Two weeks ago, as the epidemic’s waters steadily rose, some of us in the Santa Cruz tech community grew concerned.

4/17 Editor’s note: new #rideoutthewave event April 24!

Friends at Soif, La Posta, Red Restaurant, 515 Kitchen, and Sante Adairius were reeling from the sudden drop in patronage and associated cash flow. Local folks were dutifully sheltering in place, antsy to spend some money at their usual spots.

Connecting willing sellers with interested buyers over the Internet? We might know a few folks with that kind of experience!

Two weeks ago, the Santa Cruz Works crew marshaled local tech volunteers, talked to some customers, and drafted a quick and simple plan that could scale quickly without complex signup processes and expensive transactional platforms. Any business could list themselves on an online portal and start supplementing their cash flow from community purchases. The site even offered a free gift card platform, and we’d run the marketing programs to make local businesses aware of the site and to drive traffic. After a week of networking, design, testing fails, and platform false starts, we settled on a stack, had Amazon volunteer engineers hard at work, and primed the marketing pumps.

Last Monday 4/6, we launched the www.rideoutthewave.org site with 20 starter listings. Tuesday we alerted local business organizations. By Wednesday’s New Tech Meetup we gratefully announced a matching grant from local state and county government agencies. In the meantime, we promoted a free online Facebook concert by our dear friend musician Taylor Rae that Friday night. 

By Sunday, you ran us out of funds. Not only had over 200 businesses listed on the site, the community had purchased an estimated $40K in gift cards and powered through the matching grant in a matter of days. Your response coming to this site and making purchases has delighted local businesses and delivered a 42% average conversion rate that far exceeds industry averages.

Mission Hill Creamery founder/owner Dave Kumec saw instant results from his participation, and reported 

“This is such an outstanding level of support for my business. I want to SHOUT OUT my thanks to Santa Cruz Works and all the generous sponsors of the Ride Out the Wave local business support program for helping small businesses like mine to survive through these trying times. We truly feel like a valued member of this STRONG community and we are feeling the love. Thanks so much.” 

As with many businesses, the Humble Sea Brewery is finding ways to reinvent themselves. Founder Frank Scott Krueger notes that they’ve recreated themselves as an e-commerce company in a matter of days, and says, 

“We're finding fun and creative new ways to grow during these insane times.” 

He looks forward to the next round of local promotion and funds.  

We’re thrilled and humbled by your generosity. Next steps include plans for a new online event, a second campaign, and calls to more donors for even more matching funds. Please, send your ideas to help@rideoutthewave.org, spread the word on social media using #rideoutthewave and buy a gift card in the meantime. We love Santa Cruz!

Article written by Drew Meyer, Board Member of Santa Cruz Works