DapUp The New Word of Mouth: A growth channel businesses can build, measure, and scale.

04/21/2026

Welcome to a new DapUp series, where we hit the streets and help local businesses unlock athlete & creator marketing.

Let us know who you would like to see on the DapUp app đź‘€

Swipe right on brand deals. 👀Whether you’re looking to build your presence, earn through NIL, or explore new opportuniti...
04/14/2026

Swipe right on brand deals. đź‘€
Whether you’re looking to build your presence, earn through NIL, or explore new opportunities, DapUp is where it starts.

03/04/2026

The DapUp launch has been incredible so far. 🚀
Athletes are joining, businesses are signing up, and campaigns are already starting to move.

Now we’re looking for a handful of early ambassadors to help lead the movement.

If you want to be part of the first wave, join DapUp Creators today, start swiping, and let’s build something big together.


03/03/2026

Gone are the days of chasing brands.

Swipe to express interest.
Track deliverables.
Get paid.

03/02/2026

Most local businesses don’t have a full marketing department.

Now they don’t need one.

DapUp AI turns a goal, budget, and duration into a structured word-of-mouth campaign in seconds.

This is what scalable, people-powered marketing looks like.

03/02/2026

Traditional advertising is dead. These outdated channels are so oversaturated, that pouring your business’s resources into it can feel like an endless rat race. Are you really getting ahead? The business owners I’ve spoken with say, NO!

This begins to make sense when we look at the data, “84% of millennials don’t trust traditional advertising.” - Hubspot

Folks wonder why they aren’t reaching new customers. These cold, spammy outreach methods of spray and pray are a sign of desperation many business owners fall victim to. They even attempt to target their “ideal customers”, but to no avail.

In the age of AI, this problem is only worsening as businesses leverage bots and automation in marketing as though it’s bots and AI purchasing their products and services. Guys, It’s human beings! Let’s get back to the basics of what actually works…Word of Mouth. DapUp is infrastructure for just that.

02/27/2026

For those who may be unfamiliar, I am Ayden Owens, OLY, MBA founder of .co

Prepare for a surge in DapUp related content on your feeds, as I’m building a company that has long been a vision but is now a reality.

Unlike those business “gurus” out there who pitch their product like life depends on it, I have take the stance of enabling a sort of passive discovery of DapUp by those who recognize the fundamentals of business.

There’s a saying, You can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make it drink. Lot’s of modern marketing leaves us wondering why people aren’t discovering their product even though we blast it everywhere (emails, billboards, radios, SEO, digital marketing, etc).

The question remains: Are you solving a business problem? Does the customer truly thirst?

Many businesses out their thirst for growth and have exhausted streams of achieving this. But they’re ignoring the most fundamental source of sustenance, WORD of MOUTH. WOM is the proverbial “water”.

We grow because people talk and humans buy. DapUp is the infrastructure for that.

02/24/2026

Our Small Business Owners Resource Group had an awesome meeting this morning! Thank you to First Mid Bank & Trust for sponsoring this group for the year.

Current members:
Scritchlow Concrete Lifting and Slab Jacking (Group leader)
Good Judys Espresso & Bagel Bar
Floor Coverings International
The Literary
Extension Of
Imperion Technology Solutions
Pixels by Emily Donohoe
The Hive Honey Beetique
DapUp
Spectrum Design

Interested in joining? Email [email protected] for more information!

02/24/2026

DapUp Creators is officially live on the App Store!

DapUp connects local athlete creators with businesses in their community…turning trust into structured, paid partnerships.

No cold DMs.
No guessing your worth.
No middlemen.

If you’re an athlete at UIUC and ready to monetize your brand the right way, download the app and apply to join the launch wave.

Let’s build something local.
Let’s build something real.
co

Different businesses. Same DapUp pillars.Be trusted.Be chosen.Be remembered.Be recommended.At DapUp, we’re harnessing wo...
02/09/2026

Different businesses. Same DapUp pillars.

Be trusted.
Be chosen.
Be remembered.
Be recommended.

At DapUp, we’re harnessing word of mouth and turning it into businesses’ strongest growth channel.

02/06/2026

40 Champaign-Urbana businesses — from local coffee shops and boutiques to hotels and insurance companies — attended the DapUp workshop to explore a new approach to growth.

Most businesses grow from word-of-mouth.

At DapUp, we’ve built the infrastructure to manage and scale it.

Huge thanks to the University of Illinois, and EnterprisWorks for the venue and hospitality.

Address

Champaign, IL

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