CoffeeSpace Cofounder Success Stories #3: Colby & Eric

Welcome to the section of our blog where we showcase inspiring, successful matching stories from the CoffeeSpace community. 

In this third feature, we have spoken with the bright minds behind Civilbee, an innovative platform designed to bridge the gap between government and residents, fostering transparent and effective communication. The app aims to empower citizens to engage with their local government, providing a seamless interface to share feedback, report issues, and stay informed about community developments. Built with user-centric design, ensuring that both residents and government officials have an intuitive, accessible platform for interaction by leveraging AI technology, CivilBee monitors communication for respectful discourse and enables data-driven insights that help governments better understand and respond to the needs of their communities.

Apart from being the CEO of a consulting agency Operiba Consulting L.L.C, Colby Wold is also the founder and CEO of Civilbee. He has a fair share of large organisations and startup experiences, previously a manager handling logistics at Amazon before going full-time pursuing his consulting ventures and building Civilbee. With over 15 years of experience in driving operational excellence, Colby has led high-performing teams and consistently delivered results across both business and technology sectors. His career has been defined by an ability to turn challenges into opportunities, whether in traditional or forward-thinking environments. Passionate about helping businesses unlock their full potential, whether through Operiba’s tailored business and technology solutions or CivilBee’s innovative public engagement platform, Colby strives to create impactful solutions that deliver long-term value.

‍

Eric Bashir worked as a product designer for more than a decade, and have collaborated to design and develop successful products that feature great and enriching user experiences across different industries including healthcare, e-commerce, SaaS, fintech, smart homes and NFTs. With years of designing experience under his belt, Eric joined forces not solely as a product designer, but as a creative thinker and passionate empathiser, with Colby to now work on Civilbee in bringing their vision to reality. 

Tell us more about what you are building at Civilbee!

Colby: Civilbee is a new platform that is intended to bridge the communication gap that exists, especially here in America, between local municipalities and the residents. There was a survey done within the last year stating that 83% of Americans think it is important for their government to communicate with them in an efficient manner, but only about 41% of them think they do a good job of it.

And the idea just kind of really stuck with me and started doing some research on it. And I asked local officials working in the local municipalities: what are some of the communication problems you're seeing with your residents? And it's kind of twofold.

Part of it is outdated technology. The American government tends to not be as up to date with technology as maybe it should be. And the other big piece is that it's really up to each municipality to decide how they want to disseminate information, and that leads to them utilising platforms like Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, which are all great platforms, but they are not exactly platforms that individuals are going to see what their local government is up to. Upon conducting more research, I realized there's just ever growing frustration in this space, and there really isn't one company or organization that is looking at doing this. So I said, why not?

Currently, we are just about done with the development of the alpha testing phase.

Colby, how did your previous experiences lead you to the startup space and finding a cofounder? 

Colby: I worked for both small businesses and large organisations and prior to this, I was actually at Amazon and their logistics section as a manager. So I have a lot of big work experience and a lot of startup experience. I've worked at startups in the past myself and I knew my idea of Civilbee was not something I could just accomplish by myself. I knew from the beginning I would need not only a partner that was good at what they were doing, but also somebody who was committed to the idea itself. So I've actually used probably just about every cofounder matching website, app, and whatever that's out there.

I got on CoffeeSpace pre-launch, and was lucky enough to come across Eric's profile. We connected, and I took kind of an unorthodox route and who I wanted as a cofounder. I know a lot of founders will tell you that your first cofounder shouldn't necessarily be somebody that's in the UI/UX space, but I know that the platform we’re building is only going to be as successful as it looks. I wanted somebody that you know was in it for the idea, but also an expert in their field and on board with it. And with Eric, we had a really good conversation, and immediately just started bouncing ideas off of each other.

Eric is a product designer with many years of experience working freelance for many companies. What are some of your insights working on Civilbee? 

Eric: I've got years of experience as a product designer, and a lot of that has been spent on working on startups and helping to channel new products, MVPs, you know, wins and repeats.  I've seen a lot of mistakes made, and I've seen a lot of things getting done right. I also noticed a lot of startups are not able to bring in a designer on the founding team just because it's not something that investors actively would ask for.

But for the products where the experience is critical, we see MVPs flopping despite them being functional. When it comes to products where the experience is really valued by users in order for them to want to continue making transactions on the app, it is not looking good. 

So, I guess that's really the kind of experience we wanted to avoid for Civilbee - we wanted to create an experience that was memorable now, first familiar to the user, and that user could basically know their way around from the first day, which is crucial to get right from day one of pushing the platform. 

How was the process of meeting, talking, and finally working with each other?

