226 | Finding a Tech Partner for Your Social Enterprise with James Connor
Our guest on the pod this week is James Connor. James is a Fractional CTO, Serial Entrepreneur & Non-profit Advisor. He's also the co-founder of Flexible Sites, an innovative company that uses a Buy One Give One model to help non-profits and social enterprises find technical help and assistance.
Resources mentioned in this episode are:
Finding Your Social Enterprise Technology Partner: Interview with James Connor
SPEAKERS
James Connor, Paul Zelizer
Paul Zelizer 00:01
Hi, this is Paul Zelizer, and welcome to another episode of the Awarepreneurs Podcast. This podcast is all about the intersection of three things, conscious business, social impact, and awareness practices. Each episode, I do a deep dive interview with a thought leader in this intersection. Someone who has market tested experience that is already transforming many lives. Before I introduce our guest and our topic today, I have one request. If you could go over to Apple podcasts or whatever app you're listening to the show on, hit the subscribe button, do a rating and a review, it helps tremendously. Thanks for considering it. Today, I'm thrilled to introduce you to James Connor. And our topic is Finding a Tech Partner for Your Social Enterprise. James is a fractional CTO, social entrepreneur, and nonprofit advisor. He's the co founder of flexible sites, innovative company that uses a buy one give one model to help nonprofits and social enterprises find technical help and assistance. James, welcome to the show. Hey, Paul, thank you for having me. So excited to have you on the show. We literally published episode number 219 today, and we have never talked about a fractional Technology Assistance person, a fractional CTO, and helping social enterprises really understand what their technical needs are. And I You're the perfect person to help address that problem. So thank you for saying yes to being here.
James Connor 01:34
Oh, thank you for having me. It's, I've been able to see in learn about your podcast throughout the many episodes. And it's, I'm very grateful for the opportunity to have been on the show.
Paul Zelizer 01:45
So you've listened to an episode or two games, you know that we'd like to start with asking about a wellness or resiliency practice that you personally use to keep yourself resourced for this really important work.
James Connor 01:59
For me, what works best is, is trying to find a day, usually Sunday where I disconnect, you know, I don't open my laptop, and you know, it's try to stay off my phone is, you know, if I'm on my phone, it's just for personal use. But also from a professional standpoint, Fridays, I don't schedule any meetings on Friday. This way, I can do a good analysis of what we accomplished during the week, what went wrong, and just strategize what happened in and planning for next week. But then also, if I want to, you know, if something available an event or something I'm interested in, I want to check out around 12 Or make it an early day or spend time with family. I have that option now because I don't have any any requirements due on that Friday.
Paul Zelizer 02:49
This is a audio only podcast so you can't see me but my hands are in the air because I'm Yes. That's one of my favorite practices as well. I take Friday's off, don't schedule meetings. And sometimes I'll go for like a two and a half hour run and my running buddy is around sometimes it's just like decompress. Wow, what just happened is busy. We, like get ready for next week or Yeah, like do professional development or do visioning in a way that when you're, you know, appointment to appointment, it's harder to do so yes, high five, you.
James Connor 03:22
It's been it's been it was actually suggested to me from a mentor of mine. So it's been actually great professionally, even though you think you're gonna have less time to do work. It's actually allowed your mind to decompress, just like you said, and actually focus on things more important. But so I'm right there in agreement with you.
Paul Zelizer 03:43
Totally, totally. So this whole intersection of technology and social enterprise slash social impact, like this is something you're incredibly passionate about and knowledgeable about. Just whine back a little bit like our listeners want to understand the short version of the origin story of how did James Connor get really excited about technology and social impact? What would you say?
James Connor 04:09
I actually started off in technology. When back in college, I actually was going to school for to be a chemical engineer. So I was had a double major of chemistry. And well, initially was chemistry. I was just my major but then I needed to take something else but a cognate back. I don't know what it's called anymore. But so I started taking some computer science classes. They came so easily to me but it also so much fun because I love problem solving. That next thing I knew I just I had completed more classes in computer science than I did in chemistry. So then I just started on it just went from there, as far as you know, becoming a programmer or developer. Then after a while, you know you work for a company you get to learn you know, improve your skills. Learn about technology. But then I started reading and one of the books that I read was Blake muskies book, from the founder of TOMS Shoes, about to buy one give one model. And in from there, I just love the idea of being able to start a business, providing a service or product to someone, but then also turning around and donating and helping out someone that you know, can afford the product or service, but you still think they deserve you know, your time and effort to try to help them. And so from there, I just just grew as a social entrepreneur in lots of different ways, mainly from the tech side,
Paul Zelizer 05:42
Peter Paul, and we'll put a link to that book in the show notes. And also for those who have not heard of them. There is a social enterprise called B one G one Masumi Soto, we actually interviewed the co founder of that 1000s of B one G one businesses across the world and really helping educate and grow the movement for that business model. So put a link to that particular episode as well for anybody like what is b one G one, what is buy one, get one fabulous, fabulous resources, they're both in that specific book, and also that episode, most of our listeners are gonna have no idea what we mean when we say fractional Chief Technology Officer, what the heck is a fractional CTO chiefs?
