🕺🏻 Randy

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The tagline of Pasito used to be “A social network all about dancing!” and I thought of it as a way for people to know about events, without needing to comb through Facebook and Instagram.

But it's not a social network, in the traditional sense. I don't have any plans for users to be able to post random stuff, message each other, rate anything, etc. Sure, you can follow people and subscribe to events, but that is just to help find things to go to.

The only user-submitted content is... ambassadors boosting events and event planners posting events (and eventually, updates).

Pasito is where you can go if you just want to cut out the noise and find ways to do what you love to do... dance!

🕺🏻 Randy

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🕺🏻 Randy

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One of my personal beliefs is money shouldn't prevent someone who legitimately can't afford to attend an educational event from attending it if it's something they really want to learn.

To that end, I decided to buy two tickets for A Lo Cubano to give to people who want to go but probably won't because they can't afford it.

Raya Llopis received the first one, but there is one more left. Email me at randy@pasito.fun with your username on Pasito and let me know why you want to go by the end of the day Tuesday, May 13 and I'll pick someone on Wednesday, May 14.

🕺🏻 Randy

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First things first, Marcela Lay is one of the most badass women I've met. Great teacher, event planner, mother, friend, and hustler. I've never met someone who works so hard to make things happen in the dance community. A true chingona (that's a good thing these days).

She's also one of the friendliest. I remember the first event I went to when I moved to Colorado in 2022 was at Oscar Blues in Longmont, an event organized by Marcela. I was really nervous because I had just started learning how to dance three months before, back in Philly, and within the first 20 minutes, I saw her peek out from behind someone and wave to me with a smile. I take a while to warm up to people, but she pretty quickly became a good friend.

In the years since, I've taken countless classes from Marcela, both group and private. I've learned (and forgotten) so many things from her.

When I started working on Pasito in 2023, Marcela was the first one I went to as a domain expert. I didn't know much about the dance world, and Marcela's been doing it for 20+ years, so she knows a lot. Marcela was the second user and always has time for me to yammer at her about it and ask questions.

Marcela is a natural hustler, she works really hard and will try anything to be successful. She saw early on it'd be a good idea to work with someone who would work to help promote her events for free. She has the most events and followers on Pasito, ranking her first in Pasito in Boulder, and will always be at the top of the list of important people in the Boulder area to follow.

✨ Follow her on Pasito to find out about her events, check out her website to sign up for classes, and don't forget to sign up for A Lo Cubano!

🕺🏻 Randy

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Short Story

Events is only the first phase of what I have planned for Pasito, the second major phase is classes, with the ultimate goal of trying to get more people in class to go to socials, and help people who go to socials discover all the great teachers and events out there. A cross-pollination if you will.

Longer Story

Currently you only see event-related stuff on Pasito, but my vision is so much bigger. But I'll try to keep it shortish and clear 😅

I started Pasito back in 2023 when I started to think about a few things:

1. I had 7-10 people always asking me what events were coming up, somehow I ended up being someone who knew where to go, especially for the crowd who didn't use social media
2. Not a lot of people who I saw in classes would go to socials, at least not the socials I thought were good
3. I wanted more out of my classes – a good class homework video, recommended songs for practicing, and recommended events for the type of class I was in. I also thought I could improve on the pile of spreadsheets commonly used to manage enrollment, attendance, payment, and balancing classes.

What you currently see on Pasito is what I had planned for #1 above, find events based on the type of dance you're into, the recommendations of well known people in the community, and for the events to automatically show up on my calendar.

For #2 and #3, I really think some standardization of classes could really benefit the students AND the teachers.

1. Teachers save time juggling all of the admin around running classes, and
2. Students get some key resources they need to get better – having recommended resources can help remind the teacher what students want.

Both can also benefit by having all of the dance-related events AND dance classes on the same platform:

1. Students follow their teachers on Pasito, their teacher clicks “boost” on events they think would be good for their students, and more students come to socials
2. Someone going to a social looks up the teacher giving the mini lesson at the beginning and sees they run a bigger school and can enroll in more classes

So what are these BIG PLANS?

Phase 1: Events

1. Follow people, events, and event series and get notified when something important happens – DONE
2. Ambassadors – friendly people who are regulars at events that someone new to the area or dancing can feel comfortable talking to. They can also “boost” events to their followers as a way of recommending them – DONE
3. Events automatically show up on your calendar – DONE
4. Event planners manage their events – this is a chicken/egg problem, I'm still doing all the leg work until it becomes popular enough for people to remember to post 🫣

Phase 2: Classes

1. Teachers can create courses, offerings, and classes and have them show up on their profile. (Course: “Salsa Level 1”; Offering: “April 2025”; Class: “Week 1”)
2. Users can follow a course and see when there is a new offering available
3. Users can enroll in a course and have the classes show up on their calendar
4. Teachers can use Pasito to manage enrollment, payments, attendance, etc
5. Teachers can post a follow-up video for the class along with any recommendations for events, playlists, etc.
6. Students have access to all the materials for the classes they enrolled in for forever

Summary

So, where am I in this big overall plan? Well, I'm towards the end of Phase 1 and starting to build some fun features that might help me make a little bit of money to at least break even with my monthly expenses.

Phase 2 is probably going to require me to work on this full time to make any progress, which probably won't happen for a year or two.

A later post will provide more information on how I plan to make Pasito sustainable and how YOU can help me get there.

🕺🏻 Randy

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Part of the problem has been Pasito is just now going from a prototype that I and my friends use to a product I think is valuable enough to warrant spending time talking about it and not just developing it.

This blog is one of the first steps (pasitos?) on that journey. I want to spend more time building Pasito in “public”; show you what it can do, what I'm planning to do, my thought process on various features, and get your feedback.

Posts here will be a series of deep dives, protips, user spotlights, and answers to frequently asked questions.

• Deep Dive: What are Ambassadors and Why Does Pasito Have Them?
• Protip: Pasito's Calendar Feed
• Spotlight: Marcela Lay, User #2!
• FAQ: Why Isn't There an App?

Upcoming posts will dig deeper into what my overall vision is, so stay subscribed! ✨

🫣 I'm a software dev that thinks too much about everything, so some of the topics might go really deep. If one doesn't interest you, the next one might!

🕺🏻 Randy

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