Today on the Comcastro podcast, we get to know Tricia Whitlock. She is the editor of Hypepotamus, an Atlanta-based blog covering and uniting the local start up community. Trish gives us her perspective on the community of creators driving some of the country’s most innovative businesses. Conversation turns from marketing ideas, finding a niche, the personalities behind the culture, the triumphs and shortcomings of the non-profit organizations, and what to expect in the near future. There’s also debate on the state of healthcare and the place of startups within that sector.
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Good evening Aaron and good evening. People comcastro they have a lot of analysts young This is Max Groves and I’m Matthew queen right now. We are introducing the interview with Tricia Whitlock the editor of hypepotamus dot com I’ve rarely seen anyone so well connected into any community like this show charming just gives us a clue into the whole started singing and also more conversational non-profits in the ways that go on. Yeah this girl’s very talented she understands everything about business and we think that she’s a fantastic Assoc who ran a community and we hope in Georgia. I was taking a startup like graduate class where you build a startup in a week and I’ve always been so much around startups but never really in one to be honest right. And so I felt like I thought I was going to be investigating and writing about them and this is like my like this is my chance to find out how the inner workings of a startup where you can kind of like fill the growing pains and hear about people’s ideas not the page my own ideas Joe’s so excited to deal and so somebody pitched this idea about like the selling farts in a job like if inscription service where you like a ninja. That’s all that was the problem with the pet rock you know what they had one time you know it was all done but this is this is it. So my bank and they pay for that they use the fork and a new one and they have opened that jar. Yeah I mean I know it’s so funny because like a lot of startups is so much like the idea that you thought All right Mike how marketing is like the chick that was selling glittering on the lope. Oh yes and who raised a couple million bucks right. So she just like the idea that you open the envelope and the letter goes everywhere and I which I love because I like you know something we were going to do but we get really revenge if you’re covered in glitter like I thought about it like do you say you’re going to claim priority mode anyway to Arrested Development to buyers you know there was something that’s what a cast. Good morning. Oh my God You started a company called a hyper part of us I think might start it so I came in to plan a hackathon which was a lot of fun and I was kind of like plucked from obscurity to do this which is weird. And so I penned this hackathon I was offered a gig running like a physical state of the accelerator so it was a philanthropic we’d give people free space to either have their start up or have a meet up whatever it was kind of like within the tech scene and then as we kind of grew and the Atlanta has been flooded with co-working and startup spaces so Atlanta tech village and Roman opportunity have like which is literally underneath us right now. Our studio in her home for you know throughout the word Rome Rome Georgia I know there’s a coworking space called roll away not room. We’re there for them. Actually I covered somebody yesterday who is Dave Barry who’s about to graduate from Barry College and she heads up the newspaper there and she’s a killer. So there’s there is actually there is tech talent in the room. They’re coming from everywhere they’re coming out of the woodwork jokes will get them in town we don’t want to sprawl out even one of the ideas that we can attract these people from if we can attract the folks that are already in Atlanta like I grew up here it’s like I’m already in Atlanta right like so I have no reason to leave because my brother is here and his beautiful children his wife are here. Look I don’t want to leave Atlanta but I consider myself a part of the creative class like I’m going to build something cool and I want to like I want to leave an imprint on my footy right and I’m choosing at Lima to live because this is like where I have my network and where my family is and I love her to stay in and look down the street from us right like I have an allegiance to the place that I grew up like I don’t want to go to. All store this year. Basketball I don’t I don’t follow that ball but I was like really. I get screaming bleed blue Ladybird off of one chance you get in or you have dropped all of your pretty I am a man bragging rights and wagging it fell hard but I honestly have pager to state so much money and use that like I’m allowed to cheer as much as I want to for how they have to like and I’m on a mission that I really want to go anywhere like I’ve had a job offers in other cities and I don’t really want to leave right so I think it’s a matter of like if you can find people who are more talented than me which is not difficult to find I mean Lincoln pretty much everybody right. So like you can you know when I was a version of what I was expecting from the way I mean if you could manage to find if you couldn’t find them. They’re everywhere. No but like if you can post the best of the best from Georgia State and Emory and kind of fallen out of Georgia Tech right this second I left out of the list. Georgia Tech I love you know I do like it so funny because I didn’t go there to attack but I have such an allegiance to detect right now like they’ve given me every opportunity and ever had it feels like to me right here in the tech startup community like what other major players are there in that space. Well I mean definitely Georgia Tech kind of like sucked a lot of air out of that room. Right I mean I mean they’re producing kids that not only are like computer scientists but also have like their Ph D.’s in the medical world and health I.T. is really big in Atlanta or even the marketing world which is so funny like they’re coming out of the woodwork right said Georgia Tech has accelerators. They are the home of the flash point accelerator any T.D.C. would like a co-working as well but pretty much more like a kind of like an incubator space I’m going to sit out there I don’t know I don’t I don’t think but I see health care I.T. start ups all the time and when a when economy are pitching saying like well we’re going to do it was like you know offer you a one stop shop for all of your medical. Your medical records need doesn’t sound to me like the health care I.T. community is concerned about cures they sound like they’re just trying to cater to the administrative aspects of health. Well it’s so hard to break into The Cure side of Health right because you’ve got to be less than one where you’ve got to be thorough research you have to be so high up in the pharmaceutical world to make an impact on that that like there’s no way you’re going to even if you haven’t a really amazing in a toad or whatever it is that scene which I’ve seen that people have pitched me amazing ideas. I’m like shit that really works but it’s so hard to get that from zero to one. Yeah five If you’re much of a tough one to sixty. I mean there’s definitely some people that I feel like they have a really you know they haven’t thought through all the way or if you’re not if you’re on a doctor you’re not dealing with the daily pain of like filling out the crazy reports or having like. Seventeen thousand different codes of wave of coding like a runny nose. Sure so we like went terrible. Why don’t we just why don’t we just sue them for all for fraud. Every single health I.T. company table now all sued for fraud to make me a multibillionaire because they’re not doing