Today on the Comcastro podcast, we welcome Josh Gertz and Kyle Rollins of AMMO, the Atlanta Mobile Marketing Organization. Josh and Kyle talk with us in depth about startup culture, finding the right business partnership, and hard truths about relationships in startups, sharing some personal stories and experience with us. We also chat about the maturation of the Atlanta tech industry, bringing recognition to Atlanta’s business and technology communities with the 2015 Atlanta Mobile Awards, and ongoing Atlanta neighborhood development. Viva la revolucion!
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Good evening Internet this is Max Groves Viva comcastro Viva la Revolution. I’m introducing Josh Gertz And Kyle Rollins of the Atlanta Mobile Marketing Organization. These guys are super fans of the city they’re going to talk about a perspective on I’ll try am some places where deserves criticism. They’re also promoting their award show where they honor notable exceptions in the mobile marketplace as compensation bounces between start ups technology and land speculation and all sorts of nonsense anyway. You don’t love it. Great jokes. Here we go. Did yes going to make emoticon in a boat a kind of voted Republican but that is company of Oticon all know not shared McLean is they going to Jared. My old rugby team in you know that’s how we met actually. So Jared was I go to the Atlanta Underground Food Market through a text invitation from any through this bizarre app is designed around event promotions and exhilaration that might have been it I don’t know but it was all through tax fat fat. So any invites me to that through that and I get there I don’t recognize anyone’s kind of like toning down about to leave after I had too much wine she had McRee walks and this guy are a great friend wonderful person haven’t talked to him once since college except for like occasional alumni rugby match Well that’s because he’s too good for you know what the fuck I don’t you know it or not you know you get for running into is fuckin sector right now we’re here so I don’t even awards bullshit right. Shares an awesome guy. He’s right now also in a completely non-stereotypical way Mike. My For a while one black friend of the land is now selling him O. G.’s to black people for him and he has a legal start up called smart legal or smart up something like that. That’s right I don’t like the legal software like Legal Zoom but you actually get a real consultant attached to it an hour or so instead of being ten bucks. It’s it’s a couple grand but yeah. So fuck you Jerry but there’s a ten second plug for all of your business so guess what you said you know me motherfucker. We’ll make sure he loses in the The only time I remember the only time I ever mattered I was handing him an award. Yeah well what if what he has given it was of with our awards were made in the little cast of an i Pad black and an iphone they were made out of this kind of vinyl ish material when I was definitely pleasantly as you can endure some fancy name that’s not where it was bronze on the I’m now going to call it orange and blue there are like these like here they were. Let’s go with the interesting yeah interesting is that we’re going to say if that was the winning. Well as they were I don’t know when it was best in social I think it was for our first mobile words I’m going to look that up while we’re talking so we can come back to that. Yeah we just made up a bunch of categories. So yeah kind of made up is the term I would go with. We chose we strategically decided after years of industry surreal Yes we decided upon what the market of applications probably was competitive in these dimensions and saw that they as locals in this realm were exceeding So I just had an idea here you guys are going to help us him see this next. Oh yeah that is I love your live editing of what we’re doing because we got up on stage last year and I don’t really ad hoc that had a great time. Yeah I was the MC and I would say give myself maybe like a D. plus everybody already intel that I would rather have the to emcee the event the more a good man the more it just comes you know it’s not it’s a it’s a fun thing to do but it’s like I’m seeing events a lot harder than it looks I am seeing non-profits annual event last year and like we had this screw. At that we had we had to stick to when that was terrible. I mean I try to spend S.G.I. trying to stick to a script and I like my comic timing was terrible and she was like frustrated me because I didn’t have classical theater training and she was she went to Vanderbilt for acting so I’m like sitting here like I was like what it was this for. Well it was for my favorite charity but we’re not to mention right now because I’m not saying everything in a positive light. Welcome back to that of an eye you know Vanderbilt’s in Nashville right it’s not like in Hollywood. Yeah I’m well aware that means that her parents spent like a quarter million dollars and her acting school up in Tennessee Nashville Nashville is a serious arts town especially music but like he’s acting corresponds very well. Oh I believe that. So why don’t you get more acting gigs in Atlanta and he will Nashville still you know Atlanta’s becoming a real hub for acting and for producing and if you know this but a group of investors bought the lot that the G.M. plant was on and they’re going to turn it into the largest movie studio on the East Coast it was only in square feet the like school attached with the crew training or is it just this studio. No it’s just going to be a studio that I’m going to spend like thirty one million dollars just building the facilities and then they’re going to do huge P.R. it’s going to host a million square feet I mean they’ve really serious plans are really working to get that what is it fifteen percent of Labour in every film going to speed