James Connor 06:33
Okay? First, I'm wanting to say that a chief technology officer is the one that is responsible for deciding, you know, the tech platform and all the all the technology tools that you know, is going to be used throughout the company. Obviously, they don't make that decision by themselves, they consult with the CEO, in you know, the the financial officer button as in regards to CTO, they basically architect out how a product or service or platform is going to be built, and then how it's going to be maintained later. So that's the Chief Technology Officers responsibilities. A fractional CTO is one that works within organization for a specific amount of time, each week, or each month. So in my case, I work with startup founders, from different countries, and they all can't afford to say pay a CTO a full time salary. So then they'll say, Okay, I really only need you either for 10 or 20 hours a month. And we'll decide what the salary is going forward. And then I just work with that organization, throughout that time deciding and working with them deciding, Hey, okay, this is how we should build this platform, or this is how we should build your application. And we, you know, whether we do a weekly meeting, or a monthly meeting, I'm there as their tech partner, to help them understand what decisions we're making, and why we're making them but also to get their insight from, you know, when working with the CEO to get their insight from them to say, Okay, well, this is, you know, this is how, why we need to be built this way, or this is what we need to provide, based on the feedback from our customers or our audience. So, a fractional CTO, just, you know, is just a part time, or shared CTO,
Paul Zelizer 08:47
God. I want to dig down more into that and build that out. But before we do that, James, help us I know, I'm gonna be in business for 15 years, January. Wow, in 15 years. Thank you. I've seen a few train wrecks in the realm of, you know, social enterprise founders and leaders trying to find the right technology solutions, right. And, and again, we're not on video, but I can imagine your head shaking, you've seen a few train wrecks and your time, right, you heard some stories, right? So before we get into, like, you know, what, what this looks like, and why, you know, a fractional CTL might be a helpful solution. Let's just, let's just lay out what are some of the common ways things come off the rails with, you know, nonprofit and social enterprise leaders who have technology needs, but they don't have a good partner or a reliable partner. Give us a couple of examples of some train wrecks.
James Connor 09:52
So one of the problems we have is that there's non technical founders are looking for technical founders because usually they just want something built like Can MVP or a prototype built so that they can go and either start growing their audience in their community or go to an investor and receive funding so that they can go and build the the full service product. In the case of, of, say, hiring someone that is not as technical in seeing the case of hiring someone that you think will be able to handle the project. In certain cases, what happens as a non technical founder can't necessarily do the hiring, because they're just they don't have any background or experience in it. But at the same time, if the salesperson does a good enough job, they say, Oh, we can take care of it, we'll work with you and things of that nature. There's too many times where I run into a founders, entrepreneurs that come to us because they actually worked with another company. They set the requirements, they set what they wanted to build. And what they got back was not what they wanted. But they still pay for the work that was done. So in that regard, it is a train wreck, because then they get we get it and then saying, Jim, I need you to salvage this, can you can you build this or fix this so that it actually works. And I there's been too many times where I run into that. And that's what I why I do what I do so that people can avoid that. Another issue with with some of the other ones is that say someone has a WordPress site, you know, they're a nonprofit, they go with WordPress, because it's cheap, and it's easy. We've had two people that I've worked with two organizations, that they've been hacked, their WordPress site was hacked, and then held ransom for, you know, $15,000.20 $5,000, that data is invaluable. So they actually think about paying that money, but there's no guarantee they're going to get that data back. So if you don't have a technical partner, that you can rely on to turn to and say, Hey, how do we fix this, you know, you basically are on your own. And that's why, you know, with some of these nonprofits and startups that we work with, it's a matter of, hey, we understand, you don't have the budget to hire a full time CTO, you don't have the budget to hire, you know, a whole tech development team to manage everything for you. So then I work with them. And then I take on a lot of those duties and responsibilities, so that they don't have to worry about it. And at the same time, they can continue doing what they do best out there building the audience out there in front of, of people, you know, trying to drum up business or drum up interest in the startup, or the organization's mission.
