In the early days of Switchboard, we were chomping at the bit to “make an app.”

We wanted to build technology that would help connect people with workplace skills to people doing mission work. The reality is we didn’t know much about the marketplace professionals whom we thought would volunteer their time. We knew less about the missionaries and field workers around the world we were trying to serve, and we knew even less about starting from scratch to build an app!

We did what a lot of folks who have a “great app idea” do: watched a ton of YouTube videos, read some books and relentlessly Googled to figure out some “next steps.’  Most people who want to build an app who aren’t well-versed in creating apps typically go the route of hiring an off-shore software development team. You send that team a long “spec” doc that describes the app you want to build. You wait a few months and boom. There’s your app. You spend a good chunk of your startup money to generate a lot of code and end up with, technically, an app.

For Switchboard, we were this close to following this off-shore playbook. We would’ve smashed a bottle of champagne into the stern of the new app and launched it into the harbor, only to watch it sink immediately. Why? Because code doesn’t solve problems. Having an app doesn’t mean you helped anyone. “Building an app” robs you of the precious attention needed to actually discover problems and solutions, side-by-side with your end-user. In our enthusiasm to build an app, we simply had not considered all of the feedback and requirements necessary to make something that actually helps people, that actually serves the people serving the Great Commission. But what stopped us from hiring that dev team right away? The better question is “who stopped us.”

What we needed was someone who traveled this road before, who had navigated the fine balance between discovery and execution. Enter Alex, the as-yet unknown product advisor for Switchboard. It’s been eighteen months since our first brainstorming conversation. Since then, Alex and I have met almost every week to collaborate on strategy, product goals, the daily challenges our users face and how we can best address them.

Alex discovered early on that most of what we wanted to try out could be done without building a custom app. He helped us leverage no-code platforms like Softr, Airtable, and Zapier to deliver real value to people who wanted to serve the Great Commission and connect with volunteers. 

We accomplished that without burning cycles on architecture, infrastructure, and data modeling. If we wanted to add a new table to the database to track user feedback, we could just drag and drop a table in Airtable and start recording it. We could take an email with a design requirement from a missionary and hack together a user interface for them while on a Zoom call. These tools simplify the discovery process to allow us to expend the least amount of work for the most value delivered to your end user.

All of that would have been impossible without having that conversation with Alex at the right time and subsequently building our strategic product relationship. With Alex pouring his creativity into Switchboard we built a needs-based product instead of a snazzy app.  When you focus on building a product, you’re solving problems for your end users, not just meeting abstract team requirements. In our case, we were committed to deliver real value to Chritian missionaries, field workers and all the others in their extended networks.

Our team is incredibly indebted to Alex’s generosity and expertise as he helped coach us through that process. Our organization exists today because we had the right conversation at the right time. 

Switchboard aims to be a platform where believers can connect, share expertise, and help others have critical conversations at the right time with the right person. Knowing how pivotal it was for Switchboard, I pray the same for all the missionaries and teams out there. I encourage you to have those transparent conversations with Believers who are willing and able to share their hard-earned expertise. 

Let’s each of us be faithful in our calling to serve the Great Commission, so we can ultimately see the name of Jesus Christ proclaimed in all nations.