Jeb and Patrick: A bizperc Coworking Collaboration Story

We often think of collaboration as something that only happens intentionally through formal meetings or events. While that may often be the case, it’s also true that collaboration is often embedded in startup environments, and perhaps especially so at Think Big Partners’ coworking space, bizperc. Many times, entrepreneurial collaboration grows organically from proximity and shared space.  This happened to be the case with ambitious startup leaders Jeb Ory and Patrick Stoddart.

Jeb Ory

Jeb Ory is the co-founder of Phone2Action, a mobile campaign platform that's rewriting the rules of community empowerment. Patrick Stoddart recently joined the bizperc coworking space as founder of Revdel, a cloud-based communications and event-scheduling service provider in education, government, religious organizations, and more. The two began talking since they sat a couple desks away from each other. We'll let Patrick tell the rest.

"After chatting back and forth over a couple months," Patrick says, "we realized that while our products and audiences might have been different, Jeb and I were utilizing very similar technology.  A month and a half ago, just before landing his first significant contract with the Black Alliance for Educational Options (BAEO), Jeb's CTO unfortunately had to step down. That left a huge need for fulfilling technical requirements prior to the start of the contract."

From there, the collaboration seemed almost effortless.  

"Knowing me, he scooted over in his chair and asked if I wouldn't mind helping with his development needs. The needs were pretty straightforward, so I agreed and built him some projects and pieces that he needed for the startup."

Patrick smiles at this point in the interview. "It turns out that Jeb was going on a gospel tour in the South—Louisville, Jackson, Memphis, Baton Rouge, Mobil, Birmingham—with Marvin Sapp, a well-known gospel singer and charter school founder. BAEO was utilizing Jeb's platform to gain support for charter schools in marginalized communities with few desirable school options."

Patrick Stoddart

"I happened to walk by Jeb one day," Patrick continues, "and he asked me if I wanted to join him on the tour for technical support. I said, 'Let me think about it.' I came back five minutes later and said, 'Okay, I've thought about it, and I can't think of a reason not to, so let's do it!' We took a look at my schedule and decided that I would attend the first half of the tour."

When asked about the turnout, Patrick had encouraging data to illustrate the positive impact of the BAEO/Phone2Action partnership. "We had 12,000 attendees, with over 25% of participants using Phone2Action. We were pulling data all night and sending it to BAEO, and that data helped them make informed decisions about where to focus their resources." At the time of writing, Jeb was still on the tour.

Their collaboration a so successful that the two decided to see what other ways they could branch out as entrepreneurs. 

"We've talked about other ways to leverage our products," Patrick begins. "We want to be able to keep in touch with product launch, so on Wednesday morning at 1 Million Cups we leveraged Phone2Action for content acquisition, collecting over 70 user's information. 

Reflecting on the collaboration, Jeb has nothing but glowing remarks for Patrick and Think Big Partners. “We are thrilled to work together with the great people of Think Big. In fact, one day I looked around and realized that I had received help in some fashion from 10 different people since I moved into Think Big last September. All I can say is WOW. And getting to work with Patrick? Now that's something EXTRA special. He's one of the best engineers I have ever met; like Zuckerberg smart. KC, keep an eye on this one," 

The Kansas City startup community is quickly gaining recognition as one of the premier sources for innovation, thanks to people like Jeb and Patrick. Their startup collaboration is the product of the Think Big Partners/bizperc open environment—a startup hub that's humming with conversation, networking, and opportunity. It's people like Jeb and Patrick—ambitious, open-minded, and generous entrepreneurs—that make the Kansas City startup community such an exciting place to be.

Energy, Persistence and a Great Idea: The Story of Patrick Stoddart and Startup RED

Patrick Stoddart's favorite quote comes from the one and only Benjamin Franklin.  It reads, "energy and persistence conquer all things."  After all, no other quote could attribute more to Patrick's startup story.

Patrick's first big idea, a product known as RED, was not immediately accepted in his community of Lee's Summit.  When Patrick first presented RED, an interactive communication platform for organizations with events and activities, to the administration at Lee's Summit High School, the product suggestion was immediately turned down.

But even as a junior in high school, Patrick was not willing to take "no" for an answer.  After researching similar platforms such as Google Calendar, Blackboard and TextCaster, the high school student realized that none of them efficiently organized and communicated multiple events.