Paul Zelizer 12:55
Beautiful. And another train wreck I've seen or projects, you know, people outsource to companies that may not have a track record in this kind of business. And the solution that comes back, like even though it might technically check some of the boxes, it doesn't work because they don't understand the space. I've seen train wrecks. And now I've also seen train wrecks where things just like halfway through the project, or two thirds of the project, that the tech outsourced person just disappears. And I've literally had people saying like, it took me six months of trying to contact them, and they'd like just moved on, they got a full time job, they got a better offer, and they just walked away didn't even tell me. And like six months, I finally got a half finished project. But I don't even know what I got. And I'm now trying to figure out what to do with like, how much I paid them are you know what? Yeah, so just, that's another area of somebody's like, kind of, oh, you're a techie great, here's this thing, and it doesn't always get even completed.
James Connor 14:06
Right? It is it is I mean, software development is not necessarily unnecessarily easy. Now there are there are options out there low code, no code tools that people can build out their own solutions fairly quickly. And they don't need to have a heavy tech background. Okay? So those are perfect. If you're trying to trying to get MVP prototype or even I've seen some people build a no code platform. And it's an actual product it works in those cases is great because they have control they have they have all the code they have all their their product in hand. It is when you sit there and you say okay, but at the end of the day, if they get to a point where they say okay, now I need to add this feature or I'm getting feedback about an issue, you know, through their platform or Through the no code tool, then they need to go out and get custom development. I've seen that happen. But back to what you were saying about hiring someone, that is definitely something I've heard more multiple times, it's a shame. People go to, you know, say Upwork, or freelancer.com. They hire a developer or a team of development, developers. And then all of a sudden, they get to a certain point, and they just disappear. They stop working, or they say, Okay, we can't handle this, we don't know what you're looking for. And they may even have another project that they deem more important, you know, because if they get it, so one team that we were, that transitioned to project to us, there, they have 10 developers in that small agency, then they had a project that was worth a million dollars, guess what your project is now worth $8,000, they're going to say, hey, look, we can't help you, they're going to shut it down and say, You need to find a new team, because we have a million dollar project. And we're hiring people in putting everybody on that project. I mean, from a business standpoint, you can understand it, but from a standpoint of the customer. It's very, very unfortunate. But it's not like it doesn't happen. It happens all the time. And people come to me and say, Jim, I need you to help me out. And we do our best to make make an introduction to someone that can help them if we can't help them.
Paul Zelizer 16:33
Makes a lot of sense. So would it be fair to say in some what you're getting with, if you hire the right personal person, as a fractional CTO, you're getting somebody with the skill set experience and network of a full time CTO, they're on your team in an ongoing, committed way. And they're part time many social enterprises don't need a full time, you know, mid six figure kind of CTO who knows what they're doing, they need somebody with that skill set that network, that knowledge base, etc. But they only might need them for 10 or 20 or 30 hours a month. So they are hiring them part time in this ongoing retainer type relationship with the skills and networks. And they get the affordability of not having to hire somebody full time. Fair to say,
James Connor 17:26
correct. Yeah, exactly. And plus, you know, obviously, when you hire someone full time, they're going to be looking for benefits, they're looking for 401k, they're looking for health benefits, dental, you know, those, those also need to be in the equation, when you're thinking of whether you need full time or fractional as a fraction of CTO, I'm just a 1099. You know, I'm a consultant, I am part of the team. I'm part of the you know, for me, when I'm working with a startup founder, or nonprofit organization, we defined, you know, where, where my role is, but at the same time, each of those partners I work with, they make me, me, they make sure they understand, Jim, we want you to be part of the team, you know, and they may do everything they can to do that. Now, at the end of the day, I don't have to have, say, a vote into how the business goes, that's not my role, you know, I'm here to make sure project gets done, or a platform gets built in the correct manner, and as efficiently and cost efficient as possible. So definitely on in that regard, you're, you hit that head on the nail.
Paul Zelizer 18:41
Perfect. So let's dig a little deeper. And like what would be the responsibilities and duties of a fractional CTO?
