Goodbye 2016. Hello 2017!

Over the past few weeks I have done a lot of reflection on this past year. As a One Donation Co-Founder and Project Manager, I have reflected on items both personal and related to One Donation. Many important lessons have been learned over the past year but I want to take a moment to highlight a few of the bigger accomplishments of 2016.

These accomplishments include::

– Added additional advisors to our team:
Joe Brittain – 19 years of experience consulting and implementing Human Resource Information Systems (HRIS).
Peter Marsh – founding Member of Flywheel Co-working and New Ventures Club, a membership based investment organization in North Carolina.
Robert Schmidt – 38 years of experience in business development and operating companies including First Pay TV service in former USSR, First U.S. Teleport, and Co-Founder of C-SPAN.
James Treakle – a Vietnam Veteran, General Practice attorney and a successful real estate investor.
John Usedom – 25 years developing and growing B2B organizations and teams and designing customer loyalty systems .

– Began the migration from an app to a platform that can accept donations via payroll deduction.
– Initiated name change from Pass the Plate to One Donation.

Reflecting on the previous year is a great exercise, and energized us for setting goals for the next year. In 2017 we have set our eyes on some big goals and look forward to sharing our progress with you in the weeks and months to come.

In the year to come:

– We will be releasing the newly updated and rebranded One Donation app in both iTunes and Google Play store in Q1.
– We will begin testing our payroll deduction donation system with a variety of small businesses in Q1.
– We are building a custom integration into a major payroll provider and will offer the integration to the provider as an added benefit for their thousands of businesses.

I hope you will follow One Donation over the next few months to watch our progress. We will continue to provide you with updates and other exciting announcements via our website and social media accounts.

Website: http://OneDonation.org

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/1Donation/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/One_Donation

Have questions, please email our founders at founders(at)onedonation.org

Early Stage Growth Part II: Branding and Expanding

One-Donation-Logo

StartUpGrind SoCal was good for our team on many fronts. Our story is not so much different than other start ups, but there are some exceptions.

Our team is from the East Coast, and since our team was traveling across the country to Southern California, we wanted to maximize our time and booked appointments for before and after the StartUpGrind event. This took quite a bit of work before jumping on our plane to Los Angeles.

What this meant was looking through Eventbrite, Meetup, and other local event websites to find things to do, and people to visit. I would estimate about 10 hours went into research and due diligence to choose which events are team should attend.  

For instance the first night after the StartUpGrind event, we pitched at a local “Pitch Globally Shark Tank Style” hosted by Kaustav Chaudhuri. There was a small fee to pitch but all we had to do was register and show up.  

https://www.meetup.com/pitchglobally/

At the pitch event, we met a CEO of a large venture fund, an experienced silicon valley founder and author (Lance Elliott) and several investors/advisor types, all of whom we have followed up, and some have made additional introductions.

Link to Lance Blog  http://www.lance-blog.com (Immerse yourself in content published by experts. Here is one that you may find useful.

Link to Lance Book  http://amzn.to/2hEyHNe  (Great book to help prepare for pitching your business idea.)

Second, we secured lodging using AirBnB and secured a place to stay that was near the StartUpGrind event that included a pool…so yes, it was a nice place. The AirBnB provided a great time to sit out under the stars and chat about the direction of Pass the Plate – a mastermind group time of sorts.  

Toward the end of our time in California, an execution plan was hatched. The question of how was answered. The next 60 day would be focused on accomplishing specific objectives.

“Branding and Expanding”

From wheels up at SoCal StartUpGrind the rule of the day was follow up, follow up, follow up. Both my brother Ross and I, on separate planes, heading in separate directions followed up with people that we had met.

We recently had adopted a CRM called Insightly that installs nicely with Google. Using this system, I took a few photos of business cards to have processed, and then put in a few myself. Emails were sent…

At wheels down, we knew that we were no longer Pass the Plate. We had become ONE DONATION. No longer would we be a stand alone application that let donors give to any nonprofit that they wanted to, we would now open the platform to allow for payroll deduction donations, giving the donor even more power to give to the nonprofit of their choice. And one more thing… wait for it… we have other plans too!

We are ONE DONATION.  And we will help change the world one donation at a time.  

