Hello from Yaz!
I'm here to share the story of an exciting new milestone here at Junto.
(This is probably the most significant Flux Intro I've had the pleasure of writing! Much love to my team for lending me the mic on this one).
Reflecting on 2018 at Junto
This year has encompassed cultural exploration in NYC and beyond, collaborations, questions, actions, research, reading and most importantly, inspiring & activating conversations with individuals. When I look back on 2018, I see a string of conversations with new people - fleeting moments of sharing that ignite passion and enthusiasm for what we're building.
Collectively, these relationships have grown into the formation of a real community, with threads intertwining around the globe. What else? The formation of a strong team and community of advisors, supporters & contributors. An empowered foundation of individuals that's about to hit the ground running.
My heart is so full to announce that this is the beginning of a large call to action. We're currently preparing for our first ever public fundraising campaign.
A fundraising campaign?! Sweet. We're ready.
Here’s why we decided to launch this campaign now:
Last week, Eric took a journey to San Fransisco to meet with a few individuals that provided some valuable advice. Among them were Tim Westergren, the founder of Pandora and Michael Staton, a serial edtech entrepreneur and venture capitalist, who's combined guidance inspired us to shift our perspective and decide to launch a Kickstarter sooner rather than later.
Why? Given the organic growth and community support we've seen over the past year, Junto is ready to successfully launch a crowdfunding campaign that can provide us with the funding we need to move forward and demonstrate that there is an existing community ready to make this happen. Our growth has been very grassroots and so it makes sense that our funding will be community-driven as well.
We are set to launch a Kickstarter on the 27th of January, a little less than two weeks from now.
Details and Context
Arthur Brock's generous donation (in August 2018), freelancing and savings have carried us through working and living these past few months. These past few months, we’ve been largely self-funded and are excited to move into a new chapter where all of us can fully focus on bringing Junto to life.
This Kickstarter will provide us with six months of full time software engineering and community building.
* Important developments you should know about *
We're launching our Kickstarter campaign on January 27th
We're hosting a Launch Party on the 26th and are doing a first public showing of our promotional video that's been in production for the past couple of months. If you're in the New York area and want to swing by, give us a shoutout at hi@junto.foundation
We've been collaborating closely with the Holochain team and they're pushing out a week-long promotional series for Junto starting January 28th
At the start of February, we're moving our home-base back to Brooklyn!! Woo
We're having our first of many group calls with Junto Pack, Junto's external team. If you reached out to us about joining this volunteer initiative, you'll hear back soon - hang on tight!
We're sharing a new tool for those of you interested in sharing Junto. We realize it's hard to remember everything to say, so we put this Junto Communication Handbook together. Check it out here!
Our Kickstarter is going to run for 30 days. Please do what you can to help us reach as many people as possible :)
We are going to need funding to keep us moving up until Holochain and Junto are fully ready to release applications to the public. We also have operational, legal and IT expenses that need to be taken care of beforehand. The extra time has given us more room to refine the app, grow our community pre-release and wait for Holochain/Holo to be in a stable phase. Given our latest conversation with their team, they are only a few more months away which is another reason we are fundraising first!
Thanks for sharing this new leap with us. It's truly been hype preparing this newsletter for you!
Much love,
- Yaz (yasmin@junto.foundation)
What’s new
#CreateWithUs
We’re looking for two engineers (one mobile, one web) to join us. Below is a description of what we’re about and who we’re looking for. If you want to help bring this to life or know someone who might be a good fit, don’t hesitate to reach out at eric@junto.foundation. https://junto.substack.com/p/flux-13-create-with-us
#VolunteerInitiative
We just rolled out an official volunteer initiative for Junto. Essentially, the goal is to provide anyone the opportunity to contribute to this project on a more official, hands-on basis. We’ve set up a Slack channel, formalized the first cohort, and will begin monthly calls starting January. Volunteers will be involved in anything from outreach, writing and design to being the first to test the beta and recommend new product features moving forward. If this sounds like something you’d be interested in, fill out this typeform and we’ll get back to you as soon as we begin onboarding more people.
#WeeklyResonations
Here’s what our team found valuable this week:
From Drea:
a great discovery ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
http://www.buffalospree.com/Buffalo-Spree/July-2016/Staying-Alive-Meet-a-Cow/
We want your feedback.
Like what you see? Share it! Think we can be doing things better? Let us know. We’re open to ideas so DM us at hi@junto.foundation or drop any of the team members a note at their individual emails listed on our website here.