James Connor 18:53
For me, my duties are to keep the CEO and the partners informed of what the status of the project is, how we're, you know, what features are coming up next, how we're going to implement those features. There's definitely times where I may have a startup founder that has an investor meeting or a meeting with someone that is a potential partner, and they want someone on the call on their side that can speak tech. I'm there on those calls, you know, in those meetings with them. And you know, whenever a question arises from a tech standpoint, I'm there to consult and say yes, no, we can handle that. Or, hey, we could do that. But here might be another alternative that might save all of us time and money. So in that regard, it's one of the most important aspects of my job is to actually be there when the CEO or founder knew needs someone that has that knowledge to be on their side in their best interest. So in that, in that regard, it, you know, takes a weight off of their shoulders, so that they can go to those meetings with more confidence. And they know, okay, I know, James is going to be here, he's going to be there to answer those questions. I don't have to worry about those questions. And if they have, if they want to talk to me about it afterwards, great. There's someone to actually turn to and say, James, what were they talking about in this regard? On the meeting? Or, hey, we have a partner that reached out and asking these questions about SDKs, or APIs or our data being encrypted. You don't have to Google it, you don't have to pay anybody to go. I mean, you pay me obviously, but you don't have to pay an outside someone that you don't are not familiar or comfortable with, you can go and talk to me. And I'll answer those questions as openly and honestly as possible. People
Paul Zelizer 20:54
and I would imagine, you were giving the example of an investor. But I would imagine, let's say a big client came along, or potential big client, they're like trying to understand, is this a fit? And you're in that conversation? They're gonna have some questions about, you know, could we add this feature, etc, etc, you would be there, right? You're on the team, you're not just like, nose down in the code? Or how do we, you know, make sure the development team is meeting certain timelines, you're on the team, right? Is that fair to say?
James Connor 21:24
Exactly, yeah. So exactly. So if we go to if there's a client or potential client that's coming up and says, Hey, we want to know if your startup if your platform, your service can handle that, by all means, I will be able to give them an open and honest answer. And then also give options and alternatives. Because at the end of the day, that's what most founders want. They want to know what their options are, so that they can weigh the cost benefits. Plus, they can sit there and say, how much value would that provide to our audience and customers. So if I can give them that information, it makes their life so much easier. And at the same time, they can provide a better service to the customers. And then, for future customers, it'll be even more of a value add for them. Because if we add this new feature for this, you know, existing customer, that's something that they can sell to a future customer.
Paul Zelizer 22:24
So if I'm a listener, I'm putting myself in the listener shoes. Now James, and I'm saying, Okay, I think I understand what this fractional CTO thing is, like, I got I got it. So if somebody were thinking about, I think I might want one of these. What What does somebody want to keep in mind when they're considering bringing a fractional CTO on board? What are they looking for? Where do they look? How do they that if it's a fit for their particular needs?
James Connor 22:52
Great question. Great question. So there's fractional c x O's platform. So what I mean by that is, as a CFO, you can be CTO, CFO, you can have a fractional CEO, oh, there's so many other fractional so many fractional positions out there that that you can go ahead and hire. But that means also that there are websites and platforms that you can go and use, you can do a search, and it's just like hiring, you know, a an employee, you can look at their profile, you can look at what they've done in the past, you know, you can look them up on one of these platforms. And then go check them out on LinkedIn is what I would suggest, you know, see how see what kind of posts they have, see what kind of comments they make on other people's posts. And, you know, see if you feel like you would be comfortable with them. At the end of the day, when you go into business with someone you want to be comfortable with them, you want to be able to say, Okay, you may not want to be able to go out and have go to dinner and have drinks with them. But if you can get to that level, that's even better. So when you're looking for someone to work with, you're looking to see your comfort level first off, you also secondly, you're looking to see what their availability is, as a fractional see CXO or CTO in my case, that means I'm going to be shared, that means in other cases, there's going to be another startup or another nonprofit that I'm working with, that's either going to need my time, or I have scheduled weekly or monthly calls. So I'm not going to be available at you 100% of the time. Now, that's one of the cons of having a fractional CTO, but the cost benefits kind of override that you're not going to need to talk to the CTO 24/7. So in my case, you can find plenty of them on LinkedIn, just putting in fractional whenever you're looking for a fractional CTO, but there are platforms and websites out there that can cater to people like me, that we sign up on, we create a profile, and then we wait for someone to contact us, that is looking for someone then with with the services that we can provide or the assistance that we can provide.
Paul Zelizer 25:15
Beautiful. So there's a lot out there love that tip about just going into LinkedIn and just type fractional CTL. One of the reasons you're here and not one of the other, many people who are fractional CTO is in the world, his values, your passion, and we're gonna get into this more in the buy one give one model of what you're doing with flexible sites and who you're serving. There's, there's a set of values there. And and I love those things, you're talking about the skill sets and availability, etc, etc. But talk a little bit about values like a CTO, sorry, a CTO, that understands the ecosystem that a founder is trying to operate in and make the content in a very particular way with their social enterprise. How would values fit in? In something like technology? Isn't it just as simple as like, just build the freakin platform? Why Why should my CTO even care about what they're building? And how is that even relevant?