health they’re doing administrative stuff and they market themselves they’re sitting there as offering these unique creative solutions to all of your health care problems and that’s not the truth. All they’re doing is saying you’re saying like one set of Excel you know or have like this access based platform that’s like powered with sequel you know be like a little more efficient. Well what it’s not really felt like that’s the hard part is like so much of this is like the facts like the F.A. X. not like F.A. feet right and people are literally still fact that people like their discharge papers and like what they do next or like if you have to get a wheelchair when you leave the hospital like they’re faxing the wheelchair company to then fax your paperwork to fill out and in fact them back and forth. No wheelchair. So I think there is. I hate saying disruptive because it’s so overused but I think there is something in that that you can fix and make it easier and less of the clinical paperwork administrative nightmare. Do I think that’s something that’s attainable from a critical mass standpoint from a start up perspective you know just like I would love someone to fix e-mail and calendar. I think Google has to fix that because the critical mass of people that are using e-mail and using calendar on Google so I want Google to step up and either absorb a startup that has the idea and say like we can implement this software we can label this into our own stuff and we can fix this problem so it’s not seventy emails to create a meeting to hang out. Right. Do I think a startup can easily get into Google to say look we have this idea and this is how you use it. No it’s that’s really hard because Google already have the money and the manpower behind them so I think Kaiser Permanente could come out and say we have an amazing health I.T. solution that cuts out the paperwork so that I don’t have dental insurance right now write something I’m looking for a dentist like it would be really helpful to have a platform that helps me choose cost wise what’s the best purchase for me that I will not have because Kaiser Permanente is an H.M.O. or so they’re going to sit there and say hey if you want to go ahead and use my sweet sophisticated system you’re have to go see a doctor over and Osceola Georgia who was you know born in Nigeria and halfway speaks your language but hey you’re going to be efficient wetback that are thirty dollars to fill a cavity. I will drive two off till she’s not got the tooth with like a curse on the wrench and a promise right. I don’t know I mean like I definitely agree with you I think there’s a lot of people who are trying to solve a problem and it is much larger than them but the idea of solving small problems is not a sexy and the start up world it’s not because the money is only there if it’s a boy. If the market is huge. So you come up with something that you feel like you can sell to the big players for that you can build on your own. When the health care I think it was very difficult. Well I mean like in health care is a perfect perfect example of an emergent phenomenon that has somehow or another managed to screw everyone involved because the insurance companies bitch all the time about this and that the hospitals I do a substantial amount of work for hospitals to take more for their heart their margins aren’t as big as you think of us like the people and the people I don’t have to tell the people I get sucks going going to health care like at no point in this process is anyone really walking home saying while I waited for it and they like any solution that you try to create to try to fix a small thing it just it just feels like you’re putting like a Band-Aid on like the Titanic more but the health I.T. world is not I mean a good bit of them are definitely the paperwork folks because the paperwork is such a huge pain point that I think it’s easy for them to paint a picture of this is different this is expensive which obviously is an easy sell for a start up like you’re spending twenty million would spend one right but like I think there’s also a lot of actual physical medical products that are coming out like surgical products or whatever it is like the better like the better walk kid this kid came up with a he’s early twenty’s I think with a better crutch like is that revolutionary. No but is having a crutch There are having crutches be more. Comfortable great you know when I write for the kids that the science fair in the White House I think like shaking hands with Obama you know so I thought I’d give even if you even if you can give is slight and not that the crowd just fight in any way but even if your disruption is not gigantic It still makes a huge impact and if he can bring that back to Atlanta and then be named like Forbes’ thirty Under thirty five you know he’s like twenty one years old at the time. He may have been like twenty Under twenty who knows. Like you’re doing a fund for your kids you know but he’s extremely talented and was using Atlanta resources to build this and built something that you know like he’s not revolutionizing how people you know target and market medical care or code it. But he created a way that I kept my leg break that’s not so hard in my armpit was that’s OK Do you know if I don’t I’m alright with that I think that still as just as anything it might have one more longer term stay even a lot of the ideas of like the medical coding in transcriptions right. Well is that like your mission to find a voice for things that maybe aren’t as purely money impactful but. Well I mean kind of I mean for us off of her high parliaments at least like obviously if there is a monetary playlet or if somebody is saving somebody a lot of money or they’re creating a new market effect the fit with cells and we want to create content that people want to read but you know a large part of what we do is kind of uncovering the all this interesting stuff that’s happening in Atlanta that nobody else is talking about because even the Creative Loafing which is the complication here but they are very into you know more like life style which makes sense and they have great content fell like why not have a huge following and then you have the Business Chronicle which if I bought a building or if I raised seventy million dollars for my startup they’ll cover you but there’s a whole underbelly of people that exist that are doing really cool things I mean are making pretty large impact or really making no impact but they’re doing something interesting and they happen to live here and they are spending their lives in the same street that I’m telling mine right now and I want to put those people on a pedestal to say like this is where that you can to live and they are creating something interesting. So they’re worth reading about. They’re making your home special. Yeah which kind of I mean I kind of like the idea that like when. Creating when I’m working and part of that I’m keeping somebody in Atlanta to be my new friend is interesting or like my new neighbor who lives on the street who maybe would have lived he would have moved to like Finn Antonio where they were able to move to Silicon Valley but instead they want to live at ten P.M. on hang out with me and like build something cool in Atlanta where I want to build my life and get the homeless shelter kicked and Pine Street but the whole I could have a whole pot got out of the series and then we’ll have a new show called Pine Street because that’s the one that’s like right across the street from here you know the one hour is actually very well maintained by the mill behind street like a very pale and I’ll tell you you’re a microphone by me. Poetry is like super terribly really terribly run. It’s one of the few places in America where you can catch tuberculosis like the idea behind it is that they’re getting somewhere for