all the crew on our screen. OK so not that we want to talk about this all night but my understanding is that the state of Louisiana had a huge tax credit for production of film and as of two thousand January first two thousand fifteen it went away and so people are seeing the opportunity to chose places so they see they see an opportunity in a group of investors bought the the empty lot where the G.M. plant was right on eighty five to eighty five and they going to put a million square foot movie studio in there. I sincerely hope they keep that going on but it’s so precarious at the same time because there’s always some yahoo up in the state legislature who wants to get rid of it for various reasons I can’t trust Georgia politics the problem with that tax credit is that as soon as it. Goes away all that industry all of it goes elsewhere they get on with Carolina South Carolina or whoever the next race to the bottom is going to be the only thing that Atlanta really possesses that no one else has arguably Charlotte is just economic drive. I mean we have so much resources material here bottoms not to mention Delta I mean like like having like like such an act like a transportation hub that you can easily get people up eighty five like you don’t have like L.A. for example. If it weren’t already L.A. nobody would go there. L.A.X. is impossible to get in and out. So let’s balance the transportation hub argument with the reality on the asphalt. Because the airport is the number one reason businesses want to come here and all the cheap electricity and things like that that the number one reason business site for not coming here is our roads. Yeah so you know we can figure that out. But yeah driving is an absolute wreck in the city. I do everything I can to drive over it so I live downtown not drive but just take that as a ride. I am not a driver for a subway valid source of income is Don’t know just for a moment I just saw it myself my daughter. We live in and I’m cutting back I’m not going to be that guy but I was like I was a good joke fan and I realize how bad it is now I just feel it but that’s out of here and I’m really going to say I was going to say that. So save the family for that suits. She’s ten years old so she doesn’t have that opportunity yet but just let last plug for Jared as as we can move on just go to con did win best use of social media you know thousand fourteen best ques mobile use of social so I guess give a podcast or as well for him saying that I was whining that we are now evidently. Yeah you know we weren’t before but we will know about that. You start giving away prizes and everyone shows up so that’s part of the story that’s you know it’s funny if you go. Back to the history of the awards it was Kyle and I sitting around having a beer saying you know we love the city we don’t think it gets enough credit what can we do to really bring more recognition and I think it was and we give you credit saying you know that agencies when they do our F.P.S. are required to fill out a part of your fee that says what awards have you won. And I said really he says you know that’s that’s pretty to place a great let’s give them all an award. So that’s a great idea and it kind of took on a life of its own I mean it was really just I mean I want to say a joke because it wasn’t but you know we were searching for ways to to bring recognition to what’s going on and the awards were just kind of born out of that you know they just kind of arrived for these awards coming from. To whom are we speaking. All right I’ll take that My name is Josh Kurtz and how my good friend and partner Kyle rounds with me here and we are the directors of ammo the Atlanta mobile marketing organization. Yeah I am memo no bullets or guns involved even though he’s an expert on magazines that these guys in your pockets you’re good to go for business or you know we’re a trade group we represent local brands agencies service providers developers. One of the categories of my leaving out hardware hardware you know everything anyone focused on the potential of marketing via mobile channels we have about three hundred fifty members now. We meet pretty much every month. I give a plug to some of our partners we will use Moxie interactive offices because they’re a great partner in a bunch of their members do and we work with definition six and those guys as well and we have really great meetings not every single month but almost every month where we get together and we talk about things like augmented reality in virtual reality or you know the newest in wearables or whatever’s really hot you know at this time in mobile and we have a great really great constituency of members everybody from the biggest brands in town like Coke and Home Depot Newell Rubbermaid G.P.. Two some of the hottest start ups in town like Air Watch and moxie and brown bag marketing in a bunch of others and it’s usually a really lively discussion where both members of some more formal organizations that have real formal agendas and seated dinners and all that if we really shy away from that we want our meetings to be super fun and it’s less rules and yeah we we don’t we don’t do any of that you know we like to have a good time and it’s you know it’s real casual and it’s usually real hands on in group discussions and it’s a chance to come down and just network with all the other folks who are focused on the same stuff as you or me in this case maybe not you. Right Right now my main interest in occupying habits are getting to know people and stressing from oversleeping So that’s. But it’s been great. Is there like a trade group for that. Probably everything you represent just like mentioned off like that list is probably going through precisely the same. I think if you if you own or run a startup you’re not sleeping a lot. It is amazing because like the rewards aren’t