James Connor 26:22
Yes, um, it depends upon the person. And what you know, as they say, in everything that you do, you kind of you, especially as an entrepreneur, you're looking for your niche. As a developer you work on, there's lots of different software you can build, you can build web, you can focus on mobile, you can do ar, so developers have their own specializations. The same with fractional CTOs, they're going to have worked on platforms or projects that they've have lots of experience. So say, I've worked on big insurance, platforms and websites. So then in that case, if I have someone that has an idea that for the insurance industry, as a startup founder, you're probably going to want to be interested in talking with me, because I have, you know, you know, over 10 years of experience, working on insurance projects, and I know, you know, the terms and the the industry, the industry terms that go in with insurance. So in that regard, that's something that that you kind of look for when you're looking for a niche, what kind of projects did that CTO oversee? In some regards, the CTO will have specializations as far as the tech that they've worked for. So I've worked on plenty of websites, nonprofit websites, nonprofit applications. So in that case, I'm more of more interested in social social impact projects. So those that are helping people in other countries, those that are helping underrepresented folks, you know, achieve more. In those cases, I'm more passionate and interested in those projects. So that's why I work with more nonprofits. Now, at the end of the day, nonprofits have a budget as well. So I may not make as much money as say, a fractional CTO that's only working with financial tech companies. By the end of the day, I get to have, you know, more meaning with the projects that I'm working on.
Paul Zelizer 28:39
I even walk it out a little further year really humbled, Jim, I would reserve walk it out a little further. And I'm always a fan. Yes, skills matter. And values are at least as important. And I'll give an example. I've seen so many train racks of social entrepreneurs who go to get a website belt. And the web designer is a fabulous designer, they know the tech, they can design really well or somebody on their team, they can write great copy, but they don't understand our space. And those websites when they go live, don't work, not because the plugins are wrong, or they didn't tend to SEO or the design is 27 years old or whatever. But there's a flavor of what happens in the social entrepreneur and social enterprise world have what's typical, and what the aesthetic is, and the kinds of language and the kinds of imagery. And if you don't know that you can build a technically proficient and gorgeous website that just doesn't sell or just doesn't get donations if it's a nonprofit, because the person building the tech is extremely technical, technically proficient, but they don't understand the space, the norms and the ecosystem of what that entrepreneurs trying to do. And I've seen that lead to some really painful results.
James Connor 30:07
Yes, I agree. There, there are many skilled developers there, out in the world. And it's not just in the US, there's plenty of skilled developers. But just in the world, in general, I've been since I've traveled to so many countries and work with nonprofits, all around the world, I've been able to meet with some of these developers that they are, they're interested in working with some of these nonprofits, even though they don't pay what, you know, they could they could get at a different company. But at the same time, you know, the values that those that developer has, if they're built upon, hey, I need to get this done, this is going to be a fabulous case study, I want to make this look, just like you said, as a designer that has a great skill set. And he, you know, make it make the website look pretty, and it's going to be efficient, and things are coming all out, you know, animations everywhere. At the end of the day, if it doesn't resonate with the user, the visitor to the website, and they're not going to be interested. Okay. So having that background and that experience of working with different nonprofits and different startups and different entrepreneurs, that give you some insight to say, Okay, this is the audience that we, that we're catering to, these are the customers that come to us for help, you know, for our support and service. If you can find someone that understands that, and then you can, the CTO can make sure the developers and the team that's working on that project can relate in the same regard to that, then that makes the project even better for your visitors, you know, for, for example, we worked on the billion x.org platform. And their, their original team was actually developers from Google that were donating their time. Now they use you know, whatever they used go Lang. And they used, you know, their Google databases and things like that. And the way that they designed, it was great, it was efficient was fast and things of that nature. But when they came to us, I said, Jim, we want to be able to build the platform, from here in a way that's going to resonate with the youth that we're trying to turn into the next set of Nobel Peace laureates. And that resonated with me. And I said, that's great, you're trying to get to a being acts of peace. And for me, their mission became my mission. And when you have someone that feels that way, and when building the project wasn't just a matter of, okay, this is my 95, I'm going to build this project, we're going to get to work. Now I'm sitting in there, I'm asking other people about the platform when I talked to other nonprofits, okay, this is we have, you know, I work on this platform, being an X platform, and I would like to get some feedback. At the end of the day, those conversations are so much better, just because of my experience my interest into that social entrepreneur space.