homeless people to be but instead of like a breeding ground of folks that are doing drugs drugs and it’s I mean it’s like I come from a nonprofit world. So like. When somebody is pretending to make an impact and they don’t it’s really frustrating that with the resources of what’s in Atlanta which as you know from somebody that is Estate Planning link there’s only so many rich folks here but there’s only so much money to go around right. Shoes almost burned over bridges she keeps finding and no one I mean they were what like two hundred thousand dollars in debt we’re not from a water bill they have to have a good rent like six years now but then somebody like the water bill somebody came in and paid like one hundred grand worth of back taxes. Oh I know you’re talking about this is like magic she managed to fuck up I’ve never been higher but it’s rare that you see this like it’s like it’s not rare at the nonprofit sector in a nutshell her catastrophes are magnificent and scale. So whenever she screws up like she somehow gets promoted like she screws up she doesn’t our water bill someone out of nowhere comes and pays that because then N.P.R. picked up the story and it’s a good day. All fashioned sob fest all the host of nowhere to go but they won’t talk about the fact that it’s a fundamentally mismanaged organization but the funny of the funny part of this is that a lot of the P.R. like a lot of the press around Atlanta through the local stuff as number doesn’t like we’re going street we’re on a bad record they’ve broken the story to them like at the very end of the day and when I look at the booth of this train like there’s nobody you know in the hallway there was I don’t know or that I’m moving the hate where I’m I’ve been seriously it’s like what we did. I didn’t invent the idea of not liking Pine Street. Yeah it’s so funny because like people love the community food bank Bill Bolling runs it so well because the nonprofit sector needs to be run like a business and Pine Street just continues to like take a bunch of money and then pretty much fund shenanigans and they run out of money and they just find I literally do not know where they them find money from from someone who is in the world of non-art from anything I could not imagine ever giving them a friend of mine sent about a dollar and what a perfect contrast of the Union mission which was just a block from here. Actually once a month they do like a resume workshop or you know even go in and like help the guy with the resume you know once a month to go in there and like which is funny for your volunteer service and I get kind of I don’t know what I got on their list serv somehow and I used my my freshman year I got to say it was the last year that that Georgia state owned the Olympic dorms so the admission was right down the street from us and I don’t honestly have a whole lot of time to volunteer is come the tough like a terrible thing to say but I want to I would love to volunteer more but it’s difficult and when the nonprofit is not run well the logistics are really hard but I need like a place and a time when I will be there and then I will give you whatever time I have but it gets tough to deal right but they are very good about making sure like to know when and where to go. If somewhere and then what kind of value M. brings I just bring my laptop and type up them as a main from and I love it actually it’s a lot of fun. They’re the non-profit. When I realized that non-profit as a tax to exit a nation and not a business model it was a dark day for me. But you realize you’re like yeah right you might talk about doing nothing but good things for the world. But all that shit costs money and I don’t like that and it wasn’t dark in the sense that like it was disillusionment it was dark in the sense like I suddenly have responsibilities even if even if you are a million miles away from raising funds for an organization your organization still needs funds it doesn’t matter if the March of Dimes or the Georgia Aquarium or whatever you are you need to bring in money because otherwise that my solo idea vanishes. Yeah but if you can like the whole social enterprise thing really has me really jazz I had to feel like I love that like the idea that you can make money by helping people. Right like I would with a shoe brand that like give this you Tom is right and I’m a huge fan of Tom’s because you buy like thirty pairs of like Jesus sandals and they give someone who is super poor like a five dollar pair of sandals. Like that’s not really I mean like that this is ideas there and I love that they’re getting She’s people who don’t have shoes but the but if you can you like kind of the layer back of that is that you can actually make money by helping people. That’s huge. Right like it. You can substantiate whether it’s like differential pricing or third party government where instead of the government running the services the non-profit sector kind of like assures them out instead of a cheaper way because the infrastructure is already there. It’s interesting but it has to be done with so much due diligence and so much oversight and business where with all that doesn’t really exist in the nonprofit sector right now because it’s so sexy to have a really low overhead so you thought the Coley have fiber. Because we pay people who work for what we pay the three people who run this whole thing. Nothing. A It’s impossible to keep those people but I also think what kind of talent are you attracting when you can’t afford to keep anyone or attract them. Why do we care about overhead. I mean who cares if you have one percent overhead if you do a bake sale. I mean like if you had this exact example we’re going to talk. Yeah yeah I was about as I was about to transition I forget his name but he’s so you know musician if you have like a forty percent overhead and all that forty percent overhead like let’s just say ninety percent because of the marketing. Yeah you know when you’re in you’re in now we’re talking on a billion dollar scale. Now if you really are talking about curing a disease you know I mean like do you have an opinion on that like like Have you ever fought back like internally. Well I mean it’s. It’s really tough because the people who run the really large organizations are making six figures because when you there’s a thing called like at ten I had nine or ten I knew nine ten I ninety like nonprofit firelight and that kind of if you make over one hundred thousand dollars a nonprofit it will say how much you’re making in what your kickbacks are coming like exposes what’s happening with a with with an organization and people always give a hard time to the folks that run really large non-profit organizations. But if I was managing a couple thousand people I would imagine that I’m making a hundred thousand dollars. Because if you can afford to pay somebody that much money you’re gonna try to make him a towel that you need to run an organization that large and you want someone you can run it really well so it can be a well run organization. Sounds like like anyone who wants to put others first will constantly be constantly be bled from within right to the point where they’re not just burned out but almost like hope. Well it’s tough I mean like my because I was there for a while I was going in the nonprofit route like I worked for a for profit consulting company. So that helps nonprofits trying to raise money and I went to school for nonprofit thinking like oh well like maybe the admin the project management side of nonprofits the way I want to go. But it’s tough because you’re working with a really an educated group of people who are usually the folks that also work there which makes sense because you can only afford to pay somebody so much. So how much if you are offering twenty seven thousand dollars a year to a marketing manager that’s not