Until the next post…

Do you want assistance in selecting a nonprofit to donate to in 2017?=

Use the link below and answer a short survey.  Based on your answers, our team will send you 3 nonprofits that may fit with what you are looking for.

http://bit.ly/2isnhvV

Would you like for your company to take payroll deductions for your favorite nonprofit?  Please answer a short survey to determine if our platform is available at your company.

http://bit.ly/2iohxkg    

Early Stage Growth: Part 1

SoCal

Contemplating the “what’s next” is a serious dilemma for any entrepreneur who is starting a company and building it from the ground up.

Gone are the questions like “Is this going to work?” “Am I going to be able to see my product?”

The new questions are:

How am I going to get my product to market?

What is the cost to acquire a customer?

What is the value of each customer?

What is my plan for growth?

Is my plan for growth sustainable?

For Pass the Plate, these questions and several more have become the questions that we need to address and the answers that we must find.

Getting a product out into the marketplace is one of the most difficult hurdles that must be overcome.

What we have found with Pass the Plate is that our early adopters have been important part of the early stage growth.

Why?

Our early adopters have given feedback early in the development process that has allowed our company which operates under Agile principles to make necessary course corrections to help bring the best possible product to market.

For instance, with Pass the Plate, one item of feedback from early adopters was having issues with the search function.

While this is important for us to correct, we have learned that this seemingly simple function is not only important but very expensive when done correctly. Fortunately, for us while at a StartupGrind event in Los Angeles we met an engineer who have a simple solution for our platform.

Another item that early adopters wanted was a method to more closely monitor their donations. From making the donation on the Pass the Plate platform all the way into their chosen charities bank account. Then if possible, the donors wanted to be able to make sure that the charity that they gave them donation too was actually being responsible with that donation.

Wow… thats a lot to say. But it is very enlightening. Donors want transparency. So then, you would think, if we were to build a platform that gave 100% transparency, then the donors would all come running… Not so fast!!!

What donors want and what donors will actually use can be vastly different. This is part of what we have found!

More on user habits and what that story tells us in my next article.

Start up: The Journey Part IV “What Numbers?!”

PTP logos FOR SOCIALOh… the many adventures of a “start-up.”

A “start-up” is commonly defined as a company or entrepreneurial venture in the form of a company, a partnership or temporary organization designed to search for a repeatable and scalable business model.

There can be several variations to this definition. Some attach a length or time in business, others impose a revenue variable. Whatever the case the next question is,

“So when does a start up begin to no longer a “start-up”?

As a young business, we at Pass the Plate wanted to address this question and see where we were at in our quest to make giving easy.

So for some perspective, let’s recap the Pass the Plate journey…

About 24 months ago, we validated the initial business model by listening to potential customers to finding out pain points. This took about 6 months… (about 5 months longer than we thought it would). Everyone was very “part time.”

Next, we built a limited working prototype, not a MVP and then completing the market research… Another 6 months.

This feedback confirmed our initial assumptions, but we encountered resistance in the part of friends who ran different non-profits. How will this help us? What about our current solutions?

Feedback on a whole was positive… donors did not think that non-profits were taking advantage of technology to raise funds some were even unhappy that non-profits sometimes made it difficult to give. On the other hand, friends who ran their own non-profit questioned why they would implement yet another way for their members to give money. “We already use Pay Pal”, or “We already take credit cards” even the “we just started to use text to give…. wait for it… and love it!”

Thus, we were encouraged to continue to focus on building the experience around the donor experience and not building a product to sell to non-profit business’.

Our theory is that by making the donation experience positive and as frictionless as possible for the donor, we will increase overall donations.

From this round of feedback, we removed several more obstacles to giving, and streamlined the entire process. This would later become our “full production” model.

“Full production” means all the security issues are addressed, issues of instant scalability addressed, error reporting etc, have been addressed and that the app overall works. (This took about 9 total months with 6 months of that dedicated to programming and back end database administration.)

With the minimum viable product up and running, we started conducting real world market research.phonev2

As an operations guy with Pass the Plate, I think of this part of our start up journey as priming the pump as we are getting ready to take our solution and scale.

For an illustration, when I think of starting something up, I think of starting a lawn mower. You know, you bend down, take a hold of the black handle that is attached to a chord. That chord is attached to a motor belt.

