July 11^th 2016, a year prior to prototype completion; I met Dave B (shorten last name for privacy sake) sitting next to each other on a 4 hour flight to San Diego.  Dave worked for a global corporate training consulting firm.  We started discussing more about his position and where he was from.  He lived in Leawood (suburb of KC), had 2 daughters that had gone to KU with one that had passed away in recent years from cancer.  Dave was a very sharp guy, about 20 years my senior and we hit it off.  Dave flew a lot as did I, and being a long flight, I think we both went through our stash of drink coupons.

I brought up the concept of StandBy to Dave and he immediately asked if I was going to make him sign an NDA; not unless you plan on investing and you want protection I said.  He gravitated quickly to the concept since he was in the business of attaining new clients for his company and networking events were key to his practice.  A few weeks later back in Leawood we met for coffee and dove deeper into the prelim business plans I had written, and he helped change a few things for the better.  Dave also had a vast network and setup many other calls or coffee appointments to meet more people around KC that could potentially set this concept in motion.

Meeting Dave the way I did gave me great confidence that this idea could work.  There are over 2 million travelers taking to the sky’s a day, if 1% (20,000) had a coordinated chance to make an introduction instead of being so random, think of the possibilities… BTW, 1% annually is 7.3 million users making connections and potentially positively impacting life change!