By Emily Blackwood
From growing up playing lacrosse to earning a bachelor’s degree in English to studying business in London to starting a career in finance to co-founding an app with his cousin, Dylan’s Barbour’s next move is never quite what you’ll think it’ll be.
So it wasn’t much of a surprise when he landed one of the 30 coveted roles on this season of ABC’s “The Bachelorette.”
Barbour is now one of 15 men left competing for the heart of Hannah Brown. While we know he’s made it this far, Barbour was hesitant to reveal any specifics about his time on the show.
“I never thought I would do it,” he said. “It was a great experience, and I’m really happy that I did it.”
Barbour’s contestant bio describes him as an entrepreneur who “loves to drive his boat, scuba dive and cook up a big meal.” While vague job descriptions have long been a point of amusement for Bachelor Nation contestants, Barbour’s is legit. In 2017, he created an app called Vizer with his cousin, Samantha Pantazopoulos, that encourages people to work out while also donating food to those in need.
Vizer works by setting activity challenges each day; either 30 minutes of exercise tracked with a wearable monitor like a Fitbit or an Apple Watch, or 10,000 steps tracked with your phone. You could also meet the daily fitness goal if you take a class at one of Vizer’s partner studios like Corepower Yoga in Pacific Beach or Verve Studios.
If you meet that daily goal, you can then donate one meal to the Jacobs & Cushman San Diego Food Bank, which earns you a point. Points can be redeemed for free drinks and appetizers at local restaurants like Bird Rock Coffee Roasters, Parakeet Cafe, Powerhaus Pizza and The Patio on Lamont.
While Barbour and Pantazopoulos hope to expand and one day take their business nationally, their original goal was to help their hometown of San Diego.
“It’s built by San Diego for San Diego,” he said. “I lived in LA, London, New York, and San Francisco, and San Diego just treats us really, really well. So being able to kind of give back galvanizes everybody behind one cause. You can see it actually impacting your community. It’s really cool and it makes it more real for everyone.
“It just feels good to be able to give back. We’re all, in the grand scheme of things, in really good positions in life. So being able to elevate others has always been the goal.”
For more information on Vizer, visit vizerapp.com. Watch Barbour compete on “The Bachelorette,” every Monday at 8 p.m. on ABC.
—Emily Blackwood can be reached at [email protected].