guaranteed you know but everyone’s trying to sort of like hedge that risk but it’s all just every bit of energy you can just believe and make it happen. America American worker there’s no one saying you can’t do business with no top down it’s just. Yeah but that’s the freedom in that I mean I’ve got my own business and I really enjoy it. I haven’t always you know I was saying a guy on the way down here a lot of mistakes a lot of experience a lot of trenches through the way and I finally feel like I’m at a point where all those things that so many times I wanted to give up and turn it and just say you know this is too much. I need to go sell out get a job which I’ve done a couple times then find out nine months later I don’t fit and I need to go back and start over now I’ve just kind of doubled down on that and said no more options you know no more prisoners and finally I’m at this point where it’s like all those things that happened when it was tough and I had it’s hard to start paying. Off and on and I love it I couldn’t be any happier right now. I mean yeah I still have sleepless nights and you know Saturday night was one of them and I had to deal with something I didn’t want to deal with. But but I dealt with so much happier right now I want to echo what Josh said about the city we love Atlanta. I was raised here left for over a decade when I was in the service and things like that and went to broaden and worked and did my first kind of start up stuff but then I came back and in a way when I got back in the startup community really started doing that in our vibrant economy. Yeah it was pretty tough right. You know it was a double down move it was it was kind of like all right there’s not a lot going on. It’s going to impossible to get something down so if it’s going to be bad let’s just go for it. So I went to start up down and I got got around in a T.D.C. I’d grown up with guys like Ben Dyer who were some of the founders of the T.T.C. in the front of the family. My dad went to Tech and he was always around these guys and I always thought you know I want to be in a startup that sounds cool. The upside is so huge. Well I can tell you now that my expectations of grandeur and delusions have dropped significantly and it’s not I should say dropped when I said earlier I was at peace with all this stuff. You know my focus has gotten more narrow and I am more specialized and I finally found what I do best and how not to chase every dream and turn left at every opportunity just because there’s an immediate opportunity there and how to say no to some of those and really say this is what I do and I’m better off if I just do this and you know what I could do that other stuff as well and get a bigger job but actually I’m a pass out to somebody who’s even better at it than I am and not pretend to take it on and just keep doing what I do and that took some maturity it took so. A lot of mistakes a lot of heartache but now that the economy is picking up and and we’ve got involved in this kind of stuff a lot of nonprofit stuff a lot of giving back to Atlanta you know A.T.C. gave me a lot of opportunities a lot of chances to to get my name out there to win awards. One of the first things I did when I got back working with the start up was go for the tag and I had Technology Association Georgia had a top innovate most innovative companies and George award and I thought well why not apply for one of the common people put the words out right now who knows what else. I couldn’t tell you. I got honestly couldn’t do it in town. Other than we’re not even the first people to give out the Atlanta mobile awards this is the second time a group has has tried to do that in the when I when I heard that even just stiffened my resolve to to really have to if you want to put it on this and then bury them. They’re going to be you know I don’t know who those people are but they’re clearly not as motivated as we are because we really made it work and you know we are really passionate about the city you know when I when I first met Kyle and I’m going to just totally step all over yet or that you were telling that when I when I first met my wife I don’t know if this is just my impression from being a total New York northerner who doesn’t give most people the light of day for two seconds I’m so Judge Mental it’s terrible but you know I was like wow I love it. I can’t wait to see where this goes. Yes you a stripper over Chechnya right now that’s cool that’s cool I get that all the time so I was like Kyle is kind of slow he’s kind of Southern you know he’s you know terms that I’m just not going to use. But then I got to know him first of all Carl has an M.B.A. Kyle is an ex older college started multiple companies he’s actually a really impressive guy but he’s what is it your access like an onion is like apartheid a right good appeal it back to kind to get to that point and you know some interesting partnership. We do we do. When I first met. I thought the book Ball gentleman you introduced me to when he called on your partner was this guy and I thought you guys were a couple that’s awesome so when I still thought that when you and I went to lunch Yeah I told dad like married life and love her very life is terrific and gorgeous if she’s in to be listening to this I just want Diana to know that I think that where you are you going to you know you made a joke at his dinner when he was saying you had a skill you lose and open your mouth a good job. OK I walked into the big game first you have all these promotions but and the twos grow from Iran’s orbit cast all doubt being a gay Republican in Atlanta. Yeah but hey whatever it was it was called. Yeah. Gay Dixie dot com flags everywhere around it is strange I never know who your competitor for podcast and cities that are gay to actually know that might be our Marty libertarian a Republican Marco yeah