In December 2011, I founded Social Focus Consulting and every anniversary year thereafter I've posted a celebratory message and logo. This year is different and I'm not referring to *that* part of 2020.
This year is the first full year I haven't been actively running SFC. Instead, I've been heading up marketing for the social-purpose start-up Hopeful Inc. We've developed an outstanding product that's helping charities take the guess work out of social media-based fundraising. Traditionally, companies aim to get high engagement with their posts. We can use posting best practices such as finding the right day of week, time of day, use of hashtags, etc., but these are just some variables in an ocean of posts. We're not always sure of the success of a post until we post. Further, engagement in the forms of likes or shares doesn't always lead to funds raised. That's where Hopeful Inc. comes in. "Go Beyond Likes. Get More Funds" is the tagline I developed to help say everything I just said in a concise and impactful way.
A year ago, we only had mock-ups of the product. I then worked with a design team and potential NPO clients to fine-tune the look and feel of the platform. Initially, we positioned the product as an advanced social analytics tool that would supplement existing platforms such as Hootsuite. Although this was a blue ocean strategy for us, in the eyes of the customer, it made our product look like a "nice to have" rather than a "need to have." Therefore, I recommended that the dev team include posting functionality to reach parity with our competitors. Although this puts us in direct competition with long-time incumbents such as Hootsuite, our analytics and AI features remain as key differentiators.
Concurrently, we worked on developing partnerships, including with Silent Partner Software. The firm is a well-known name in the non-profit tech space and has offices across North America. On the investor side, we received seed funding at the beginning of the year and bolstered this more recently thanks to our acceptance into the Berkeley Skydeck accelerator program based in Silicon Valley. This was a tremendous honour as we were one of only 16 start-ups chosen from over 1800 applications. The program has given us access to world-class advisors and talent from Berkley University of which the program is affiliated with. To cap off one hell of a year, we've been named one of 101 Best Analytics Startups Of 2020.
Despite all that's going on in the world, I can say confidently that I made the right decision to join this start-up. Even though it's not under my ownership, I've gained knowledge in product development, start-up operations, and start-up fundraising which is invaluable to my career moving forward. And don't fret, Social Focus isn't gone. It's just hibernating. It will always be a part of me no matter what which is why I found it appropriate to mark this year's milestone with a tattoo-like logo.
Thank you for giving me the stage to share how this new journey is going so far. I aim to bring you even greater news in 2021 and wish you the same success, prosperity, and happiness.
#SFC9
John Paul de Silva, MBA
Founder and Managing DirectorSocial Focus Consulting
416.830.2507
