The tattoo industry hasn’t changed much since its inception, but startup Tatfinder is looking to change that. Kaeden Warnberg-Lemm, Tatfinder founder and an entrepreneurship major at the University of Utah, describes their app as a decision-based optimization algorithm that matches users with tattoo artists based on their style, personal values, and location. Warnberg-Lemm hopes that this artist-driven company will make the tattoo industry more accessible, innovative, and connected.
Originally from Minnesota, Warnberg-Lemm grew up in an entrepreneurial household. His parents encouraged creative thinking and instilled values of independence in him from a young age. This fostered his interest in innovation, which he continues to nurture at the Lassonde Entrepreneur Institute. Warnberg-Lemm said, “If you are a student entrepreneur looking to start a business in college Lassonde is the place to be.”
Warnberg-Lemm described coming to Lassonde Studios as a “transformative experience” where he was given access to all the resources he needed to start his business. “This has been the best place for me to develop and foster this app by giving me the skills I needed to create it,” he said. His next step toward launching a beta app with the Salt Lake City tattoo community is building the digital structure of Tatfinder. Warnberg-Lemm has collaborated with a user interface designer and is currently looking for partners to help him code and program the app.
The connections Warnberg-Lemm has made through the Lassonde Founders program have been invaluable to his startup. Lassonde Founders work together in teams through a four-year program to find, identify, and creatively solve problems through entrepreneurship. “The Lassonde Founders program is cool because it brings together a community of people with a passion for entrepreneurship; in and of itself it develops a passion for one another because we share this common value,” Warnberg-Lemm said.
Excited by the process of beginning a business, Warnberg-Lemm wants to continue in entrepreneurial endeavors beyond Tatfinder. “Entrepreneurship means to me the ability to be a self-starter and create something from the ground up. I think that is inherent in all of life; the way we can take nothing and turn it into something,” he said. Warnberg-Lemm works with a career coach through Lassonde’s programming to look at problems with new perspectives. His experience with Tatfinder has made him excited to develop startups “time and time again” across a multitude of areas.
