Get To Know: Grantable

What inspired you to found Grantable?

I had a 13-year career in the nonprofit sector, including as a founder, and unfortunately, had a really difficult stretch of grant-seeking - thousands of hours spent pursing grants and in return we received a grand total of two $5,000 grants.

So many times we were in the finals, down the the last few applicants for $10K, $25K, or $200K grants that could have changed the course of our history, but we ended up on the “oh, sorry” side of things.

At my last employer, they had dozens of grants strewn about their storage system. Every time we were writing it was an unbelievable exercise in clicking through files that were misnamed or poorly organized - all this time was spent looking for content.

So, one day, I took a Trello board and broke up proposals by cards. Now I could see all the sections of 12 different grants laid out before me and I could put drafts together in minutes rather than hours or days.

Philip, Anitha, Harper and Suki in Richmond

At the time I saw it as a personal hack, not a software, but I got validation when it came time to train an intern. It was her first day at the organization and she had never written a grant before but I showed her the Trello board and with no training she picked out answers and came up with a draft in about an hour - it was intuitive.

What do you hope to get out of Lighthouse and acceleration?

Acceleration is useful because it keeps you on topic, on task, and focusing on the project. But what really accelerates in an accelerator is the speed of relationships. In Lighthouse Labs, you are making connections in a matter of days that would normally take months or years to cultivate. These are especially important when you are new to town, I only moved to Richmond in March of 2020 at the beginning of the pandemic with my partner, Anitha.

A great financial plan, a sales strategy, a great demo day showing is all wonderful - but what we are most excited about are those relationships. Lighthouse is helping us plant our seed in this community and creating conditions for Grantable to grow.

“Lighthouse is helping us plant our seed in this community and creating conditions for Grantable to grow.”

— PHILIP DENG, FOUNDER

How did you and your team meet and how do you divide and conquer?

I was introduced to my Head of Engineering, Wes Hirsheimer, through my coach from the Startup Virginia Idea Factory. Having not really had much interaction with this industry, he was fascinated by the idea of creating room for collaboration between the technology and nonprofit sectors.

Wes thought he could build the next version of it and he has built our prototype pretty fast, especially since we haven’t seen a tool like it before and there was a lot of initial problem solving to be done.

We share the same interest in entrepreneurship and problem solving as well as the core values of creativity and social impact. We also rock climb together at Triangle!

What are the most exciting moments of your entrepreneurial journey thus far?

Getting into Lighthouse Labs was our biggest milestone to date. The process gave us a lot of clarity and forced conversations about our company. Getting this opportunity, connecting with our mentors, and starting to make progress in all different areas of the company is such a huge milestone. The difference between building a company on an island alone vs. in community with others couldn’t be greater.

We’re also really excited for the 2nd version of our product - we will do our first outside beta test soon with a really experienced grant-writer from a professional firm. To have it go out into the world and get real feedback is going to really kick things off.

Philip’s van and dogs somewhere outside Reno

What founders or companies do you admire?

I really admire Jerry Colonna, cofounder of Reboot.io - an amazing platform for the exploration of leadership, specifically in tech and in startups. Jerry’s writing, podcast, coaching, and community have influenced lot of the principles that I want to emulate while I build Grantable.

Sometimes the major podcasts like ‘How I Built This’ are inspiring, but sometimes they are overwhelming. On some days you think, “that could be me” but on other days you don’t feel like one of the lucky ones. But with Jerry and Reboot, whether they are talking about massive successes or deeply human and relatable struggles, I always find the lessons relatable.