But what happens if you pull the chord and nothing happens? Did you forget to prime the pump? Did you know that you even had to prime the pump? Priming the pump puts gas into the carburetor so that that when the chord is pulled, the engine will start and you can proceed to cut your lawn.

In the start up world, specifically in the technology space, priming the pump helps determine whether the business idea works in the first place (is it the right kind of gas) and is venture scalable.

For Pass the Plate, priming the pump was accomplished by gathering feedback from early adopters, drilling down on user habits, and completing the sales cycles.

To this end, we began to answer a few key questions…

What is the cost to acquire a customer? What is the value of a customer? How often do they give? Do they refer others? What are other ways to add value to the customer experience? How do we use donor feedback? What types of customers are most attractive to the business?

Additionally, from an operational perspective in this the mid life cycle “start-up” we needed to complete several key tasks. Here are some…

We built a Pipeline management tool to manage the steps in the donation process.

For instance, when someone adds a non-profit that they could not find in the database, what does that look like?

Submission… Validation (make sure we validate) … Response (we may add, we may not add with reason, we will message the person that submitted the request.

Or

A donation is made, the money comes into the PTP account, we then cut the check to the non profit and mark it as pending. Once the check is cashed, we mark the donation as paid.

Going through interactions like these has allowed us to improve and automate. For instance, if someone wants to add a non profit and we are unable to find it, then there are several items we need to collect for compliance reasons. Among these are 2 documents and a signature. Initially we had to create the process… now it is done, more efficient, and scalable.

With the MVP product up and running we have also been able to gather data from the use of the app. How many people downloaded the app? Where did they come from? Did the users donate? If not why? How many repeat visitors? How much time in the application?

Wow, that’s a lot of stuff! Now what about the numbers!?

We have a certain number downloads and a certain number of donations, each donor that actually gives or donates 2.8 times per month. What can we do to make them donate more?

On Twitter, when we thank someone by a direct message or post, for following Pass the Plate we have a click through rate of only 10%. Not that good… however some of those people then share or favorite the “thank you for the follow.” We then get a 6x response rate. So the for every 1 out to 10 people that follow Pass the Plate, we get 6 click throughs to read the Pass the Plate blog. Now how do we convert these same people to Pass the Plate users who vive 2.8 times per month?

Other results that are good are sales. Users. Donations. With minimal effort, these are coming in… Now there is the B2B sales, the non-profits that want to start to use Pass the Plate in as part of their own donation experience. Well want started out as a steady trickle has turned into a steady stream. Over 20 non-profits are in the pipeline to use Pass the Plate several of which have already signed up.

So what is the next step?

Well, I believe we will continue to be aggressive in working with other non-profit groups. The immediate plan is to stick with our monthly goal for this month (March) and shoot for a 300% increase in April.

Additionally, for the month of April we are starting to put emphasis on strategic partnerships. These are partnerships or alliances that will give Pass the Plate access to thousands of potential donors at a time.

In conclusion…

For Pass the Plate priming the pump or the “start up” has meant more than 10 presentations in front of large audiences (more than 30 usually around 75 sometimes over 100), answering the questions, and building responses.

Priming the pump has meant asking friends and family to “Like” our Pass the Plate fan page, and if they really loved us to comment and like our posts every now and then.

For operations, priming the pump has meant learning the in’s and outs of how social medial should interact with a business before handing it off to a more seasoned veteran. It has meant building business systems that will make the machine work.

For compliance, priming the pump has meant talking to and working with attorneys and accountants.

For the Founders team, it has meant persistence and determination. I like to call it “Grit”.

Here is the the Pass the Plate team, who have pursued the dream. We have started, we are no longer a “start-up!” Let’s finish this race strong. Let’s make giving easy!

How can we serve you?

proxyThis past week marked an important step in the start-up processes here at Pass the Plate. What is that you may ask?  Validation.

Let me explain…

When we started Pass the Plate, we made several hypotheses:

First, we believed that there would be a slow adoption rate of our new technology directly from non-profits. Second, we believed that people who attend church have donating or tithing on their minds on a weekly basis and thus make up the ideal target market. Third, we believed that cash donations place several limiting factors on both donors and the non-profit.