someone you have a master’s in marketing or who has a couple years of experience in marketing let’s be honest right. So you’re already you’re working in the kind of a group that it’s hard to execute and implement and catalyze to do something great and then a lot of the leadership is either they’re inexperienced from a leadership perspective entirely so they have no idea how to run something or it’s a passion project for them so they are really great at running a business of sort of like maybe an I.T. business or like a health I.T. business where they do medical records. Right but then like all the sudden their wife gets cancer and they want to run a cancer organization. That’s an entirely different animal like you or the skill set for that is so different and the people that are working in that environment are so different from the I.B.M. or whatever they worked up before for the translation to that from a leadership perspective is not good so I think you have a problem a leader perspective as well as people that are actually working at a nonprofit. Once you get that same problem with if you have you know money in something from people come or go after it or I mean it’s hard to say. It’s kind of like the whole socialized medicine thing it’s like can you attract people to do it because they want to do it or do you try them because they want to make money doing it right like a big part of what I wanted to do in the like I would like to make a comfortable living like I want to be able to like take a vacation once in a while or like by and I stress if I like happen upon it right like not like live lavishly but like you know not to choose between. A night of beans and milk and you doesn’t exist in the nonprofit world. You’re never going like unless you are really high up in the nonprofit world. You’re never going to come at Dell so I think it’s tough it’s kind of like you you want to be there because you want to make an impact. But depending on your job do you really witness that impacts to kind of feel like that you know the Jews the hiring what you’re doing that makes up for the fact that the hours are long and the pay is crappy. Or are the hours and the pay is crappy in your you know you’re just beaten. Exactly and that’s why I left a nonprofit rugs I felt like I wasn’t seeing an impact and granted like I wasn’t what that’s nonprofit so like that probably there’s a lot of really well run nonprofit but there are a lot of really run non-profit so non-profits lack of leadership is so notorious. I mean Andre Agassi may hate to pick on the poor guy but I mean it’s like he had a notoriously bad nonprofit and there are some wonderful nonprofits out there but like the number of what not one for one. Nonprofits it’s like there’s like one hundred of them. Yeah maybe more than maybe there’s a thousand watts so there’s like millions told here in the thing is. There are so many bad problems in this world. I mean let’s start with something that sounds trivial but I would argue it’s not like a lack of musical musical education. I would love for everyone to have an opportunity to learn music at a very high level at the at the level that I was fortunate enough to learn when I was a kid and I would throw money at that. But you know the guy running that’s probably you know from some schmuck from Wisconsin who is you know like you said has zero ability to manage the kind of scale you would need to redesign the entire educational system because that’s the problem is this is soon as you start talking about these kind of existential problems that we would all like to see get better. A level of correct. Correcting that has to be done becomes almost like on a cultural level which is monumental in scale. But everyone wants to reinvent the wheel. Like I think that’s the thing that I found not only in the nonprofit world but also the startup world is like you don’t have to go in and change the way the schools are made you partner with the somewhat failing arts organizations that are happy now really the A.F.L. has had a lot of trouble in the past year and a half. They like her last episode to republish this morning. I would you call it a heavy metal or the storm is all about the problems of classical music. Now there you go you know it’s like the A.F.L. had always palms up like you know we want to be a main like a huge player in the orchestra world and you need like one hundred sixty vs one hundred ten I don’t quote me on this I have no idea how orchestras work I played the flute between like fourth grade only twelve so like my experience in the restaurant is very small but you know you can you take those one hundred the one hundred ten players and immerse them in the school system in some way like when you are do you take the things that exist and use them in a way that helps everyone. Right maybe it helps them financially that had they were paying these folks you know six figures to play for four or five months that in the off season they tutor or they go in and they teach classes or whatever it is right. The lack of partnership the things that really hard because everyone it at least in Atlanta at least to me it feels like everyone’s always reinventing the wheel. So there is no build on progress and there’s only so many resources so that everyone’s playing from the same resources it’s not an opportunity to do something your spirit animal is a mouth you want them off the flame. So just as before with the nonprofits you’re one of those really pretty much as I think you like the silence of the Lambs Martha has no doubt. One is awesome. So I’m dead serious about this like I like what you’re describing at the non-profits is like you’re drawn to these people who want to change the world like on a granular like like almost like like operational and then you go to the start of community where you see people who are nuts or thinking that they’re hell fire to thaw for somehow going to solve all the problems these people are really not that different. Well who’s to write him and he said there’s a lot of folks that are doing or I think anyone who is open to the idea that you do you have to partner is doing something right. Or someone who’s open to the idea that like if you can bootstrap that you try that for a while and you test things. Is doing something right. I think anyone that’s kind of like chasing the big shiny object without really knowing what that is is not doing anything right. I mean a lot of folks that have just and sometimes like I mean I’m not like great you better of ideas I mean I hear a lot of things like sometimes I can really tell somebody has something to me doesn’t but I don’t come like I don’t have a huge startup background if you’re the reporter I was I suppose I mean there’s no for sure I mean that I can that what I want to cover and hype but that’s very different than telling somebody that they haven’t found any and I want to come from a point of strength not from a point of like Trisha’s casual likes opinion like I don’t like you know I mean I I wouldn’t trust that if I was in the business world because I’m fresh like fresh off the boat right. But you can you can tell the people who have a real idea or can really hone in on something that needs to be fixed and somebody that has thirty ideas and is chasing them all at the same time. So like I got a lot of nonprofit stuff to look at look at the passion and I’m like I want to be a part of something that’s doing something great for the Mormons but I do like to do that do you feel like I’ll meet someone who talked for twenty minutes about their startup idea and they’re really like Oh we’re like a new platform and we do this and we do that. When we do this and we do that and then one of the things that they say in the thirty minutes is like the one thing that nobody else is doing and that there’s really a market for that. No but white folks list all of