just the people who are I don’t know like I like twelve of them actually I think they’re all led by Bruce Jenner No I saw them online like Family Guy made a joke five years ago that Bruce Jenner has actually been a woman all along and here we are now. They knew they knew the Oracle then he was Family Guy inside their head. Now they might have actually an army like look for on his own at him before supper Carlin’s I mean that’s something that I remember when he hosted one before the Oscars was like a roast and like you could tell you know gone through some sort of L.A. if occasion with like plastic surgery his face that’s worth it and it’s like man it’s like he’s getting like injected with Scientology or something. Now did you ever see the Ninja Turtles creators Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird like like one of them was drawing it and one of them was writing it so so that was like it was like a true partnership at first and then after they sold two Mirage comics and they’d be in they went from guard to kid friendly. They got a little tired of working with each other so I moved to L.A. in one state and who gives a shit where like Cleveland New Jersey it was like nowhere and then you just see like the next photo too. Many years later one of them has like totally like like these dark sunglasses on is where like gold chains and his eight hundred dollar like shirt on and the other guy looks like an accountant. The whoa watch this partnership go exactly the same way. Yeah you’re going to be straight away ten years from now or something to six weeks max is going to have a life after the telling you Herrick out of the death of a band takes off. Mike’s icon Castro Megadeth seven. Yes So this is a time when I told you guys I thought you were both lovers really well still do you just turn that against us because it was unfair. I just wanted to be fun. I wasn’t turning anything against you. OK I don’t know I think I think I would have more like needs like all such activities you notice now do you deny that school partnerships a little bit in the night either did I understand I don’t know if we would work as lovers necessarily but it is kind of a marriage that we have here. Yeah. Every part of every partnership is whether it’s you know between me and my wife for me and the people I work with from my day job or me Kyle who have a partnership it’s definitely like a marriage and you have to you have to balance the good in the bed. I can’t imagine working with me on a regular basis and not getting frustrated with me even though I get frustrated with me so look at all you people who have to deal with me every day. Exactly so I feel so sorry I know there are times when tilings the phone he goes oh shit. I usually say before I hang up to be fair I fair enough. That’s awesome and that’s a sign of that friend you know what you want it back to your face. That’s that is key though isn’t it. You know it is the more I think mature you get and the more relationships you have you know you don’t hold that stuff and then you just got to put it on the table you got to be honest guards out and if you’re holding something back to play later then that means you’re playing a game to win and it’s not about winning and I think we got that competitive streak out of us you know we’re talking early. Don’t want to you know be Trump and somebody are teaching him a lesson you just want to be happy I think that’s probably like the one the wisest things that her in a while I mean just rang so true when I look at like the best friendships I have. It’s not because we always get along it’s because I don’t hold anything back what I do with my girlfriend or even with Max I mean it’s just like like fuck you and like the answer will always be but I don’t really like you but I think that I will say and I’m not usually too bad a chauvinist but I think that’s a guy thing. I think girls are terrible about not confronting each other about their problems at least the women in my life both my wife her friends the female friends that I have. Guys are much more blunt Dude you fucked me over fuck you dude if you ever heard the term frenemy you know that is a girl term I don’t have a frenemy right but I am aware of females who have like lots. Like it’s a thing I don’t I have a few now that I know very few of them now unless you know the social scene the culture and maybe like one person or you try to get an opportunity with another person and everyone else is there and you know that guy’s complete bullshit you know that person’s a failure but everyone’s being nice respectful and like I just don’t want to talk to any of you do not move to Hollywood. You just described. Yes I think everyone in Los Angeles or well that’s frenemy Mecca then I say all the time Los Angeles is one of the most beautiful cities in the world filled with the worst people if they could just get rid of all the people in Los Angeles who would really be just like a pair of twenty when I lived in London people said that about America. Oh sure I think that that’s a beautiful countries Yeah that’s mine because my ancestor said the same thing about London and we told him to suck you live if you live in a place where they celebrate a war they lost really I don’t think there’s any revolutionary war museums in London. Yeah yeah that’s awesome. I think I think this war has worked out pretty well for everybody and yet it is here. If you’re white or wow let’s go. That’s what editing is for a white male I run this fuckin planet. No fuckin cash you do because I’m a windmill and I don’t feel like I run anything. Exe I run everything through my wife. Here’s my text dear. We’re sorry we’re out of the world but does that happen when you’re dating. Like that moment we’re like that’s where my money’s going. Did you have that moment then or was it once you got married. Well I’m one of those