Patrick Stoddart, founder of RevDel.

So, Patrick, being the energetic and persistent person that he is, developed RED anyway.  After the product received 1,000 sign-ups in the first month of launch, the administration at Lee's Summit High School was suddenly interested.  Finally, both administrators and the director of technology for the school district began to support Patrick and RED.

Now, a few years later, RED has about 20,000 end users (50% schools and 50% churches/athletic organizations/nonprofits and chambers of commerce).  The communication platform sends alerts through text, email, social media and calendars to simplify the way that event-driven organizations interact.  After all, 90% of all communications are event-related, according to Patrick.

"RED addresses more than just the communication side--it addresses the calendar side too," says Patrick."  The platform is customized to the user; it easily filters through buildings, types of users, activities (120 available to select), and more.

RED grew so fast after its implementation in the Lee's Summit school district that Patrick had to drop out of college in order to continue to run the business.  After building up his client base considerably, Patrick began to face three well-known entrepreneurial barriers: lack of time, lack of experience and lack of interaction.

To solve for this, Patrick moved RED's headquarters from his home in Lee's Summit to the bizperc coworking space in downtown Kansas City.

"I was tired of the commute from the bedroom to the study," laughs Patrick.  "I needed a social environment, an established routine and fewer distractions.  Since I joined bizperc in August of 2012, I have learned more about the Kansas City entrepreneur community than I have in the past 2 years.  There are so many people to meet and things to get involved with."

Patrick even met Startup Weekend teammate Julie Edge in the bizperc coworking space.  Their Startup Weekend Kansas City idea, Shop Startup, is still moving forward from within the walls of bizperc.

Patrick is also excited to announce his newest product, RED 2.0, which is currently being tested at Lee's Summit North.  In addition to its official launch in January, Patrick is also working on the new RED site which will allow clients to purchase the product online.

Patrick Stoddart, founder of RevDel and RED, lives by the words "energy and persistence conquer all things."  And although Benjamin Franklin may have been the first to say it, Patrick truly is living out this quote in his day-to-day startup life.

How does Patrick Stoddart Think Big?  "What helps me Think Big is traveling or going somewhere else.  The longer I stay in one place, the more I slip into that small-thinking mentality.  I realize all the little problems are insignificant when I travel.  It puts things into perspective.” 

Follow me! @AllisonThinkBig

Think Big Hosts Last Entrepreneur Corner with Startups k12itc and RED

It’s tough to let a beautiful month like September slip away. The weather was gorgeous, football season was just starting out, and the back to school jitters were keeping us on our toes. But have no fear—Entrepreneur Corner during First Fridays is here to lift your spirits and help you celebrate the beginning of fall!

The October edition of Entrepreneur Corner will not only feature great refreshments, awesome networking and stunning views of Kansas City from the rooftop of 1800 Baltimore, but we’ll also be spotlighting local Kansas City companies k12itc, RED and providing information about our upcoming event, Microsoft Azure Cloud & Windows 8 App Kickstarts!

k12itc specializes in working with both public and private schools to deliver tailored solutions for each organization’s unique technological challenges. k12itc provides access to a comprehensive range of flagship solutions including CloudRack, CloudWatch and managed Blackboard hosting.  Join us on the rooftop of bizperc to learn more about k12itc and speak with the founders yourself!

RED (by Revdel) is a new product that allows users to easily schedule organization events.  With RED, individual activity sponsors can actually schedule events for their own activities without having full Administrator access.  RED unifies event scheduling by utilizing the iCal standard format and through the creation of schedule tailor-made to an existing website's template.

In addition, the team of Think Big Partners will be available to provide information about our services as well as give information about our big upcoming event, Microsoft Azure Cloud & Windows 8 App Kickstarts (a free event for developers, founders and tech gurus!).

Entrepreneur Corner festivities will kick off 5:00pm and conclude at 9:00pm...but that’s only our event! As with every First Friday, there are a slew of great events that will be happening all over downtown Kansas City and in the Crossroads Arts District.

But how can you find out about every Entrepreneur Corner activity?  Now, it’s simple!  Download the intevli app on your smartphone for all of the latest information on art events, restaurants, entrepreneurial meet-ups, shopping and even parking during First Fridays!

See you on the rooftop tomorrow night!