Start Up: The Journey Part II

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!

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.