‍Colby: One word to describe the experience would be seamless. I knew a few key items I wanted in a cofounder, and really it was the passion they share, and an expert in their space. I want somebody that would challenge me, someone who wasn’t afraid to throw out ideas and upon the first few initial conversations, I knew that Eric would be a good fit for Civilbee and that we would be a good fit together. Honestly, at no point did I really feel friction, our conversations and dynamic felt natural as though I was talking to a friend. With the contagious enthusiasm, expertise, and personality that Eric carried, he is one to challenge you but also be willing to work alongside you which checks all the boxes for me.

Eric: I was impressed by just the depth of work that Colby has carried out, and it really shows he has spent weeks upon weeks wondering on this idea, collecting facts and correspondences, so there was a lot of feedback and insights already in one place. We could already hit the ground running, push an MVP, and carry out a feasibility test, and that’s what we’ve done, actually. Especially with the market we are targeting, research requires lots of digging down and digging deep, and Colby’s experience along with his skill of work really impressed me.  

How long did it take you to meet a suitable candidate on CoffeeSpace to further develop your startup with?

Colby: For Civilbee, I think I got really lucky. So I have two companies. I own a consulting company as well, and I had been there for some other projects under the consulting business, and never really saw much luck with them. And so to be honest, I wasn't planning on using any of those existing platforms that I had not seen as much luck with when trying, but I knew with Civilbee I would need somebody to come on board. It's just too much for one person to be able to do. So I knew that I'd have to find a cofounder.

And I tried various methods, from people I know to LinkedIn, and I did end up defaulting to some of those other cofounder matching platforms but didn't see much luck. But I want to say, within the first four weeks of me actively starting to look, I think I got the invite from CoffeeSpace to try the beta. And I think within a month of using it, I connected with Eric. So total journey time from, I would say, the inception of Civilbee to really getting the ball rolling, having Eric as my cofounder, for me, was probably, probably about three or four months.

Eric: I’d actually been free of commitment for about half a year after my last freelance client and I wanted to take the time to because my last client happened to be a startup, and I enjoyed the process of helping the founders to realise their vision and basically design an MVP. I really enjoyed that process, and I thought it would be good to actually do this for a project and a product that I could be a part of. That brought me onto CoffeeSpace.

I wanted to find a project in which the founders were looking for someone with design experience, or at least an app that prioritises the user experience in the first iteration. And so I spoke to a couple of people before Colby, but just didn't find the feet. And when we matched, it felt natural, and it was a kind of product that I think was worth putting out there, because it was a blue ocean. So we're going to have to figure out a lot of things and basically create a new market, if you think about it like that. But we're excited to do that and so far the response has been great.

How was your experience using CoffeeSpace and how does it differ from other cofounder matching platforms you have used?

Colby: The big draw to CoffeeSpace was the verification on LinkedIn for me. There's quite a few other platforms I've used where it's not uncommon to receive messages that are not the best of intentions. Anybody can be anybody on the Internet these days, so I love that CoffeeSpace was able to address a lot of my concerns in regards to the identity verification, so I could easily verify their profiles and work history, without needing extra effort to find out who the person actually is. On top of that, the clean interface makes it easy for navigation within the app, and we can sit here and chat without having to leave the platform, so it was great for me!

Eric: Yeah, now that Colby has mentioned it, I would say it is the sanctity of the matches. Once you put yourself out there on platforms like this, you just get “touched”. And I haven’t experienced it on CoffeeSpace so that’s just critical to the clean experience for users.

What are some of the biggest challenges in meeting the right cofounder? 

Colby: It is being able to find someone who is able to walk that tightrope on adding and contributing to the idea, but not altering it so much that it is no longer what it should be at its core. Before meeting Eric, I did try talking to a few other people, and oftentimes it was “hey, that’s a great idea, but we could do it this way instead” or “why don’t we just pivot out?”. It was disheartening at first to have people perhaps think my idea would not work out the way I wanted it to.

Of course, the people you meet who are looking for cofounders are oftentimes very experienced in their respective fields, and they might see things in a different perspective than I do, but  at the end of the day, I still wanted somebody like I said that knew what the idea was at the core and was able to contribute to and build on top of my vision.

Lastly, what is one piece of advice you would give to founders or just people exploring and building ideas? 

Colby: For me, I would say it's going to be the hardest thing you'll ever do, but if you're passionate about it, it's worth it every day.

Eric: I would say you should not be afraid to challenge the status quo, create a new market and do something that doesn't exist before. 

‍If you’re inspired by Colby and Eric story, check out what they’re building with Civilbee, or follow their LinkedIn page for more updates.

‍

‍