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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.