So what has happened this past week?

The 1st hypothesis, while still having plenty of time to prove itself correct, may in fact be wrong!  This is very good for Pass the Plate.

This is what we have found…Cb_tBwxWAAA5QQD

Large established non-profit organizations are entrenched in “the old ways of doing things,” however they are starting to realize that they must keep up with the times to stay relevant and attract new donors who will eventually carry the financial burden of financing the non-profit. They are starting to experiment with different ways of equipping their donors. This fact is demonstrated  by the increased adoption rate of services like text to give among larger established non-profits.

While in concept “text to give” is a great service, it is still inefficient and cumbersome for several reasons to the donor and to the organization. Furthermore, because this industry is still in its infancy in terms of technology, there is little competition and any large providers would have to pivot their business model to compete with Pass the Plate.

We believe it is a matter of time before larger non-profits begin to utilize the technology behind Pass the Plate – our solution is easier.

Smaller non-profits and new non-profits are willing to try new things. For these organizations, their adoption cycle into using new technology seems to be shorter.   Many smaller organizations have explored options like PayPal because of their low or no monthly service fees, but are unhappy with parts of their service. Others are not happy with the monthly fees, some as high as $70 per month with only $100-$200 in online donations.

Because of these findings, we now believe that the business to business strategy is a relevant part of our go to market strategy as there seems to be much less resistance than anticipated.

While building Pass the Plate we focused on the donor, each decision that we made was donor driven, what we have found is that we have addressed many of the consumer needs as well.

This leads us to the second hypothesis.

Since we launched “Open Beta” early January 2016, we have taken on several customers and have formed relationships with organizations that will use the Pass the Plate application regularly, it will be interesting to see the penetration levels and use when promoted locally. Will users be encouraged to make monthly donations or will it be on a weekly basis? We made Pass the Plate so simple to use that it could be used as the offering plate was passed.

Quick, we need a data scientist!

The third hypothesis has been validated. Multiple conversations with strangers from across the country who are in the business of collecting donations agree. Cash does not have a name, address, email address, and therefore a method to follow up or track. By encouraging Pass the Plate over cash or check, non-profits can have access to valuable information that other payment forms do not provide.

In conclusion, our goal to make giving easy is paramount in everything that we do. This is the reason for the title of this article “How may we serve you?”

Pass the Plate wants to eliminate as many boundaries to giving as possible.

This past week at the NRB convention, we received confirmation that our mission is needed by both non-profits and donors. The feedback that we received from donors and non-profit organizations was positive across the board. We were even interviewed for a radio segment by Called2Action.

People want a solution that makes giving easier, a solution that makes record keeping easier, and a solution that increases efficiency. Pass the Plate is this solution. Pass the Plate is #GivingMadeEasy.

As a start-up we have found it valuable to request feedback from users and potential business partners. This started with TechBreakfast in several locations and then to IdeaTap and IdeaSlam. Each time we have tried to learn more. As such, if you read this article and have questions, please post them. We would love to hear from you.

This is what we need you to do.

1.  Download the Pass the Plate app

2. Donate to your favorite non-profit

3. Give us feedback (actually wait for us to contact you… we will)

 

Start Up: The Journey Part III

There is quite a bit going on at Pass the Plate these days. In this post, we are going to update you a little on what is happening behind the scenes.

As with most businesses, there are two faces to the business. The side that faces the public (in our case the Pass the Plate phone application and website) and the side that is behind the scenes. For Pass the Plate, this is database maintenance, sales funnel management etc.

So today, we are going to talk about what is going on behind the scenes at Pass the Plate. Our foremost objective is to make giving easy, but we must not forget all of the work that goes into making that possible…

Early on in our discovery process, we determined that the donation process was one that had many different pain points and that in order for Pass the Plate to be successful, we had to fix or eliminate as many of these pain points as possible. When looking at the general online experience of donors that are looking to give online, we found the process to by clunky and outdated. We wanted the Pass the Plate user experience to be much better.

This experience starts the moment a customer downloads the Pass the Plate application. For Pass the Plate, a simple “search” function was an easy step in the right direction. Unlike other donation services who have a limited database, Pass the Plate allows the potential donor to make a donation to any of the 1.6 million non-profits in our database.

