š Up-to-speed with SpotDrop
SpotDrop's progress to date and priorities for November/December 2022.
Happy November! We hope youāre well and are having a great start to the month. Iām currently sitting outside at a cafe in Boston wearing a t-shirt and shorts finding it hard to believe that the Winter months are around the corner!
As the first edition of SpotDropās Friends and Family Newsletter, I want to use this opportunity to bring you up to speed with our progress to date and where we will be focusing our time for the month of November.
The App Todayā¦
As SpotDrop stands, we have been designing, building, and playing around with the app since July 2021. In that time, we have been able to establish a strong online presence, build our MVP, run a beta testing program with ~500 users, secure a partnership with OpenTable, and foster relationships with key food & drink spots in Boston as well as foodie influencers. We are fortunate to have the continuous support of mentors, entrepreneurship programs, and peers. To date, some notable achievements are SpotDropās participation in Start@Sheaās Accelerator ProgramĀ and placing third in theĀ Strakosh Venture Competition.
We are currently developing Version 1 of SpotDrop, the version we want to use for our launch and go-to-market, based on the data and feedback from our beta testing program. The program showed us that thereās demand by foodies for a solution like SpotDrop and validated key features.
However, not everything has been sunshine and rainbowsā¦
We have recently been struggling to keep up the pace of development. Our main iOS developer was finding it hard to balance school as well as SpotDrop, and ultimately decided to take a step back from the company to focus on his academics. This is something we did not anticipate and it has unfortunately slowed down the development of Version 1.
Moreover, weāre starting to experience the challenges of bootstrapping the business and not having cash in the bank. I have been funding SpotDrop to date, but canāt sustain the monthly cost for much longer or fund initiatives the team comes up with. The biggest challenge this has brought is on the hiring side. Weāre able to get creative with go-to-market and growth, but even with equity offers, not being able to compensate someone financially has proven very difficult on the recruiting side.
Looking ahead at Novemberā¦
Our priority is finding someone that can join the team with the technical know-how and experience to pick up the development of Version 1. We are āall hands on deckā to find this person and have been targeting entrepreneurship centers, CS clubs and organizations, newsletters, and Slack channels at universities in the Boston area.
Alongside recruiting, we are also finalizing our preparation to raise our first round of financing. We are spending time updating our deck, practicing our pitch, and getting feedback on our approach to the fundraising process and material. We are also having conversations with mentors and peers to better understand whether a friends-and-family round or a pre-seed round would make more sense for SpotDrop at this point.
How you can helpā¦
Given our current priorities and where we are focusing our time for the month of November, we are looking to get in front of the top computer science talent and connect with founders that have been through the process of early-stage fundraising.
On the hiring side, if you are involved with or know someone that has ties to the entrepreneurship ecosystem at a university in Boston, I would love to connect with them and see if they would be open to sharing ourĀ job descriptionĀ with CS students at their school, newsletters, communities, etc.
On the fundraising side, I have found a lot of value in talking to other founders that have been through the early-stage fundraising process, especially if they have done so recently given the unfavorable market. If there is someone that comes to mind who you think could share their fundraise experience with me, it would be great to connect them and get their take on how we are thinking about our process.
Thank you for all your support and as always, please reach out if you would like to dive deeper into anything SpotDrop or want to catch up.
All the best,
Arthur