Paul Zelizer 33:27
Bingo, couldn't agree more. Couldn't agree more. One of the three of our websites for words that can sink a website and sink an enterprise in our space, our it feels to corporate. Think about that lesson, right? Totally technically proficient, awesome functionality, right designed for the audience that many of our echo system are trying to make some changes in. And just it's a different aesthetic, a different languaging, different functionality, different colors, different bonds, all those things that if you don't know that fabulous, perfectly technically functional thing that feels to corporate to the audience you're trying to help. And boy, you're created friction that you don't want there from the moment that site or that app, or that point ever goes live. That's an exam. So let's do this. Damn, let's take a quick break here. word from our sponsor, we come back, I want to hear about the specific ventures you're doing, how you're working with people, both as a fractional CTO, and with what you're doing with for your flexible sites venture. For we did that word from our sponsor. Do you have a business that's about making the world a better place and you want it to grow both in terms of your impact, helping more people and your income? If so, I'd like to talk to you about a pretty fabulous community that we have called The word printers community. What it is is a place for people have are kinds of businesses that are thinking about making the world a better place by leveraging business for good. And it's a place where you can get feedback and support on multiple levels. Let me give you an example. Let's say you're coming out with a new product or service and you want to get some feedback on the languaging the look the design of your sales page, you can literally come to the group and say, how do you this resonating? Do you think this will land with my audience? Let's say you need help with somebody to do Facebook ads, or you need a website. As we've been talking, somebody who understands this state got 280 members from around the world who are super passionate about not only growing their own businesses, but being part of an ecosystem where social entrepreneurship around the world grows. And we resource each other to do that. If you're interested, go take a look super affordable. It's a bunch of options starting at $25 a month, you can find out more at aware printers.com forward slash community. And thank you to everybody in the world printers community who sponsors this podcast. So James, in the second part of the show, we like to get granular and put our social entrepreneur glasses as a fractional CTO, that part of your work. Is there anything else you want to add about how you work with and how you work with that,
James Connor 36:31
since I'm working with so many different startups, now, most of them, most of the people that I work with are either someone that has had trouble finding a seat, you know, finding a tech director or leader. So there's plenty of startups that we that we work with through our flexible sites platform, but there's only a certain handful that I actually work as the CTO. So on track is, say a startup that has a very diverse team. And but I also love that the fact that they're trying to work in create a platform for onboarding, working with coaches, anything that has to deal with training, and, you know, SMART goals. So at the end of the day, there'll be able to make it easier for people to set their goals, put it on the calendars, and then see their progress, while also having an accountability partner that says they can can oversee them and motivate them and say, Hey, how I see you haven't done this, what's going on what's blocking. So there are different startups that I'm very interested in and passionate about. But from a standpoint of an entrepreneur, I work with over 100 nonprofits, especially through our flexible sites platform. And they are, you know, ranging from churches that just needed a new website. And, you know, the wanting to increase donations, you know, people don't realize how important your website is, when you're looking to increase donations, or, you know, your, your grow your community and audience. Because when people come to your, your website, that it's kind of a reflection, just like when people say, hey, you know, when you go to a meeting, and you're going to see how you're dressed, you know, your website doesn't need to be, you know, $100,000 website. But if it gives the feeling that it's an expensive website, guess what, you know, it does, it's doing the same thing. So, you know, there's plenty of nonprofits, I'm very happy to be working with peace gym organization is one that is near and dear to my heart, I feel like part of their team. And, you know, there's just so many nonprofits out there that we work with, that we're very, very happy with from I'm from Philadelphia. So I go to I'm talking with multiple nonprofits there and advise them, you know, so once a month, I have a meeting with, you know, I day, who's a small nonprofit in Philadelphia, helping African American youth, you know, and then to food pantries, like the touch New Jersey, or nonprofit organization. It just ranges so much that at the end of the day, since we're helping so many nonprofits reached their goals and missions, I feel like I'm, I'm helping in some way. I just a small part of it, a small piece of it. Because if we can increase their donations, we can increase the awareness about their mission, their events and programs, then I'm helping the people that they're trying to support and at the end of the day, that is me trying to find as many nonprofits that I can, who can use my insight, and then also, who can just use the detective cost, assistance and support that they struggle to find just because they can't afford a $60,000 development a $60,000 a year developer, or a team of developers, that feel the same way as they do about their mission.