these great ideas and ideas are fantastic but you have to have something that is that has a real market and that nobody else is doing. I demand of those that I talked to that are doing something interesting and I’m like oh well have you heard of so and so they’re doing this and like and granted like I really know in a market the Atlanta market better than I know any other market I can have an idea of what’s happening in the Valley and New York and Boston and the triangle but like I dunno what’s happening here right. So I’ll say like oh have you heard of someone fellows doing something very similar like whether you can either partner with them that you lay around with the one thing that they’re not doing with what they’re doing or vice versa or that they’re doing most of what you’re already doing for maybe like maybe there’s already somebody that’s in the market is there are there way to either partner with them to make it larger or are they doing it better than you. Or are they doing a crappy job and they have this great ideas like can you. Take some of their fantastic ideas and layer on what you know well what people don’t know like no one knows what anyone else is doing which is why hype was started with that nobody was really had any idea what other people are working on and that’s frustrating from a respected like cross pollination and building things in it but I really I mean like I really feel that way like I love the city and I love the people that I work with and I really feel like there’s so few communities where it does feel all inclusive and we granted I’ve had a very different experience than most folks in the startup world I’m shore right like I’ve been in a perspective where I’ve always been like kind of the agnostic party and like I haven’t had my own startup so my competing for the same funding or talent resource has almost been journalists going in the start of things. So yeah everyone is. So self-conscious about who they’re going to stress with the fact that when I bring like yourselves versus the presses Come on you know where you’re going or like I’m in a very I mean I’ve been blessed with a very comfortable position in this world for sure but I don’t know I mean you have to even I have to bring something to market that’s valuable. Like I can’t cover crap nobody will read it you know as like a human condition thing though like where everyone’s going after the same ideas the same time in calculus was discovered by Newton and I guess it’s Who cares where the name is but to do this at the same time discover the same thing independently of each other I mean next to that car that like camo you like cross Atlanta all the time. Everyone have the same idea at any time I mean I have my answer. I.D.’s right. Like I drink the Kool-Aid I’m around like and I assume that whenever I’m thinking of something and I’m like this that I never thought of that like fifty other people in twenty other places are thinking the same exact thing but you can’t just think something you have to be like in the starter probably you have to be able to execute it you have to find the right talent you have to find the right funding or you have to be able to bootstrap your way from zero dollars to turning a profit to set a GA you quitting your job and taking a full time right so I mean the idea is. The idea is important but the execution is everything. It’s everything so why can’t I mean everyone’s going to have the same ideas and I come across a lot of those that have very similar ideas that are asking in very different ways and it’ll long term it will show who can really build a business as opposed to you who has a great idea that just says I’m a shelf so what is a business. Well if I didn’t I mean I don’t know I think it’s if you have from a sort of perspective that how. Oh I understand it is that you have to have there’s like a level of customer discovery so you have to have something that someone wants to buy. Bottom line so is there a market for it. Is there someone that’s willing to pay you to do what you want to deal or if you’re looking at something. Are you looking at the wrong way. So a good example of this is somebody that came out of a Startup Weekend and then into the flashpoints later programs they very much like a golden child. The startup scene here right they went to like a big event that’s very common in Atlanta and they went through a very common accelerator that’s very well renowned and people you know appreciate and love it and they had this idea about you know marketing and they hunt and they just they pushed it and they push and they push and it was hundreds of interviews and. Now they like what they were trying to build something and every time they were saying we want to build this like that similar to male chimp like they wanted to which I am representing P. a T. shirt which no one at home can see that like if they are they were do they want to build kind of like a marketing email platform right. And they kept going out and people kept saying to them this is snappy Oh by the way I only have to be a secret. People kept saying to them you know like that’s great and we would love to have a you know marketing platform that worked really well. But our big problem is only get a big list we can always get kicked off because it’s you know we’re getting marked as spam in the list kick us off and we can’t keep the people in like how do we how do we manage our process of maintaining the list and he kept coming back they saw it or saying like well I just keep hearing about people who bought their list but I want to build a marketing platform and they were like well no. Like people keep telling me that they’re having less problems. Maybe that’s the business right there. So maybe AIG So I think at least you have to you have to go out and find the pain point will pay for and then create the solution and solving the solution before and that’s a lot of businesses finding the pain point and find that pain point and zob. It but it’s so true because the pain points are what people spend money on. Actually I remember John Oliver’s story on for profit universities. OK and they had a coaching clinic for selling kids on taking on debt to go into degrees they can’t finish just to create more has he no money and they have been part of the coaching points was leveraging on their pain points and was like like what your mother would be so proud of you to go to school or you know but I think that’s like that’s kind of cool that I think an attack role recently is that the technical school is trying to partner with and trying to partner with the employers so I’m like I am. Quite honestly pretty general to curry right like I graduate enough like one of the home energy next to him. But now like places like tack are partnering with the tech with tech companies to say what are you who are you looking to hire. Like what are the skill sets needed to fill your entry level positions and they’re in the they’re like kind of back pedaling and building the curriculum around with those tech companies want that for you know Obama’s whole campaign around colleges right now. Right yeah like the like the kryptonite for liberal arts colleges though like the people who like made a profession out of teaching Shakespeare and I want to rip on Shakespeare because he’s got a lot to say and it’s all good but I mean what’s the relevance of teaching Shakespeare if that’s going to cut into your time for learning how to actively make money whenever you graduate from the sick very expensive college that we’re going to show our I mean well I had the luxury of the Hope Scholarship. So like I was I mean I couldn’t I couldn’t afford to go anywhere else. So Georgia like anywhere interesting with my option my parents couldn’t afford it which was totally fine like a great but like I needed I know that I needed to maintain my HOPE scholarship