Access is one of the benefits of technology - it can open doors to a new world of opportunities and people you would not normally meet face-to-face. In the case of a horse community app called LiveEQ, the goal is to connect equestrians in a digital world and help them reach their goals. “The equestrian lifestyle is hard and when you aren’t busy, you are exhausted,” said Anne Hawkins, Founder of LiveEQ. “My solution takes the benefits of an app and tailors it through advanced search and filtering capabilities to make it easy to find what you are looking for.” 

Hunter Roots, Jumper Heart
Anne started riding at a young age thanks to her mother who was a hunter rider. “I began riding hunters on my 6-year-old Off-Track Thoroughbred my parents bought me. He was pretty wild, and I was a crazy kid - he wanted to go fast, and I loved speed – so we were the perfect match,” she shared. With that background and focus they ended up doing the jumpers. “I was hooked and to this day I just love being around horses.”

In Search Of… A Stable
As a young adult Anne started working in marketing which enabled her to move around the country. She lived in large cities such as Miami, Boston, and Denver to name a few. “Anytime I moved to a new city I would always look for a place to ride because of course horses pull at your heartstrings when you have that passion for them.” No matter the location, she found it hard finding anywhere to ride. “When I would get to a new place, I would search online ‘barns in the area’ and I was lucky if two or three results came up.” However, the barns that popped up first were usually really busy. The other alternative was word of mouth, which is hard if you are new to the area. “The overall experience kind of left me feeling outside of the equine world looking for a way to access it,” Anne said. This experience was the background for her pursuit of launching the app back in 2021. “I’ve now built a great career as a corporate digital executive, and I've wanted to transfer my knowledge to the LiveEQ experience and help open doors in the equine world to everyone who wants in.”

How it Works
LiveEQ is a free and user-friendly app available for download on the App Store or Google Play. It has familiar features like other popular apps. According to Anne, it's easy to use with no learning curve. The app allows users to post horses for sale, job opportunities, and barn-related listings. It also provides advanced filters for sale horses based on breed, location, price, and skill set, with options to upload photos and videos, and access service providers.

Top LiveEQ Features

Jobs
“An area we have started to focus on heavily is the jobs in the equine industry.” LiveEQ recently partnered with the National Collegiate Equestrian Association (NCEA) to facilitate a mission around jobs and to provide opportunities for traditional jobs in the industry including grooms, working students, trainers, etc. They have also opened up non-traditional equestrian jobs like marketing, finance and business development in equine industry companies and provide space for companies to post who they are looking for. This is free for them to post. On the candidate side, there are equestrians who are great marketers, accountants, and salespeople and who really want to work in the equine industry. “We're bridging the gap for young people and connecting those coming out of college as an equine rider, to keep working with horses in another capacity and for more seasoned professionals to allow them to start or even continue a career in the equine industry,” explained Anne.

Service Providers
“We’ve been busy adding a section dedicated to searching for service providers, this includes farriers, equine dentists, bodywork specialists, photographers, the list goes on.” This area of the app helps round out the equine journey, by making it easy to go there and find those providers, plus it is free for providers to list their services. This is key for those on the business side because it is location based, which allows users to view providers by entering their zip codes and selecting a radius along with other filters and amenities placed on top. “I would encourage all providers to list themselves because people are actively looking for services near them,” Anne pointed out.

Ad Network
“The LiveEQ ad network is designed for brands to connect with their exact target equestrian,” Anne explained. The network supports all social media ad formats including vertical videos, carousel ads, and regular image ads, and it focuses mainly on engaging ads that people like to interact with. “We are the only solution provider that offers this type of service for the equestrian market and there is also segmentation available at a very detailed level.” This powerful marketing tool allows companies to market specifically to horse trainers or amateur riders that are located in a certain zip code with an equestrian need. In addition, the ad network helps fosters a deep connection between brands and their target audience. “We've built out the ad network similarly to Facebook ads, so we have no long-term contracts and no monthly minimums allowing you to scale your budget up or down at any time,” Anne said. The network is CPM based providing that modern ad tech world solution for the equine market with in-app advertising.

Feedback & Future Horse Tech
“I encourage users to reach out with suggestions for the app - it makes me feel good as a founder to hear from equestrians because I put my heart and soul into this, and I want to help people succeed,” Anne shared and added, “Plus, it’s easy to get caught up in the day-to-day business and seeing those messages helps me know we're helping people.”

“As it relates to the pace of horse tech adoption, I think that in five years there will be more tech focused on the health and wellness space for the everyday owner. There are a couple of products that I've seen that are becoming more affordable for the average horse owner and I think that will become a reality five years down the road.”

LiveEQ Website

Follow on:
Instagram: @liveeqapp