Paul Zelizer 40:17
That's the fractional CTO part. There's like maybe eight or so people at any one time. And then there's this whole other piece that you were starting to get into, called the flexible sites part of what you're doing. And that's super cool. This is by one give one model to help nonprofit and social enterprises get websites that I don't like this image, it's a boxing image. I wish I didn't have such a, you know, I wish I had another image but like punch above their weight class, right? Like, like, they look and it functions. They if somebody didn't have this platform and knowledge base that your resources, they'd probably have to spend a lot more money, especially with this b one G one model that we're using buy one, give one model in the flexible site. So talk to us a little bit about like, why did you create flexible sites? And how does it work?
James Connor 41:07
So when we started our original tech company, okay, we saw it, I alluded to it earlier, I read the book, by the founder of TOMS Shoes. And I wanted to do that with tech technology. So what we did is we said, okay, as a tech company, what we're going to do is we're going to work with small, medium sized businesses. And then we're gonna take a slice of that profit, and then donate it to nonprofits and startups through our flexible sites platform. Now, before we had flexible sites, it was a one to one. So we were one small business, and we donated to a nonprofit one to one, we would build a website based off of the profit from that small business, but we were donating it for free back then the problem is, when you do it for free, something for free, people have all the time in the world, you know, they don't, you know, we would ask people, Hey, we need this, you know, for to launch the site, or we're still waiting on these images and things of that nature. Now, through with the flexible sites, people have skin in the game, you know, it's a very, it's a small part, you know, it's not nowhere near as expensive as some of these other places that are doing custom sites. And at the same time, we're not trying to compete with Wix or Squarespace or any of those other competitors. Because at the end of the day, if you're a nonprofit organization, and you just want a website up as a CTO, and someone that supports social entrepreneurship, I was going to tell you go with Wix, you don't need us or me as a team, you just need a website, and just have it running. And Wix is a great, great platform for. But if you're saying, Jim, we have a growing audience, we have, we have a need to continuously add features and tools for our audience. And we just haven't had, we're having trouble hiring someone, then yeah, you reach out. So for us, flexible sites is a way for, you know, nonprofits and startups to get technical assistance by someone that will be working with them. But at the same time, we're still donating our slice of our profits from our other businesses, to these nonprofits, because obviously, at the price point that our sights are set on our platform, we're not making any money on it. But we're, what we're doing is we're being able to provide a service and support to these groups and organizations that just need it is just such a need for these organizations that are kind of it's keeping them back from concentrating on their mission. I mean, imagine someone saying, I want to do this, you know, I want to help the schools in Africa. And they just can't because they're there. They're either not getting enough funding, or their people aren't aware of what they're doing. And plus, they have to find a way to build out the website and do all that. Now, let us take care of the website. You know, we'll work with you. I'll work with you. And you can concentrate on the other things that way. At the end of the day, you're going to help more people. And their founders are going to get more time back to themselves.
Paul Zelizer 44:24
Yeah. And like you're referencing a team, like give us a site like the scale like what is flexible sites and this company that's doing the G one the giving? What does your team look like these days?
James Connor 44:41
The team is so we're all remote team. So we have developers all over the world. And what they are is they're in the same boat as me. They are very good at their job. They're developers, but they also enjoy working on projects that are you know, making a difference in their communities. You know, so you know, if we have a team in, in the United States, we have developers in the United States, we have developers in Mexico, we have developers in Panama, we have developers all over the place. And the beautiful thing about it is that when we have a new project that comes in a new nonprofit, or a new startup, and they have these these requests and these requirements, were able to say, Okay, we're going to give you a team, these three people or four people are going to be working on your website or web application, or in certain cases, we have startups and nonprofits that want a mobile application as well. You know, the way we build things, right, you know, I want to get to talking was API centric. So once we build something for a website, converting it to a mobile application, or say, even an AR app, or you know, running, having it run on the Apple Watch, it's API centric. So it's, we can do that it's not a matter of, oh, it's WordPress, you know, we'd have to start all over to create your mobile app. No, you don't have that problem here. So the team is now working on your site. And then once the site is launched, and you don't need them anymore, they go on to the next project, but they're still there. In case you have a gym, we have this new client or partner that's coming on. And they're asking to integrate their CRM, no problem, go back to those developers, hey, they want you know, they wanted to add this in this feature, and then go ahead and work on it. So I mean, it's great, because, you know, while people are sleeping, you know, people are working. I mean, we have, we cover 24/7, as working now, obviously, the flexible size team, they get their own, you know, they have their own holidays and things of that nature, which is, from a cultural standpoint, that's one of the best things I like about our team, is that I get to learn about holidays and the meaning behind those holidays, because they're in different countries. You know, there's some holidays that I just never, never would have wisdom pointers on. And they tell me and I'm just like, it just enlightens me. But it's not just enlightening me, it's enlightening our team. And from that standpoint, that is one of the things that I I did not foresee coming. But you know, it's one of the things I love about our team. And the fact that we're working with nonprofits in, in not just in, like I said, in the United States, or Latin America, but we're talking about Europe, we're talking about Africa, we're talking about India, in India, some nonprofit organization. I mean, there's a 17 year old young man that I had the pleasure of talking with, and he created drone technology, because his friend died, you know, because they went out playing and he stepped on a landmine. And he wanted to change that, and say he didn't want that to happen anyone else. So he went and developed drone technology to identify landmines, in the, in the dirt, with, you know, just from the drone, and to be able to work with people like that is amazing. And that's something that, you know, when when someone asked me, like, you know, would you change what you're doing? Sure, maybe, you know, maybe I tried to be a comedian or an actor in younger life. But right now, I'm super happy, being able to work with some of these organizations that are truly making a difference in the world.