as well as find other scholarship. To be able to like eat and live during the four years that I was in school which most states don’t really give right like I had the flexibility of choosing what I wanted to do you have like a P.T.A. scholarship I got a scholarship from like Wal-Mart. I had I had like five scholarships going into my knowledge school you know I was applying to local P.T.A. but I was hustling like I had an entire wall of my room when I was seventeen was like scholarships and like when they were due and when I had to have ready for them and everything that I knew that I had to pay for school and like I said it was easier to write an essay than it was to work at Old Navy at seven twenty five an hour to pay it off right at your parents help you with that at all or at least encourage it was like hey honey go get some goddamn scholar to go get that money. No I think they instilled a appreciation for education that I couldn’t afford and I don’t know I did it was like an innate sense of like this is what I have to do so if I’m going to do it I might as well make it as easy as humanly possible for myself and I didn’t want to work at seventeen but I knew that long term like. It would pay off I don’t know I don’t know or could take on even more too much work to ever become sort of for the non-profit organization the out I went to grad school and I have like fellowships and bad you know grad research is this and chips and all the stuff that I did to get through grad school about paying for it you have to be resourceful right there and how is it out of law school as a pie eating contest where the prize is more pie. That sounds like your wife I mean I’m not sure I don’t but I don’t have any life advice if the pie is really good and I’m actually I’m having a great time in Atlanta has been very good to me and life has been very good to me on our start ups it’s a shit ton of fun I have to say like I have completely drink drank the Kool-Aid like I don’t have to drink the Kool-Aid everyone dies. I’m OK with the next level of of my life. What are you. My purgatory of building cool stuff than I am in the beginning exactly. No I don’t know I mean I’ve been like in the corporate world I guess when the non-profit world and the startup world so funny because right now people with my skills that don’t know us are products asked which I think is a big thing for which I really want to make for high Papen is like that there is all of this like kind of maybe it’s like the talent might be strong if you’re talking about me but other people like marketing talent in writing talent and just people who like can sell things right and the startup world needs that because you can only get so far with the coding side that people that are and usually in my position when they’re like you know twenty two twenty three and graduating with the kind of liberal arts degree that I had I don’t even know that this is the kind of the different factor that you can get into and not be working in the corporate world. So there you go the profitability of little works. Amen. Outstanding Cheers do you find that people want to start a community or are like more creative than others or are they just like like like hopeless like dreamers like like how would you describe the people. I don’t know they are my people there. Which is funny because I wouldn’t know. Like they’re yeah they’re passionate and they’re nerdy and they just really care like I don’t know like you run into all these people that are coming just like I hate thing that’s like there’s like an empty shell. People like you meet those people and it’s just like now that it’s like a corporate drone but I know they were conversations about the weather. Yeah the weather the traffic the traffic so I don’t know but I mean you meet people that are just kind of like the there David that they’re just going to their day to day right now and I feel like in the start up Roger like in a community of builders and granted like so many people will build nothing. Or they’ll build a house of cards like it won’t mean anything in the software doesn’t work and the funding isn’t really there and you know but a lot of the but for the most part I think these folks really have either an idea they really want to chase and they feel like there’s an impact for it or that they just want to be a part of something that is doing something interesting as opposed to pushing paper. It sounds like the difference between making your life happen and letting it happen to you. Thank you Daniel Pink but it is kind of true like I mean to me at least between how I felt when I was working in corporate America versus how I feel kind of workman I don’t really work at the start up world let’s be honest. Like I work full time Taylor Yeah like I work for for the start up world. But it’s it really is day and night on the kind of people that you meet for sure and I would much rather be hanging out with the dreamers. I’m not the only one. Well I don’t I don’t think that you’re too far off base with what I’m reading into what you’re saying is that there is like different skill sets out there to support a very positive spin on what you were saying before. Let’s face it if you want to go run I.B.M. you’re running a an old establishment very powerful company with a lot of brain power behind it. So if there’s a problem or a challenge the problem going to solve it sooner rather than later. Yeah at least on a realistic time frame we can get granular about that same way we did but yeah I mean they shine on the corporate side is so difficult. The larger point being that the skillset it takes to run Disney I.B.M. These days Google Oracle is totally different from the skill set that you see to start. Disney I.B.M. Google Oracle I mean that that might get a ship. Do you see that I mean but names that exist regarding the did you see that at a company you worked for at a certain point real like we are no longer. Start up anymore. Well you know they were literally started from the start of the entire operations was like kind of start mentality went you know to make it happen make it better go for him out of a regiment. Well a lot of folks that start the start ups are not the people that run them long term. Right. Those people for it may be the best media company and putting out interviews radio No I think sometimes people can be builders and as opposed to you know the organization behind it. Sometimes it’s you build something and you pass it off like I love the idea that I can get hyped to a point where it’s sustainable that I can kind of like not that there’s a handbook to hide because like if there was but love to see it but like you know like I bet I can have like somewhat of a measured course of where to go and then I can find someone to feed me after I’ve built it to a certain point if they like. OK I need to do now is like kind of maintain it and build it at the same time but like this is kind of the prescription of how you do it. Not that I’m a builder like I am and I’m trying Rach hope that I’m a builder I had no idea. Well look at Urban Meyer. The famed coach of Florida followed by Ohio State. He’s he said several times that what he really enjoyed. She she may be going over my head reference. He want to look at the University of Florida inheriting a crack program has three children in football then you’ll be all in it you’ll know all the names some very long territory he built up the program from nothing. Hi Steve Spurrier was there he was great. The guy who is sixty and runs up was trash in an Urban Meyer took trash and then went very far with it and a lot of people suspect he got bored. Then you compare and contrast it with someone like Nick Saban over Alabama who clearly can run a dynasty but you know I don’t I’m a college football the point is what you’re saying being a builder versus what I was talking about with