I sit with my cape in one of the couches at the SXSW Trade Show Bar and Lounge and see how our Friday news release about our Angel funding is being picked up by the national media. Of this, I’m not that surprised. What I didn’t expect is that writers would go beyond reporting the news to envisioning the problems that in their eyes were waiting for us to solve, such as Cause Marketing.
It’s very flattering to see that people have their personal unique passion about how our company will help in those many areas that they see painfully underserved around the broad fields of philanthropy.
Being fully aware of the current vision of our company, I reflect on the big opportunity we have ahead of us to create “the new day of giving,” and realise that I don’t need to go too far ahead into the future applications of our “dream state” to get excited. What excites me is exactly what I’m working on today: easy, smart, fun and social giving, in that order.
About Google: I love search. I use Google Docs and Gmail every day, likely even more than search. But search is what Google, or even Alphabet, is to me, and mostly everyone else. It’s what makes it relevant for me.
In the same way, I can see how in the future state there will be multiple uses and apps around Encast and our Hero platform, such as Cause Marketing. Retail recommendations based on giving profiles or philanthropy based online dating, just to name two other less obvious examples.
And I can easily imagine how people will be using these applications even more than the core giving functionality we are building today.
A company always needs to look for new problems to solve, new areas to innovate. New products, new services and new business models. So I will always support these efforts. Hopefully, I will lead some of them, too.
But for me, just as it is with Google and Search, Encast will always be about my renewed joy for giving: a simple, smart and fun way to engage with the causes I love. And the causes that those I love, love.