But what if a donor can not find the non-profit?

To answer this problem, in early January, with the release of our minimum viable product or MVP we included an add a charity button that returns in the event that a user is not able to find their desired non-profit. While admittedly, this function still needs some UI improvement (User Interface), we are happy with the results we have seen.

Immediately after implementation of the add a non-profit function, we started to receive requests to add non-profits to the database.

While this is a good, it creates a potential bottleneck in the Pass the Plate pipeline. What is meant by this is that there MUST be a process that is followed each and every time a non-profit is added to the Pass the Plate database. Not to get too complicated, but we are talking about IRS rules here, and we need to be sure we are following acceptable practices of verification.

I’ll address how we solved this problem in just a bit…

Another item that we had to address on the back end after the launch of the MVP was the process that each non-profit had to go through once a donation occurs. Let me explain…You download the Pass the Plate application and then make a donation to your favorite non-profit. Next what happens?

First, the merchant account charges your credit card, then the merchant deposits the funds into the bank account. While that is happening, we generate a record of the transaction that triggers a check getting cut, mail getting sent out, then verification that the check was cashed etc. Additionally, a call must be put into a que so that Pass the Plate can contact the non-profit.

Clearly, that is lots of stuff to manage…

Sure it is!  But we are so fortunate to have technology that can help us to do many of these items.

To managing the different pipelines i.e. add a non-profit, donation received etc. we use a system called Pipedrive. Pipedrive allows users to set up different pipelines and edit the phases of the pipelines etc. For us, this because a simple and intuitive tool that we could use in the early phases of Pass the Plate.

For the checks getting cut and mail going out…initially we have been handling this process in our office so that we could make sure we had a handle of the sequencing and timing of events. We have already contacted and interviewed several companies that can handle this part of the process quicker and more cost effectively than we could do ourselves.

In summary, we are still a start up and are finding creative and inexpensive ways to manage our business better and more efficiently. As we grow, we are sure to adopt technology that is more integrated. For now, this works. Things get done and our customers do not fall through the cracks.

In our next blog post about what is going on at Pass the Plate we will discuss the customer journey and what we are doing to improve it.

Start Up: The Journey Part II

Start-up Weekend

Start-up Weekend

In the previous post, I mentioned “community”. In this post, I will summarize what I have done in the past 6 months.  What I hope that you get out of this summary is immersion. Immerse yourself in the community – work hard and learn.

Several mornings a week I get to the office earlier than most. This means that I get to make the coffee. I don’t mind making the coffee. Quite honestly, I like it. Its fresh ground and good.

So what does that have to do with community? Well, the first point is that you need to be there, meaning being present, to be a part of the community. Personally, I try to make it a daily habit to say hello to as many people as possible. The Pass the Plate office is at a place called Flywheel. It is a relatively small co-working space at 10,000 square feet.

Idea Pitch  is a monthly event where people pitch ideas. I have attended several since I have been located in the co-working space. At the idea pitches I have heard from companies that are at different stages in the start-up process. Some of the pitches have been ideas that were literally put together the weekend before, others have been from PhD students in the community that are working on a side project. Really cool stuff. Really smart people.

Note: As an audience member, the experience is positive because you get hear common questions from an audience. You get to ask questions too. Additionally there is time to network with other professionals in the area.

Having these personal conversations over and over again helps to hone your presentation skills. It has taken quite some time now, but for the most part, because of these opportunities, Pass the Plate has had the opportunity to develop a 15 second elevator pitch, 30 second pitch and 2 minute pitch and even hone in on common questions.

Other community opportunities have been thinks like.

Start-up weekend – Start-up weekend is an emersion weekend taking a new idea from start to Minimum Viable Product. 6-11 on Friday, 8AM -10PM or later on Saturday, and then 8AM- 4PM then a live pitch to VC and panel Sunday.

(You can read about my experience here or see if there is one in your area here)

Classes – First is How to Start a Start up. Sponsored by our co-working space and is a curriculum of classes put on at Stanford University and many other readings. It is a 12 week class and meets once a week for two hours.

