Photo by Sarah Finnegan.
Chelsea residents Brian and Brenda Senn have created a social media app for those who wish to share their hunting, fishing, hiking, camping and other outdoor experiences.
Brian Senn grew up about 110 miles from Birmingham in Demopolis, Alabama, and his fondest memories are of times spent with his dad hunting, fishing and being outdoors. Now raising his own children, Senn is trying to instill that same passion in them.
Senn knew he always wanted to work in the outdoor industry, but spent most of his career in sales. He and his family moved from Mississippi to Chelsea four years ago and recently sold their medical distributorship business.
Senn has since shifted his focus to his new company, YUDU Outdoors.
The vision of YUDU came to Senn while in a tree stand in Kansas in the fall of 2015. Many of his friends and hunting friends knew he was there and were blowing up his phone asking the same questions. He thought if he just had one app to relay all the information they asked for, it would be more convenient.
“I felt like if I had the right concept and got the right people behind me, this is something I could sell and grow to bring people together,” he said. “I started wishing for an app that would let me share pictures, answer questions and show the weather conditions with all of my hunting buddies. That app might as well do all of this easily and quickly.”
Looking at the apps he already uses when he’s outdoors — Instagram, Facebook, a weather app, Amazon for supplies and a map to mark his location — Senn wanted to put all of those pieces into one place.
Several months later, during a hunting trip with two of his sons, they caught his 12-year-old’s first buck kill on video. The boys wanted him to post it on social media, but Senn said he knew the consequences that might come from it.
“There were plenty of social media apps where I could post, but we all know how unwelcome [hunters’] posts have become on these sites,” Senn said. “Some people who posted hunting photos would get criticized and brutally attacked online. I didn’t want to expose my kids to that.”
With YUDU, Senn said, he wanted to create a place where people could share their passion without having to worry about any backlash, Senn said.
He had intended on starting small with a grassroots campaign, Senn said, but the stars aligned and the NRA heard about the project and flew him to Washington, D.C., to offer its support.
The YUDU Outdoors mobile application launched in April at the NRA’s convention in Atlanta. The app is intended as a social media site for whatever “you do” outdoors: hunting, fishing, hiking, camping and more. YUDU is also active on other social media platforms, with more than 3,500 Facebook page likes and nearly 72,000 followers on Instagram.
The largest group on the app is the YUDU Daily Devotional Group. Senn said future plans include expanding the app with YUDU Faith, which will include daily devotionals, and YUDU Cares, which will partner kids with someone in their area to introduce them to outdoor activities.
“Why would someone go to YUDU instead of Facebook or Instagram? I like to think we are everything they are not,” Senn said. “We embrace faith, family, freedom and the Second Amendment rights and whatever you do outdoors.”
Senn said users already on the app love it and are enjoying it, and he asks them on a regular basis what could be improved and they want to see next.
“People are sending in ideas all the time of what we should do,” added Senn’s wife, Brenda Senn. “We are constantly getting feedback on how to make it better and what people want.”
For more information, go toyuduoutdoors.com.