Paul Zelizer 48:26
And inspiring story. And, you know, I would go watch a movie, you're in James, but I'm really glad that you're doing what you're doing. Because you know, but, but this is pretty awesome. While you're doing I can just feel the it's like palpable how passionate you are, and what kind of a difference you're making. So thank you for not being an actor.
James Connor 48:49
Or words there.
Paul Zelizer 48:50
Dave, I could hang out with you all day. And I don't want to do that to you or our listeners, if there was something that you were hoping we were going to get to in this interview, and we haven't gotten to it yet. Or there's something you want to leave our listeners with on this topic of social entrepreneurs and nonprofit folks thinking well about technology, websites, etc. And you want to leave them with a tidbit to like put in their pocket and take with them from this interview. What would that be?
James Connor 49:19
The tidbit and the advice I give people is regardless if it takes you five or 100 interviews, make sure whoever you're working with fits your needs and your comfort level. Some people they make a decision because you know, time is money. They don't want to you know, they say look, I need to make a decision. I need to get this project started. You know, don't just settle and say okay, these are the 10 people I have, if those 10 people don't check off all the boxes. Then keep going, you know until you get to the point because it does matter later on that day. is going to be a problem and you want to say, Yeah, you know, I knew that this, this might happen? Well, you know, you can mitigate that by saying, Look, I'm going to go and find reach out to as many people as possible in because that's what I have to do all day. And usually, that's one of the main reasons people come to me as a fractional CTO, they don't want to have to find the developer, they don't want to have to go do the interviews, they're just going to say, Jim, you know, I'm comfortable with you, you understand what I want. So hire whoever team you want, and go from there. You know, because that's what I do every day, I have at least one or two interviews every day, because there are really good developers out there. And then there are some really bad developers out there. And there are some, you know, in that goes with with not just developers, but with any role that you have product manager, UX designer, all those. So finding those needle in the haystack, means that you're going to have to go through a lot of haystacks, or, you know, go through, you know, a lot of piles, if you're looking for a different thing. So I would say keep going. You know, if you're looking for someone that you're looking as a technical co founder or a lead developer, make sure they check all the boxes, in certain cases, okay, maybe you got 25 boxes, and they don't check off one or two, okay, then, you know, you're just being greedy. Go ahead and get that person. But that would be my tidbit, and my advice to them.
Paul Zelizer 51:32
Thanks so much for that, James. And thank you so much for being on the show today.
James Connor 51:36
Thank you for having me, Paul. It's been a pleasure talking to you. As always, I really enjoy our conversations. You've been someone I've gotten in touch with and met. And I've had no regrets, you know, talking with you, learning more about you and your work. And what you're doing is, is fabulous. I really love the way you bring awareness to the work that some of these entrepreneurs are doing, and especially in the social impact space.
Paul Zelizer 52:05
Thank you for your kind words. So this is we're gonna put links to all the things that we talked about, go check out the flexible sites website, please spread the word about that, like a b one G one technology for social impact and social entrepreneurs, a nonprofit, please go tell people, we need more people to know about what James and his team are doing. Before we go, I just want to say we love listener suggested topics and guests. If you have an idea for a show, please go to our website, go to the contact page. And you'll see the three criteria that we use to try to be really transparent. Here's what we're looking for. If you read that and say, Oh, this would be a great one, please send it in. We'd be really, really, really grateful. For now I just want to say thank you so much for listening. Please take really good care in these turbulent times. And thank you for all the positive impact that you're working for in our world.