Another was put on by Wake Forest Law School, and learned about the Securities and Exchange Law. I have recently registered Pass the Plate up for a class to be taught by Wake Forest Law beginning January 2016. The Wake Forest Community Law Clinic also announced regular office hours open to the public. Because of attending events like these, Pass the Plate now has the opportunity to submit projects for Law Students to work on during the next semester. This could amount in significant savings to the company on simple legal work like filling out state complaisance forms!

Internet Summit Raleigh 2015

Internet Summit Raleigh 2015

Long Distance – Pass the Plate has also participated in programs that involve a little traveling.  Our first incubator program was EntreDot out of Durham North Carolina (about an hour drive) and we have attended TechBreakfast in Raleigh (90 minute drive) for the past 6 months. We have also attended several other summits on the East Coast.

All of this to say, is that in the Pass the Plate journey, it has been very helpful to be active in the community. Talking, watching, learning, answering questions, asking questions, to the community have all given our team the insight, direction, correction, and wisdom we needed to get where we are today.

As we move into a full launch and then hopefully growing our brand in 2016, we will continue to be a part of the community and look forward to learning and contributing more.

Start-up: The Journey

Moving into a co-working space was one of the best things we could have done for the Pass the Plate business. In Winston Salem there are a few options, and we choose to work out of Flywheel. There are several reasons why.

  1. Energy – Being around other start-up companies and other entrepreneurs makes for a good environment. Throw in a few people that work for larger companies but do so remotely, and what you have is a stew of interesting people with many different skills and backgrounds.
  2. Mentors – It is good to be abound people that have been around the block, we can use their experience to help solve a few of our problems.

    Flywheel Coffee bar with community wall in the background

    Flywheel Coffee bar with community wall in the background

  3. Coffee – In my office that means Krankies Coffee fresh brewed… all day…
  4. Community – There are more than 30 different companies that work out of my location. A few of them are larger and have 4-8 employees, some are start ups, others include several attorneys and an accountant or two, a few web developers… you get the picture.
  5. Conference Rooms – While some businesses do not require meetings, others do.  Just having the access to conference rooms that are equipped with white boards, projectors or screens etc. is a nice thing.

In the next post, we will talk about the many different ways that Pass the Plate has become more involved in the community.  If you are reading this and you are a start up, then it may give you a few ideas of how you can become involved in your local start up community. If you are reading this and are not a start up, and are just wanting to learn more about the folks over at Pass the Plate, then great!  These posts will hopefully let you know that we are people too. We are just a group of guys who decided to together to try to make the world a better place one donation at a time. This is our story.

,

The Christmas Season with Pass the Plate

MVP product is almost here! Keep up the improvements!

MVP product is almost here! Keep up the improvements!

I must admit, traveling with Pass the Plate has been very interesting. First and foremost, I have had the opportunity to learn and hear from other tech entrepreneurs on the East Coast through the TechBreakfast forum’s.

Over the Christmas holiday was no different with the exception that I was able to take my family with me on this trip. As many of you are aware, school is out around the Christmas holiday, and my wife Julie took a week off of work so that we could travel. So off we went to the Maryland TechBreakfast.  Our first stop was in Charlottesville, Virginia to visit with family and have dinner. Then off to Maryland on a late night excursion to a wonderful hotel. The Christmas decorations were fantastic and the staff welcomed us with warm cookies when we checked in for the night.

It was nice to see where Dr. Ben Carson practiced medicine, as well as to see the wonderful architecture of the area. The TechBreakfast presentation itself marked a milestone for Pass the Plate. This was the first presentation/demo where we were able to go through the entire donation process without a hitch. Yes… this means it works!

From a founding team standpoint, this is a pretty large milestone. Why might you ask?  Well for starters, we thought that we were going to have a completely functional application delivered to us at the end of October. Then after several iterations of search enhancements, several “found” features that were in the original build but somehow disappeared when the MVP was released etc. we are now here…except a little button that has already been developed and is scheduled in the next release of Pass the Plate on December 29, 2015. Of course iOS will then take roughly 9 days to approve the new release…

Ok, so back to the tech breakfast presentation. With the presentation being a success, we were approached by several attendees with feedback and potential contacts in the non-profit space.

