Winter Garden native and digital media entrepreneur creates charity app

WINTER GARDEN  A West Orange native and his business partner hope to revolutionize charitable giving with a new app called Change Giving.

Chris Chan, owner of Winter Garden-based Think Minion Digital Media, and Tony Largura partnered to develop the social media charity app. Users will be able to connect their bank cards to the app, and and every time they swipe or make a digital transaction, the payment is rounded to the nearest dollar. The extra money spent on top of the purchase is distributed to the charity of the user’s choice. 

For example, if a user spends $2.72 on coffee, the app rounds the purchase to $3, and 28 cents goes to the charity the user selects. 

Users can set aside money for certain things, such as helping out a family member, or they can donate to an organization.

The app also allows users to start campaigns to raise money. 

Chan hopes the app will help out organizations but also will make the process of giving easier. 

“I was tired of not being able to give when I wanted to — I had to either fill things out or put in my credit card over and over again,” he said. “I need to simplify the give.” 

The app is now fully funded, and plans to start beta testing in the local community will begin at the end of January. The company hopes to launch the app for IOS and Android by March or April.  

The app is just the latest in a long history of innovation for Chan, whose fascination with digital media started when he was a student at West Orange High School. 

In ninth grade, he started working on video production. When teachers asked for book reports, Chan always asked if he could make a video instead. 

“I just loved it,” Chan said. “There’s something about it that drew me to it. I don’t know if it was sitting in front of a computer and being able to find the exact moments that I wanted to find, to tell the story that I wanted to tell. And then, it just really got bigger and bigger.”

Ten years after his high-school graduation in 2004, Chan opened Think Minion Digital Media, based in downtown Winter Garden, at 20 S. Main St., Suite 240. The company works with video and other forms of digital media to create its product. 

Chan was well prepared for the challenge of owning his business and being innovative. After graduating college, Chan worked with a creative company that worked with high-end clients such as Disney. 

“(Disney is) such a creative agency to work with,” he said. “They have such amazing ideas and coolness, that after you work with somebody like that, you feel like you can do anything.”

He quickly learned he must think creatively when he discovered people didn’t want to pay for videos, despite the popularity of video online and in social media. 

Chan started working with a new technology called augmented reality to demonstrate the work he does. The technology allows him to create a business card that, when you open an augmented reality app on your phone and hover it over the card, a video plays.

He is able to pull out his business card and show people what he does at any time, and he is able to create augmented reality videos and cards for local businesses — his clients. 

Chan also likes to think creatively on how to take good video.

He considers himself an early adopter of the now-popular Swagway and Hoverboard — but he uses them for video purposes. He uses the Hoverboard and a stabilizer gimble to take smooth footage in a more affordable way than other video technologies. Set-up time is also greatly reduced, because he is able to hover into a venue and hover out quickly. 

Think Minion does digital media work for high-profile clients, but also local businesses. He does all digital media for the Crooked Can in downtown Winter Garden. 

He works with aerial cinematography — by using drones — through Sky Minion, a related business he works on with a few friends. 

For more information, visit thinkminion.com.

Contact Jennifer Nesslar at [email protected].