48 Hour Launch, 24 Hours In
It feels like only a few hours ago that all of this got started. We've gotten so much done, in far less time than we anticipated. In twenty-four hours, The UnFoundation has grown from an idea without a name to a full-fledged foundation with an identity that is not only really cool, but has the capability to impact the community we live in.
Everything got kicked off at 6:00 p.m. on Friday evening, everyone ran through their pitch in less than a minute (mostly). Most people had already had a chance to pitch during an extended session the week before. By 8:30 p.m. or so, we found ourselves in the CreateHere space hammering away at a schedule for the next day. We decided that we needed to have branding and structure done tonight, that meant a name. We initially thought that it wouldn't be a big deal - it's just a name, after all. Wrong. It was an arduous process, we must've run through at least fifty names before we came up with the right one!
By around 10:30 p.m. or so, we fell in love with the name The UnFoundation. It embodied grant-giving that wasn't complicated or lengthy, but rather was simple and easy to explain.
Then this happened:
"This is awesome. We have a name. What's next, a designer?"
"I think so. Let me go ask around, I'll go see what we can find."
"Alright."
5 minutes later
"I think we found a designer."
"Seriously? Awesome."
"For sure. He's really cool."
1 hour later
"He just sent the logo over, I'm opening it now. Woah... This is freaking awesome!"
"Did he just do that? That's sick."
In short, thanks so much to Tavis for our logo. He's totally awesome. After we finished reveling in how much awesome just went down, we updated everyone on our progress around 12:00 a.m. After that, we went home and got some shut-eye for the next day.
Arriving back at CreateHere around 9:30 a.m., we got some legal council from James Catanzaro about the structure of our foundation. He gave us some great ideas about what we were doing, making sure that we were covered every step of the way.
Around 10:45 a.m., we got down to the nitty gritty of the copy writing for the foundation. In essence, we were carving out who we wanted to become with each paragraph. The room is buzzing at this point, everyone is coming up with awesome ideas and getting started with implementing them. Designers bringing in massive iMacs, developers bringing in what looked like custom-built PC's, and a certain Chattanooga City Councilman who looked like he was smuggling ties into a metal briefcase. Don't ask, we have no idea.
By 1:00 p.m., we had solidified our model and we headed off to lunch. But, not before Alex Lavidge offered his services in helping designing us an awesome website to launch our foundation with. Totally freaking awesome. Lunch was also good, props to the Bluegrass Grill for the awesome chili. It was delicious.
We get back in CreateHere around 2:30 p.m., at which point we start working with Gavin Baker to put together a marketing strategy for the next year. He did a fantastic job defining some really cool actions that we are definitely going to do going forward. Around 3:30 p.m., we find out that we've exceeded the amount of committed funding that we were seeking. Holy smokes. Much high fiving was had. This is totally a reality.
Now, after a bit of a break, we're hard at work getting everything put together and putting polishes on our website and filling our Tumblr with content like this. Thanks so much to CreateHere, the Company Lab, 48 Hour Launch, and all of its partners for helping put this together. We've still got another 24 hours, and considering all that's happened in the last day, we are so pumped.
Let's do this.