guys who has been married for so long with my wife for so long I don’t remember dating at all I was such a like practically like a newborn when we started going out or whatever and I don’t even remember so I think on the right you could probably ask Oh well I’ve only been married two years and I don’t remember anything because I shut out the memory and battery and the memories are bad. Not all of you girls but my when I met my wife you were talking earlier about frenemies and stuff and she all her girlfriends told her that they keep her around because they know she will be honest as hell with them like she is brutally honest and and that wisdom that we were talking about earlier is something that when I saw her I was done because I knew I knew I was going to stand with her. No drama no B.S. I’m going to lock that shit down and I did not take a month. So here’s a slightly more on topic question. Yeah yeah. How do how to starting a business. Test a relationship saying tell you all about yeah all the start ups I did before I crossed over into that world. Not many relationships stand that test very well. They didn’t in my experience but I was also younger and I also had a lot more ambition and I was also not ready there’s the ready on the business side and there’s a ready emotionally side and I had to learn both sides and I’m not going to lie. I’ve been through a lot of therapy in the last few years. I got no problem with it. I’m actually glad I did it because I got out of a relationship that was really tough and I said you know what. Not all these girls are all bad. There’s something going on I gotta figure out and it seriously and I did and and as soon as I I figured out I didn’t know what I didn’t know. It’s the Donald Rumsfeld ism isn’t it the known unknowns and the unknown unknowns. And I knew that there was no where it was and I took the deep dive and I went in and I got a therapist here in town who was awesome and still is. I see him maybe once a year twice a year now for a check up every once in a while you know but and I know this is going to a really weird place but my career had a lot of opportunities that I’ve missed where because emotionally I couldn’t handle the situation. Emotionally I wasn’t in a good enough place on a personal level to make it through some of the tough shit that you face in business every day and I’ll give you an example you know I was working I did a startup in London had a marketing agency the the guys I was partnered with. You get so intense you know that is a relationship and he gave me opportunities to step up and I wasn’t emotionally mature enough to handle the professional side and so it all spilled over and until I came home got my shit together and really started trying to fix that side of things I couldn’t do the stuff I post on my earlier. When I say I’m finally in that place where I’ve learned the things that are making my career work it’s because I got my personal life together and I did the hard work. I immediately met my wife no different disrespect to my wife if I had been emotionally more stable. Here I may have never met her because I may have been off the market then it’s the right thing at the right time with the right person and now Mike. I love my gradual matter when you’re here. Yeah that could have been a different story she probably would have said that guy’s a fuckin say there’s no way she would again I don’t know as I know very level headed very you know there’s no way she would but provided only and in all fairness we are both loonies. We made it for twenty five years ago and I was by myself. Different scale of Constable four years ago compared to now. Yeah yeah we didn’t go this year we missed it because you have to pay to volunteer. That’s a cash grab this thing is now well to be honest we went to music midtown last year and we left the first night because of the shitty one with Jack White Yeah yeah it was it felt like a lank fast and we felt older I think that’s a British term I guess I picked up on the journeys but term Spiritus rubbish. Yeah yeah we felt so old at Music Midtown and we’d i mean i’m finally forty but we looked at each other and we’re like We gotta get outta here. There are just people walking all over our blankets are way too is still way too many tickets and I love music I mean she and I’ve probably bumped into each other. Wasted a thousand concerts in town before we met officially for twenty fast because we love the same music we’ve talked about. She’s like I was at the three eleven concert honestly it’s like playing a concert of the rocks a lot of How I Met Your Mother. Yeah and I’ll just tell you so before I actually believe it or not this is the first partnership I’ve ever had and I’ve started five companies we took one public I mean the whole bit where I’m actually like friends out of work with my partner I’ve actually made kind of a strict rule not to do that because I don’t want those worlds to collide and when I’m. I was totally through business I mean it wasn’t we weren’t friends who decided to do this he was doing this and he needed a partner and I was willing to step in and and it’s just kind of almost coincidental that we’ve become friends outside things. Again I don’t know why anybody would want to be friends with me even if I don’t have the same strange wavelengths that I do but it’s it’s been really easy because you know I’m a big believer that if you love what you do is not really work and you know I have a job and that’s work and that’s great and that’s cool but this is not this is passion for me you know I’m really passionate about the city and about getting recognition for the city and so that it’s actually been really easy. You know it’s it’s hard to maintain friendships and work because a lot of times you’re different places in life you know just take me and my boss for example if we were the same age we’re