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<aside> 👉 Disclaimer The information shared in this email is confidential and should not be shared with others without prior written consent. Don't make us rough you up.
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👋 friends!
Now that we're back in the swing of things, the team decided it was time to kick off a monthly newsletter to share updates (and ask for advice).
You're on this list because you've invested in lanespotter or you've been helpful in the past. Thanks!!!
That said, welcome to the first edition of our monthly newsletter — name TBD. Here's what we were up to in July 🇺🇸
Contents
First of all, thank you SO MUCH to everyone who provided feedback on our pitch deck. Shout out to Jenny Fielding and Anna Barber for reviewing while traveling in Europe. Now that's commitment to female founders!
After a few real-life pitches, we're making some adjustments and thinking about the best path forward for us and our company.
Something we're considering is equity crowdfunding. There's no doubt in my mind that the cycling community would show up and support, so we've started to explore raising money through a platform like Republic or Wefunder.
<aside> 👉 If you know a startup that's used either for fundraising, let us know!
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View of Minneapolis, MN from ODB.
We couldn't sit still. We knew there had to be a way to continue to connect with the community and collect safety data while building out the MVP. What we needed to get started was a simple application for collecting safety ratings that we could give to the ambassadors.
Enter our friends from CivicMapper.
Noticing that our prototype requirements shared some functionality with a fish fry map they built last year, CivicMapper generously repurposed the application for the collection of safety ratings. Now that's some Pittsburgh shit there!
Affectionately referred to as ODB (Ol Dirty Bastard), the prototype let us begin ambassador outreach and collect safety ratings in select cities around the world.
<aside> 👏 It's ugly, clunky, tedious, and the UX/UI shares almost nothing in common with what we've designed for our MVP product, but it gets the job done!
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Meet Amanda. She's our bike ambassador in Boston.
lanespotter ambassadors are the expert local knowledge. Ambassadors are tasked with building out a base layer of safety ratings so when the app launches to the public, users will land on a map with thousands of data points on the streets in their area.
Two weeks ago, we sent an email out to a few dozen OG lanespotter users, asking them for 30 minutes of their time. In the 30-minute onboarding call, we would give them access to the prototype, demonstrate how to draw a safety rating, and send them on their way. The question we were asking ourselves?
<aside> 🤷♀️ Would anyone be interested in testing our new prototype?
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