Plain and simple, there's no better place for entrepreneurs to look for advice than from other entrepreneurs. Looking to someone who's been in your shoes before is the best way to expand your understanding of your struggles in founding a startup and hurdle over them. Sometimes though, access to those experienced and knowledgeable founders is not as easy as it might seem. Thus, InTheCapital brings you "Ask A founder," posing questions to startup founders big and small on how they got to where they are.
It's all about simplifying, promoting and maximizing giving. Formerly working together at LivingSocial, two of Changecause's four co-founders, Zack Liscio and Edward Ridgely, joined Patrick Costello and Michael Seid with the idea that millennial demographic was not being reached for philanthropic causes. However, they decided that with a social platform that brings together donors, causes and sponsors, they could not only overcome this barrier, but also maximize giving and promote the cause and the sponsoring companies by amplifying them over social networks. It's a win for all parties.
Changecause is simple – all you do is login to your account, select one of the non-profits from the rapidly-expanding list, determine a micro-donation amount ($1-$5), pay via Amazon and then a corresponding sponsor will match your donation, doubling your impact. Changecause will broadcast your donation on the social network of your choosing to spread the word about the organization you care about and spotlight the sponsoring company. For instance, right now Commonwealth Joe is sponsoring the Arlington Free Clinic so that when users donate a dollar or two, the actual amount to the clinic will be $2 or $4. Awesome, right?
The crew didn't get to a successful platform overnight, though. And they're still working out Changecause's kinks in closed beta, adapting to their current users needs. However they're making huge strides. Just today the startup announced a partnership with New York City's Slice Out Hunger on Oct. 9. With all proceeds going to the Food Bank For New York City, Changecause will facilitate the sale of donated pizza from top pizzerias for $1 donations, which will then be matched by Scott's Pizza Tours. Last year, more than $12,000 was raised. With Changecause's platform, if that number is repeated, it means more than $24,000 will go to the Food Bank.
Liscio and Ridgely explained a few of the lessons they've learned since taking on Changecause full-time earlier this year and how they're building their lean philanthropic startup from the ground up:
Ideas can come from the most random places – what was Changecause's light bulb moment?
Ridgely: "The idea for me clicked when I was sitting in church one day and I saw the offertory basket go around and realized that nobody had cash anymore. For me that was that moment that people want to give, that's very clear. But at the same time, nobody carries cash anymore and there's not really a dominant fundraising player in the game yet."
Set aggressive goals and be patient.
Ridgely: "When we were talking to people early on, somebody told us that it was going to cost twice as much as expected and take three times as long. That's more or less been true. We thought we were going to have a product a lot sooner than we actually did. When you start anything, you have this wide-eyed expectation that it's going to happen tomorrow night, you know, but it takes a lot longer."
Liscio: "I think we both had that value from being at LivingSocial. "Live hungry" was always part of the culture. It means set aggressive goals. But if you're setting them aggressively enough, you're going to miss some of them in terms of time, and learning to realize that that's okay. But if you're hitting all your goals, you're not being nearly aggressive enough."
"Get on the rocket ship."
Ridgely: "The company I was working for until about a month ago – 2U – had a really good quote when I started working there by Eric Schmidt where he was telling Sheryl Sandberg whether or not she should join Google: 'Get on the rocket ship because the politics will take care of themselves.' If you're all committed in doing something and working full steam and it's good idea and everyone's working contributing to their own piece – if everyone's committed and anxious to work on something the collaboration will come and you'll see the results."
Liscio: "Ship it as soon as you can. Whatever you built, put it out into real users' hands and let them play with it. Most of the assumptions you've made are wrong in some way. Not necessarily in a big way, but you'll find that people want to use your product in a way that you hadn't anticipated. People are going to find that things you thought very intuitive are hard to use and they're going to really like things that you had under-valued. Real feedback from your actual product – I don't think there's any substitute to that."
If you have a question you'd like to see answered on "Ask A Founder," please respond in a comment or email me at billy@inthecapital.com.