I.B.M. Google Oracle. We see is transcended skill sets between something as inane as college football and as ridiculous yet the technology community feels that’s different and the interest is different. Like I don’t have an interest in running a blog for the long term. Right like I but I want to build something that makes an impact in the Atlanta startup scene and I want to build something that I feel like I can go to a critical mass of whatever how many unique visitors or whatever it is or that it’s self-sustaining from a financial standpoint they’re making some money and then I’d love to like go and build something else that maybe isn’t even the startup world that has them some of the skills that I’ve learned from doing this I don’t know exactly just takes off and start pitching. No no I mean like if the whole point that you just like I don’t know like I maybe had like my generation or whatever but I want to do something and I want to feel like I’d like to turn it succeeded at it and like to try something that almost entirely different. I get it it’s a high when you’re dealing with you know their life and you’re still an exponential growth. I mean like even weight lifters talk about this when you’re still in exponential growth is when you’re going from well I can barely bench press my body weight to that moment you feel like you’re like in a couple of weeks I’m going to be the strong one and that’s what it’s like when you’re running a business because you don’t see where the light at the end of the tunnel is you’re still going so fast that the stars are flying by like the enterprise. Yeah that’s why I feel like the light at the end of the tunnel but also the thing to know when you’re a builder it’s like there’s no light there’s no tunnel because it never all dark it’s hard work. No I write like I think of hype and I don’t think of like Atlanta startups I think of every thirty that doesn’t have a Tech Crunch right because Tech Crunch covers California and they don’t say that but like with the UN I think for the most part unless you’re sending them press releases were they just turn around almost you know. Verbatim there covering things that are happening Silicon Valley and there’s a whole other level of everywhere else that exists that isn’t on Tech Crunch is radar and like there’s another there’s like money to be made in that but there is I think there’s value in talking about what everyone else in the rest of everywhere else is building you know so it’s like can i rep can I make it hate Miami. Can I make it hate Nashville can I make it hype. New York right now I don’t know if I buy how it fell but I really know that I know that if I can do it right here I’m not going to be able to do it well somewhere else just wait until it becomes hyper pumice West that’s like big crunch. Yeah I have a name for it but it’s on that promise. Well we will transition. Got a head like a love hate relationship with it. People see it and they remember it and they don’t forget it and not the brain to the brain stickiness that people at the syrup that folks want. It’s so hard to spell from and how do you go wrong every single time I don’t know there’s an A from a F E O perspective Kilduff and it is good. It’s like so I have a very love hate to be honest. We have love and hate and I am thinking for you for the I don’t know I mean we started out as like a physical brick and mortar type face right. So and it was philanthropic that we built a lot of goodwill around the fact that we were giving free space the startup community in that we were hosting meet ups and throwing events and all of that so I wouldn’t want to not capitalize on that and we’re kind of doing I mean we’re doing the same thing now but like in kind of a different forum. So I couldn’t imagine getting rid of the hype name but possibly more valuable I mean yeah you know you’re working your ass off on development. I mean the one thing you don’t have time for is publicity. Yeah but also a big part of my job is like that where getting the hype name out right. It’s tough when we first started with the idea of being a more of a publication than a physical space. That’s when we kind of played with the idea of like is there maybe to we go in different direction now but really within the last I would say like six months in me like three or four months then we people sort of recognize us as somebody that’s covering a scene and that’s kind of like the you know the start up folks of the South. So to now go back and have to like RE RE on board all those folks into a new name and a new picture and all that kind of stuff I mean I love the name part of this but to me it doesn’t really mean it doesn’t mean as much as all of the underbelly of the folks that we’ve found a job for or cover their start up or found them funding or had them pitch somewhere they wouldn’t have pitched if they hadn’t known us and we could never afford them right. So it’s secondary to what’s really happening. So when I write brochures creatures I mean I think I love our logo and I think it’s fun and I also think yeah yeah I mean I think it’s fun I don’t from a like finding us on Twitter and Like you know Googling start up and finding enough Yeah it’s a little bit of a hurdle but from a local perspective people really know us and I kind of like the idea of being grassroots I don’t mind the idea that like I’ve got to continuously go after everyone to get them involved in this. Like I Don’t you know there’s somebody on Facebook there’s a group in Canada actually that creates really great content. They’re called beta kit right. So when you’re I don’t know if you guys market on Facebook but if you market on face if we don’t market it like we put our stuff on Facebook big ticket has thirty six thousand followers. But their level of engagement on. They push is the same as us and we had eight hundred or so like there is something to be said about having a really engaged audience as opposed to an inflated number like I mean you can yeah I could pay I could pay five dollars at five or for someone to go like a bunch of people and I’m like a bunch of people on Facebook or you know both of us on Twitter. But like the number it is now I mean the the number matters to me because I’m a long term sustainability standpoint like I need to have large numbers to be able to sell advertising or sell somebody on the idea that I’m making an impact right when everyone’s going to think you know as I do you thing like I just found my dream job that pays gay but I’ve been to Atlanta because of you right which I love but I can’t I think I can make money on that I don’t want to do. I really do like those emails are what keeps me going when it’s like eighteen hour days but I can’t fathom an idea so I need to have the numbers behind me. But like I don’t care about having thirty thousand Twitter followers if only really a thousand of them are really listening. Relic I rather have five thousand and they really care two more questions. If someone were to take to be the guy going for the moon. We’re going to be successful. I mean just to enter the realm of well there’s no barrier to entry. So have an idea and like start showing up but you have the business I mean yeah yeah I mean if you are you have to have the idea in execution because if not you’ll either you’ll never survive. From a competitive standpoint or have an idea and show up and then if it doesn’t work. Work for a startup or like find I think that the big thing is a lot of people come out of school in their early twenty’s and they want to build something great. But instead of seeing the value in learning from someone they want to go on top of themselves which is not always the best thing because you have no business experience you know you don’t really. All you’re doing and you’re diluting the resources because you’re pitching and you’re asking for the same funding