Hey JogAlong, What’s New in November?
Image by Nadia Dayo
What’s new in November? A bunch. But before I explain the picture above, I’d like to ask for your help. Keep an eye out for a short survey from JogAlong in the next few weeks. We are forging ahead on many fronts: product, marketing, and fund-raising, and your input is extremely important to JogAlong’s advancement and success. The survey is available in English, French, and German. Thank you in advance for your participation.
A couple of months ago, one of our young testers, Mia, rode with me in a JogAlong prototype in my home town for the Canton Heritage Days celebration. She loves to ride in the JogAlong, and as you can see, she was quite happy she could bring along her dinosaur and tiger. I had just unfolded the stroller arms when her mother snapped this picture. Just a reminder, this is a prototype in the picture; the production design folds even flatter than what you see here. Mia did a great job navigating and kept me pushing hard, repeatedly yelling, “Faster Uncle, faster!” as I ran.
On the topic of going faster, for the last three months I’ve been participating in a program called LaunchPrep. It is a mentoring program designed to match an early stage company such as JogAlong with experienced and successful mentors. It’s been a great learning experience for me, but an even bigger boost to JogAlong. Like some of you, I prefer to work in areas that favor my strengths. So as much as I like to design things, it was time to apply some serious scrutiny to the business side of JogAlong. My personal mentors and others within the group pushed us to prove and validate the assumptions that led us to believe we have the framework necessary for a successful business. Get ready to pat yourselves on the back, because one of the most promising indicators has been you and your support. I know it’s taken longer than we originally thought to get to market, but the fact that growing numbers of you have stood by us and continued to support JogAlong goes a long way to convince people that we’re on the right track. I offer my sincere thanks to you for your support and patience and to my mentors, fellow mentees, and the LaunchPrep staff for their ideas and suggestions to make JogAlong better.
On December 5, from 5:00-7:00 pm CST, we will have a Demo Day to celebrate the completion of the mentoring program. So if you happen to be in Wichita, KS, we would love to see you there, free entrance, food, and drink. Emerging from this program, the JogAlong team is now larger and broader in its strengths. We’ve had reviews from MBAs, CEOs, successful entrepreneurs, marketing specialists, and many others who are now part of our business circle. Many of them remain accessible for future strategy sessions and others are actively consulting with us on business items. We continue to work hard in order to deliver what we believe will be a great product for families.
As we approach the end of the year and holiday time, may you find joy and love with your family and friends. Thank you for being part of the JogAlong family.
