After running into the same advertising frustration across five different businesses, Jacksonville founders Michael Kale and Timm Ross decided to build the tool they wished they had.
Every small-business owner who has spent money on advertising probably knows the feeling. The campaign ends, the report arrives, and there are numbers everywhere—impressions, clicks, reach, engagement.
What can be harder to answer is the much simpler question behind all of them:
What actually happened after someone received the message?
Michael Kale and Timm Ross had been asking versions of that question for years.
The longtime friends always knew they wanted to build a company together, but rather than waiting for the perfect idea, they decided more than a decade ago to learn by doing. They deliberately started five small businesses, each one giving them a chance to figure out something new: patents and trademarks, lawyers, Amazon fulfillment, project management, deadlines, budgets and, perhaps most importantly, how the two of them worked together.
The businesses were different, but advertising kept creating the same frustration. They could spend money trying to reach the right people, yet understanding what happened after that money was spent was much less straightforward. Eventually, they stopped treating the problem as something they simply had to live with and started wondering whether they could build something different.
That question became WilDi Maps.
What If the Place Came First?
Most advertising starts by asking who you want to reach. WilDi Maps starts somewhere else: Where?
A business can choose a physical area where it wants an offer to appear. When an opted-in WilDi member enters that area, the offer can reach them through the app. With WilDi Maps, businesses control what they’re willing to spend, and eligible members can share in that advertising spend when they receive and acknowledge an offer.
But location doesn’t have to mean the address of the business. It could be a stretch of Atlantic Boulevard, an outdoor event—or even the ninth hole of a golf course.
That’s where the idea starts to open up.
An Ad on the 9th Hole?
Imagine you’re playing a round of golf in Jacksonville and a sponsor wants to reach you while you’re actually on the course—not through another sign, but through the same digital experience you’re already using during the round.
WilDi Golf brings sponsor messages into an experience that can also help golfers navigate the course, keep score and access information along the way. WilDi Events takes a similar approach with outdoor events, pairing maps, schedules and other useful information with another way for organizers to bring sponsors into the experience.
Unlike WilDi Maps, Golf and Events don’t share advertising revenue with app users. Courses and event organizers pay WilDi to use the platform, while their sponsorship relationships remain their own.
The mechanics are different, but the idea is the same: put the message where it makes sense. For Michael and Timm, though, location was only half of the question.
They also wanted to know what happened afterward.
What Happened After They Saw It?
Michael and Timm had spent enough money on advertising themselves to know that getting a message out was only part of the question. They wanted to know what happened next.
WilDi can tell a business when an offer was delivered to a participating member and whether that person later arrived at the business. If the business chooses to track redemption through a cashier code, receipt, integration or its own point-of-sale system, another piece of the story can come into view: whether the offer was actually used.
A recent Jacksonville showcase with Epik Burger gave them a chance to see that happen in practice.
During the showcase, which ran through October 7, Epik Burger added WilDi offers directly to its point-of-sale system. When an offer was redeemed, the restaurant had its own record of it, while WilDi could see the journey on its side—from delivery to a later visit.
WilDi doesn’t claim the offer caused the visit. What it gives the business is a fuller picture than an impression alone: the offer reached someone, that person later showed up and, when redemption is tracked, whether the offer was used.
Golf and event sponsors can see a similar path—from receiving or interacting with a message to a later visit—and Maps, Golf and Events all live within the same app.
For Michael and Timm, that’s the bigger idea. They aren’t trying to add another number to an advertising report; they’re trying to help businesses see more of what happened on the other side of the message.
One Builds Scale. The Other Builds Systems.
Those early experiments also helped Michael and Timm figure out what each of them brought to the table.
Michael has spent more than 20 years building businesses inside large technology companies, with experience spanning engineering, cloud infrastructure, delivery, sales and leadership. At WilDi, he leads the commercial side of the company—sales, partnerships and customer growth.
Timm brings a different mix of experience across technology, business operations and military leadership. His background includes software integration and military AI projects, along with service as a military officer, fighter pilot, instructor and mission commander. At WilDi, he leads product and technology.
After years of building together, the founders have a much simpler way of explaining why the partnership works:
“Mike builds scale, Timm builds systems, and WilDi needs both.”
Even the company’s name carries something personal. WilDi—pronounced “Will-Dee”—comes from the names of their oldest sons, William and Dillon.
Today, they work side by side at LionShare Cowork on Atlantic Boulevard, where they credit owner Mike Januzzi with being particularly supportive as WilDi has taken shape. They have also leaned on Jacksonville entrepreneurs, advertising agencies, networking events and mentors for feedback, using those conversations to challenge assumptions and refine the product.
But WilDi has reached the point where support and feedback inside the room aren’t enough.
The idea has to work outside the room.
Jacksonville Is Where They Find Out
For a location-based network, growth presents an unusual challenge. Thousands of members scattered across the country don’t necessarily help a business on Atlantic Boulevard. The value comes when participating businesses and members begin showing up in the same places.
That is why Michael and Timm are deliberately starting close to home, building activity around Atlantic Boulevard, Jacksonville golf tournaments and outdoor events rather than trying to spread WilDi everywhere at once.
Their goal over the next year is to prove the model strongly enough here to understand whether it can be repeated somewhere else.
At this stage, the next breakthrough depends less on another feature and more on Jacksonville actually using what they’ve built.
Michael and Timm are looking for early participants on both sides: businesses, golf courses, outdoor venues, event organizers and promoters willing to test WilDi and give honest feedback, and Jacksonville residents willing to join the network while it’s still being built.
After years of experimenting, they found a problem they couldn’t stop thinking about. Now they get to see what happens when the idea meets the city around them.
WilDi is their answer. Jacksonville is where they get to find out if it’s a good one.
Find WilDi Maps
WilDi Maps, Inc. is a veteran-owned Jacksonville startup building location-based products for businesses, golf courses and outdoor events.
Founders: Michael Kale, CEO & Co-Founder; Timm Ross, CTO
& Co-Founder
Website:
wildimaps.com
Email:
founders@wildimaps.com
Phone:
(904) 622-6397
App:
Get the WilDi Maps app
LinkedIn:
WilDi Maps
WilDi is looking for Jacksonville businesses, golf courses, outdoor venues, event organizers and promoters willing to test the platform and provide feedback, along with local members interested in joining the network.
Want to see how WilDi works?
Startup Community Spotlight
Startup Community Spotlight is a JAX Business Calendar storytelling series created to help more people discover the founders, ideas and young companies being built in our community.
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