probably hanging out like he probably a particle caster and stuff like that. But he’s forty and has three kids one of whom is disabled. He ain’t got time to hang out like that like we were even talking just called us old I am. Are you over thirty. I’m going to be forty four. You’ve been old for some time. Well it’s just one of those things where you know I have three kids. Yeah well this is one of those things like if you were how many twenty nine year old boots you just want to go out drinking with like on Friday night. That’s that’s just not a part of your lifestyle. So this music town that nominee you’ve applied to thirty seven Maine if y’all haven’t been to thirty seven in Johns Creek. I live around the corner walking distance from is the coolest place that’s where we go to to get our drink on. I was a few weeks ago a real kind of it looks like everyone there was an ardent fan of Sons of Anarchy. Today as we gear on that’s the nicest way to put that I know I think this but we just don’t know but it’s one of our pet is the extent of my going out on a Friday night. It’s not as bad as some places because this place is built on like shitty strip malls that are amazing inside and it’s like if you wanted to build this here or something you know but that was not so bad. Beautiful stage amazing place but I’m like I don’t want to leave town to see a musical act. Sorry guys don’t blame me when I lived inside the perimeter we used to say O O O T P was like another country. But that was where Matthias took his big gig. Oh OK OK. Yeah yeah it’s a living outside the perimeter I found myself coming inside the perimeter so frequently and chatting with my girlfriend govern my place and she’s like forty five minutes out there I’m like yeah yeah I’m well aware and every minute of that they were waiting to be award for tech now see how the awesome that’s awesome. So you have almost every Elfreda business gets the end of that one. Longest commute. Well no one in Alpharetta will come forward because it’s going to get center stage as I don’t like that number third we’re going to have the branch at the Atlanta slash Alpharetta mobile words you can have your own then you up there and everything. Let’s work on that that is going to be sponsored by a company out there you know you get you find some new MCs for the Alpharetta one like you guys this will make the track so you know I mean I guess you guys could be easily described as serial entrepreneurs you know what. Why are you guys so comfortable getting out there starting your own business compared to a lot and there’s like a lot of people out there who the idea of starting a business is NO LIKE THEY WILL NEVER they’re smart and first of all I want to say I was never comfortable with any error that there was a plan I think it’s probably for me the lack of plan but I will let Josh answer this. OK so I don’t know if it’s so much specifically related to starting a business but for me I’ve always been kind of a geek in a tech gadget guy and I like to do things that have never been done before is to take technology specifically and blaze new trails and do things differently than people have done them before. And generally that doesn’t exist in a Fortune five hundred culture there aren’t those kinds of opportunities and so I’ve kind of molded my. Career around the opportunity to do new things do them in a new way. You know some of my favorite experiences are what I’ll be sitting with with a client even specifically when it’s a Fortune five hundred client and they’ll say to me what are the results of this campaign going to be and I have to say I don’t know. Nobody’s ever done this before you know so those are my favorite opportunities and so I think that that burns inside me to try and do new things do them better better living through science better living through technology and you know that doesn’t exist when you go to the same job at the same desk every day for fifty years and then retire with a gold watch that model just doesn’t drive for me and I should exist anymore my dad worked for snapper lawnmowers for twenty five years and you know and he worked around these guys in a T.D.C. you know was around them growing up and tech in the sixty’s and early seventy’s and I always saw those guys and I thought Dad why are you doing this boring career you know. Well he was providing and for him leaving Western Kentucky one horse town and being most likely to succeed in paying for his own way through college and getting a doctorate in math from TAC you know he succeeded and becoming a C.P.A. at a company that had steady growth and he could work out all those years was his definition of success and it took me a long time to grow up and recognize that for what it is and it was very mature very conservative very responsible in the end he did provide for us and perhaps that wasn’t wasn’t didn’t always respect that. But now looking at that I see it takes forty to appreciate. Yeah yeah probably forty one told me that this weekend when I was up there seeing him among the looking back and saying you know when I was young I saw all these other entrepreneurs starting plastic companies you know and stuff like that it’s like wow you know I was the first one of our software companies in town. When we bought our first Apple two plus with a forty eight K. and you know yeah that was a bad ass machine we headlined the graduate and go into plastics do something like that and for me that that was like sex appeal and cool and and these guys you know would come in and make a ton of money and you know we’d be asking them drive their Ferrari’s at our prom you know Tucker where I grew as I grew up out there to be careful. I did grow up here I did leave here for over a decade come back but it is one of those things that endears me to all this stuff because while I was always had this desire to be to take more