s heard a lot of ‘no’.
“Let me be honest about entrepreneurship,” he says. “This has been its own trilogy. It’s changed the way I get excited about things; I’m so used to hearing ‘no’ that it’s dulled my senses; I’m both proud and unsatisfied; but, I just keep plowing through.”
He’s been plowing through a 2.5 year campaign, focusing on bringing GAMEPLAN to Charlotte. And things are starting to happen. Co-Founder Armah Shiancoe joined the team early this year. The City of Charlotte is managing their youth population on the GAMEPLAN platform. Communities in Schools and Profound Gentlemen are piloting a program on the platform; they will start using GAMEPLAN to host mentor-mentee relationships.
“It all goes back to serving,” he says. “And I’m serving through all kind of different hurricanes, tornadoes, ‘no’, you name it.”
One thing that’s helped Manigan stay balanced through the trilogy – Hygge.
“Just walking into Hygge is a stress reliever,” he shares. “Plus, there are so many people here with such different expertise.”
He continues to gush, talking up Hygge’s light atmosphere, the ability to duck into a corner and get work done, and the budget-friendly membership fee. He wasn’t getting that other places.
“I had my first meeting with Profound Gentleman at a Starbucks,” he says. “I got a $100 parking ticket there. Now, that was an expensive coffee meeting.”
He shares another funny story from another coffee shop.
“I’m there, trying to have a meeting,” he recalls, with a laugh. “And Aretha Franklin is blasting in my ear from the coffee shop’s stereo system. I was thinking, ‘this is not the time, Aretha.’ I wasn’t feeling the R-E-S-P-E-C-T that day.”
Although Manigan is starting to experience GAMEPLAN’s growth, he keeps it real.
“It all goes back to serving,” he says. “And I’m serving through all kind of different hurricanes, tornadoes, ‘no’, you name it. The politician takes the lumps to keep a vision going, so you just have to get use to taking the lumps. At the end of the day, we’re creating things that are finally coming to fruition.”
Again, that big, bright smile breaks across his face.
Meet the Author: Meg Seitz is the Founder and Managing Creative Partner of toth shop, an agency with one goal: Elevate your brand’s content through powerful writing, creativity, and strategy. She also serves as an Adjunct Professor with Queens University and Founding Partner of the children’s book series, “Bea is for Business”.
She’s an English major with an MBA, so she can talk Homer’s “The Odyssey” just as well as she can talk sunk costs – though she’d much prefer the former.
Meet the photographer: Hi, nice to meet you! I’m Julia. I’m my happiest self when my camera is in hand and I’m taking in this big beautiful world around me! People are my jam and the fact that this job brings so many wonderful people into my life is pretty special.
I grew up performing mostly in front of the camera! Singing, acting, comedy improv – anything on a stage or in front of a lens. The roles began to switch as I entered my freshman year of college and found a creative outlet through photography. My first “real” shoot was when an engaged friend of mine asked me to photograph her and her fiancé. Within moments of getting started, I knew that this was it. Telling peoples love stories, that is what I’m supposed to do! I shot my first wedding at nineteen, and well you know what they say..the rest is history! We’ve been together ever since 🙂
