Stories of Technology, Innovation, & Entrepreneurship in the Southeast

Alex Abell announced in a post last week on the Lunchpool website that he would be “sunsetting our virtual event service offering to focus on what’s most important to us: getting people together for lunch.” The announcement officially confirmed what he had told us earlier in the week.

“Our team is honored to have been a part of so many special occasions and memories, and we want to thank all of our clients and supporters for entrusting us with your events,” he wrote. “If you have an event already booked with us, don’t worry! We will still be delivering the same high-quality, personal service you’re used to.”

We first met the then relatively new resident of Knoxville in late 2019 and posted this teknovation.biz article in early December of that year. We concluded that initial article with the quote: “Lunchpool began as a way to help people build connections over common topics during their lunch break,” Abell wrote in a recent article for St. Pete Catalyst, a local online newspaper. “Since starting this project, however, we’ve unearthed a world of research that points to a very large problem: the lunch break as we know it is being threatened. We’re losing some of our abilities to socialize because of how awkward it can be to build new connections as adults.”

Within just a few months, the COVID-19 pandemic caused shutdowns of most in-person events, and Lunchpool found early success pivoting to helping produce all-virtual events (see teknovation.biz article from March 2020 here). Now, some 28 months later, Abell writes, “I’ll be focusing my efforts on building ‘lunchpools’ around the globe. My chief aim is to foster the growth of a community of leaders, innovators, and connectors pooling together over lunch to transform their communities and make the world a better place. If you’d like to get updates, join the ride, and be the first to know about launch dates, the latest news, and more, please subscribe to my weekly LinkedIn newsletter.”

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