risks that my dad it’s actually it was never a conscious decision it’s like I got in when the service went back to school left moved to London because I was Jason’s girl at the time and we moved over there together that is pretty much what motivates all things men do chase tail men just but yeah people like power too. I mean going to Iraq sex is a big thing but power is not necessarily the same thing. It was never power for me but but it was freedom to do to make decisions because I got that first job in London and it was handcuffs and I always felt tied to the job I had a work permit. So if I left a job I was literally had to leave the country. Things didn’t work out I decided to leave I had my take it back to the States I had no plan what I was going to do. And on the way to the airport I had had my C.V. on Monster dot co dot U.K. and some guy calls me on the way to the airport saying hey I’ve got this opportunity for you do this software package that you know nobody has any experience in and I’ve got this great idea and he was a Brit who’d just come back from the valley and wanted to have been an ex-pat had done startups on the West Coast and I just saw this perfect storm and I just couldn’t ignore it and all these. Things are going to my head and the next thing you know I’m going to take it back because the whole time I was home I said I can’t stop thinking about this so I came over and did an interview and decided that I think back to London. OK crazy interview. Loved it. Exhilarated. I was single I had no commitments and I said if I don’t do this now I will be wondering the rest of my life what’s going to happen and that started and I did that for three years and I had an exit and not a mature one not the one I had any of the guys who go to these big meetings and professional and going to brag about their careers you know. Now I mean it was a fucking mess. I was an emotional mess. I did not handle it well I didn’t tell him up front what I needed because I was it was all fantasy. It was all based on growing up and hearing these guys and and I wasn’t ground and anyway all middle fingers burn of the building down pretty much. Yeah yeah a lot of run away. It took a team of guys with me when I did it. Started a new company like and there are three years later doing the same thing there was more of her work and even take some responsibility as you know we were both just we promised and have a lot of fun made it but I don’t something really awesome and both companies are so I was also I mean I take some confidence in that you know and that’s what I mean I’m not I don’t look back at it was like it was like well you know the economy is dead so that’s why we gave the Bulls nothing going on and I don’t think that’s I’ve just started networking started going to these islands and then got out of a startup and yeah you know I see applied one most innovative company in Georgia in two thousand and ten and that’s when I’ve been in ammo. The original Emma started in two thousand and nine. You know Mark one it was and. These guys had started somethin about apps and all that stuff was going on and a little history I guess everybody was going to create an app and make millions of money selling direct on i Tunes and then everybody learned that economy was going to last forever and you know you to make all the money and in App purchases might have be hard in all this kind of stuff and in the market Richard. Well the group kind of took on too much of in my opinion became a mouthpiece for the sponsors and the guys who’d started more work in big companies like Cox and things like that so the content kind of dwindled often and the group got absorbed by a bigger group here in town and eventually everybody just kind of click go and it wasn’t this vibrant young energetic group. So Josh and I found it online and connected and started talking one day and we said Let’s ask the guys for the group back. I looked them both up on Linked In They were the ones in you know Seattle and one of the other guys is middle America mayor who said well you can have the group and we just send an e-mail out everybody saying who wants to come we’re getting a group back together and the band back together again. Josh just told you what happened from there so it’s been fun. We came up with the idea of the wards and even though we’re both over forty my joke is that there’s this bigger group and I’m not going to name them because we love them and we’re both parts of the I joke with them that they get the over forty crowd and we get the under forty crowd because we really do we focus on these hot startups and you know technologies like a R. and D. R. that are really staffed mostly by younger you know type of person and so we that’s one of the reasons that we focused on keeping the meetings to be really fun and vibrant because I don’t think twenty five year olds want to come and sit through an hour long presentation by you know bunch of people who are not their constituents they want to come and have a good time and you know and have a drink and all that so you know it’s as much about having a good time with it as we are. Take it seriously. So I guess you guys prophecy like a lot of start ups you know. Is there anything out there right now that really caught your eye. Like where’s the next Like what. What industry or what area is really catching. Well let’s see so I’m going to not spend too much time plugging augmented reality but I am going to say that I think that that’s one of the big technologies that’s coming down the pike. I think that when it moves from you have to point your i Pad at something which is an uncomfortable sort of senators and then all of a sudden it’s on your wrist which I think is becoming popular on your face or or wherever a head mounted display may be. You know I think that that’s going to be a big deal you know when you see