in your right. So it is tough. So I think your best bet is if you’re starting If you’re just starting out is to if you have a good idea find a find a startup in Atlanta that aligns with that has like some kind of connection to what you would like to do so if your crowd source if you’re crowd sourcing you know delivery you’re working with Kanga. If you’re interested in the back and the e-commerce you’re with e-com hub which is change its name but I can’t remember right now you know I can find a startup that’s doing something that you have some kind of interest in doing and work there and help them build it and at the same time see what’s working and what doesn’t work and then you know build your stuff in the off time and in the meantime you know feed your talent into the startup world. That’s my advice. Have you seen an idea like swept you off your feet just kind of faded away and you still not understand why. I don’t know for me because I am not a huge like business person. For me the B. to B. stuff always kind of feels less sexy like I understand B. to C. because I am a consumer rights liking them from a consumer standpoint I’m like oh my God I want to own that or like where I really want any part of this right so I mean there’s definitely been from B. to C. companies that I’ve seen that have great ideas but because they have so many ideas that I can afford like it like the one really great idea they have is so heavily diluted and it’s that kind of tough for me because I’m not. I hate to say this but like I’m not a huge techie user I’m does not like it’s never been in my blood like I have and not a very likable social people person even if you’re not you know I mean I hope so I mean I like being a pure person I enjoy talking to folks right. But like when someone’s like I will try out my new ad. I’m like whoa. If they hear that on Android and i am and how do you do that do you write the answer is not at all no. Oh look I think you know I mean I do want to try things out I’m I don’t know I there’s definitely been some folks that I’ve seen that have a really great idea I think it’s more a personal problem for me that I feel like I don’t want to. I thought oh it’s actually really a problem. Like I hear this a lot where people will they feel like in Atlanta like everyone just kind of lifts everybody up like Rudy style like everybody then everyone shoulders right. Where in Silicon Valley if you have a terrible idea somebody able to say to you like no don’t do that you know only after like twenty people say to you like no don’t do that you’re like oh maybe the markets are like this is a terrible idea. I think Atlanta still has a lot of like positivity in a lot of this like Southern charm so we’ve kind of lost the ability to say like this you know so you know this is my mother. So basically your ideas right will blow this will slow and you know nobody it’s so true. But sometimes there’s like that seed of an idea but it’s tough like for the most part it’s those people that I meet that have all these great ideas and that are very tech talented or that have like the passion that they want to spend twenty hours a day chasing something and they chase something that’s like they don’t see something real. So like join it join a real startup instead that has either had some funding or that has proven the market would be standing up for me now because I do something else but there’s like there’s not that mentality you know like doesn’t it. I think it really is. A landfill and I want to play to move you know. Well which isn’t funny because like I can sort of jump for joy. My God just say no. Yeah she’s like that she she will find that the reason that your company will fail. I’m going to tell you all about it. Lightly thing it’s like if I want to meet her. Yeah I mean it’s beautiful in a way like it’s only right now to go over the dinner. Yeah it’s like it’s just a radio says as the creative idea is to like be the force of destruction and be like OK here’s the eighteen reasons that like you haven’t even broken through my barriers of skepticism I think that’s the hard part is that there is not this mentality that like when you someone comes to eat they’re not looking for support that you should be you should be tearing them down in a constructive way and you need a new section of your website called like hate Apollo would Trish think how you did then when I met Mike. I mean if I if I had thirty years of marketing and sort of experience I would still have a lot more comfortable thing like this idea is that you know but for the most part the problem like this is who you should talk like I mean my my I feel like my role is if you’re in a position where you need beta users or you’re launching or whatever it is and you need some exposure I can help or if you are looking for the right mentor or if you’re trying to break into the startup scene I can introduce you to some folks that are doing something that’s somewhat related to what you’re doing and then they will give you the advice that you need. Right so I mean I do that too right like I’m I’m putting people off to say I like this idea is terrible as opposed to telling them myself but I never want to give my opinion unless I feel like it’s really well educated and as much as I like read about your job or another. I know but what was your opinion. I know because I write about everything like I will have a conversation with somebody who is creating a new crutch and then I leave and it’s somebody who is creating a new way of sharing that point. Bitcoin right. So it’s like I can only I can’t be an expert at it all. You know and understand it enough that I want to be able I mean here is and you know I think you’re in the Bit Coin thing doesn’t understand it either so you can just say no is actually nineteen and like the sharpest person I’ve ever met in my entire life and I had the money. Bit MO would have the whole of it you know like investors be well you know what it’s like trying to push everything. Well yeah but I mean they’re paid like their pay started as the first time I met them it was ten people in the lead tech knowledge alas and I went to see them they were I had moved to a maybe like two building the building down they were like one you know one way across from that like Naked Lady place the twin peaks there was no no no that madame you know this little guy was on a train piece now and they’re like you know there are two there I can find two floors and throwing a big coin Bowl in Florida you know like their growth has been exponential because they really found a niche they are now everywhere and they have a direct pipeline into the tech and the talent Architech every time I talk to them with their coin. Amen don’t attack you know this company has got to be a twenty three or hot dogs you know what I know well there are really young people right so last weekend I went to go see Jermaine Dupree speak and he brought Scooter Braun who’s like the guy who represents with a kid from Canada. Justin Bieber Justin Bieber thank you there. I present Justin Bieber unlike a lot of other musical talent and so much that’s my head You’re welcome back here from Canada Michael J. Fox Alister back knows no James and well I think I see another great point about start up is that I don’t think the people so start of this job never and right like it never and this is what I want to just say I want to ask was a take going like Emma knowing it takes it takes everything like at the same time. I love my job so much that I’m willing to give it my work time and my personal time and my personal interests is no start up right like act like there was there’s nothing that I wouldn’t do for this job. I love what I do and I love that a part of what I do is that every other day I get an email from someone saying that I have somehow made a huge impact on what they are what they are try