As normal practice, we exchanged business cards and spoke for a few minutes. Now, the next part is very important for anyone that is in business. What I then do with the Pass the Plate contacts that I make is to put them into a CRM system so that I can follow up with them at a later time and make the connection more meaningful.

There are two main reasons why getting feedback and referrals from early adopters is very important to the overall growth strategy of Pass the Plate.

First, we want to address concerns and the needs of our customer/end users. Our goal is that all solutions that we put forth in the Pass the Plate application will make the giving experience easier for the user. Our guiding principle is #GivingMadeEasy

Second is that we believe that through emersion in the tech community we can help to build a buzz around the Pass the Plate product. Again, this fits with the goal/theme of Pass the Plate – to make giving easy.

Here are two examples of what I just mentioned.

While in Washington DC, a customer mentioned that they were not able to find a particular non-profit using the search function.  This lead us to uncover that the add a non profit function had been somehow omitted from the last iteration.

This has been corrected and will be included in build 3.0.

While presenting at the Austin Forum, in December of 2015, we were approached by local influencers in the nonprofit community.   This spurred two follow-up conversations.

Austin Texas

Austin Texas

The first with a community organizer that will help Pass the Plate get in touch with several non-profits that would be willing to partner with Pass the Plate at the next SXSW event. The idea is that Pass the Plate would partner with 5 different non profits at the SXSW event and then help them raise money for their cause.

The second was with a gentleman who runs a company that helps cities connect with its residence in the digital world. In other words, you live in say my home town of Winston Salem North Carolina, and then Winston Salem would partner with this gentleman’s company to provide a web portal into the different services offered in and around Winston Salem.

So now, it is a few days prior to the New Year, and Pass the Plate is positioning itself to make giving easy and to work with wonderful strategic partners in 2016.

As a side note, yet NOT a note of insignificance. We at Pass the Plate are deeply touched by tragic events that happen on a regular basis. Most recently tornados touched down and left much devastation in their wake. We reach out to those effected in prayer and hope to in the near future be able to use our application to help fund worthy efforts to help restore the families and communities that have lost so much. Stay tuned in to see how the Pass the Plate Foundation can help your community.

Startup Weekend – Winston-Salem, NC

Picture3

My Startup Weekend began with a trip to Washington DC. The day before I had driven to Washington DC to meet with the  programming team at OmniTi.

We needed to re-evaluate our scope and focus on the next release of the Pass The Plate. With the “Launch itus” issues experienced with the first release, it was important that we have a clean transition into the second build-out.

Friday morning, I had a meeting in Washington DC called Ask a VC DC.  This was an event where there were several venture capital groups. The idea was that startups could ask them questions in an open round table format. When the event ended at noon, I drove back to Winston Salem.

Oh yea… when I drive, I listen to Audible (books on tape) this trip the selection was ScalingUp by Verne Harnish. This is a book written for the Gazelle training group and part of which included the Rockefeller Habits.

This background is to help frame my mindset as I was entering into the Startup Weekend. I had spent the past 2 days in intensive meetings relating to all things Pass The Plate and was looking forward to 54 hours of insanity. -lol

To cut to the chase, first things first… Startup Weekend is a great experience for anyone that wants to learn more about the Startup process.  Even if you are a seasoned entrepreneur, this experience is worth the time and effort. I recommend everyone to go through a Startup Weekend as a participant. Chances are you will come back, either to participate again, or to coach.

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I took away several items from Startup Weekend. First and foremost, I learned how to compact a learning curve from hypothesis, to test, to results to MVP. This will be very important as Pass The Plate goes through future iterations. Second, I learned that there is lots of talent in my own backyard.

It was a pleasure to see two North Carolina A&T students banging out their project. They outworked everyone else and stayed the night Saturday working on their project. It was exciting to see a Wake Forest grad student propose an idea that he had been brainstorming – he got teamed up with an experienced bio medical professional to put a project in motion that could speed up drug trials using computer science.

To make things even better, a member of my own team was a IT recruiter, and one of the coaches that worked with our group ran a local design and marketing firm.

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At the time of this writing, Pass The Plate has contacted the two seniors from NC A&T and has an interview with them next week for them to work on a small project as in interview. We look forward to hiring a few talented individuals, and the Startup Weekend provided great contacts in that area.

– Graham Treakle