companies like like V.W. and B.M.W. installing heads up displays in the cars. Now you have to realize that this isn’t often the future this is happening now so I think that’s that’s certainly a big area. What are some of the wearables wearables in general and I’m going to take a step back I’ve been thinking about this a lot recently. I’d say convergence. You know if you were an I.T. when I was you know years ago you were in high school. You might have been doing some I.T. stuff I don’t know. Convergence was hot. We still had big phones. I think Windows had the first smart phone. Yeah yeah laugh. There was a Tablet P.C. You know we had one thing that was just my Actually I think you know how you can make all these things talk together and get e-mail on your phone. How are you going to do that Blackberry figured it out and and all that kind of stuff was going on and convergence was hot. How you can have this device that does everything in your house or media players were a big thing. I look at all these pieces coming together right now there. There’s really cool apps. Your phone has a screen that can become just about anything whether you’re a musician or something be to be or some kind of hot consumer item that you just. A mess with and there’s all this technology in there where you are retail and there’s these location sensors in there that know you’re in there and it can ping your phone and send you a push notification and there are guys in town doing all kinds of cool stuff with that I mean that idea you just said that was an M.B.A. at Georgia Tech Yeah I did a thesis on it is that the same guy. So you can see. Yeah like walk into a store gimping like you know there’s like a coupon over here you don’t look at so Federated the owner of Macy’s and a bunch of other big brands. They do all of their I.T. actually in Johns Creek right where I live which is coincidental but they are investing in my understanding is pretty big dollars in putting beacons on the wall so they can identify if you’ve the app on your phone as soon as you walk in they can identify where you are when you walk into a section you can like for example walk into the Tommy Hilfiger section. They know what kind of music you like and can actually start playing the kind of music that you like as soon as you walk into the section and they can guide you with can Abercrombie pick the new model they have and for for me dearie I think the answer is yes and that’s a cost if you have to them toward the cost effectiveness of that. But yes in theory so I think beacons and you know housing convergence I call it one device right so I want my device to be my camera and my G.P.S. and my phone and my e-mail and my everything you know I just I feel bad for the people who make you know cameras now who’s going to want to buy a ninety nine dollars Canon camera no notice but you can and I get if you want to buy a two thousand dollar one with expensive lenses in your serious photographer but for the casual photographer really I mean your phone isn’t good enough I mean clearly somebody told me once there’s been more pictures taken in the last two years then in all the time previous to that that’s all been true for every last two years with every big Not every And well logarithmic scale down by the last what I mean and that not everybody was carrying a camera everywhere they went you know it I mean it’s just you go to a concert now and it’s you know it used to be a lighter right now. I actually was a cancer not a whole ago were all these people had a lighter at the end they were just another letter on their app you know a lot of smoke inside anymore at the yeah I mean there’s That is not fun is much more twenty first is outdoors. I don’t think they can afford to go are playing are people getting hired for twenty fast. Now there’s no way in Centennial Park what I have is that around there. I’d freak out and I wanted to but I don’t we worried about getting arrested. I think Atlanta is really chill with all that stuff. I think downtown is I think if you go up to Marriott or Alvarado angrier because I mean I can only you know Cobb stands for count on being busted. Yeah I mean I live up there. I don’t drive up. I definitely agree with that. I mean they they Atlanta cops are like solving murders. Coffee shops are like tagging speeders so I mean like your priorities are totally definite agreed. There’s too many towns in America and Cobb is a good example that make too much of the revenue of speeders and little incidences and if you guys a little plug John Oliver show he did a great segment on civil forfeiture on civil forfeiture Yeah I actually got a speeding ticket a couple years back you know in a small town of Grand off in the just write it off. No but I I had to go back to that town. They wouldn’t even let me like mail it in I had to go show up and it was like because I was going really fast when I was going like seventy five in a forty or something like that so. So the points of my license the whole bit and I was back on the one day a month when they have you know you can go see the judge and there were like two hundred people from all over the universe who had to show up in this little town on that one day. I’m thinking this is how the town survives this is where the revenue comes from you know the cops are loving this. One day a week ago the R.V. That’s right there’s way to there’s way too much of that and you know I think that’s that’s what you write in Atlanta you know they have taxes and they have the government who gives them money to do things and the cops are solving murders and keeping people safe they’re not. They’re not handing out speeding tickets here on Marietta Street now. Now though they know it’s every man for himself Omarion humor went to cab cops went on strike and I couldn’t really strike so they just let everybody be known that they weren’t writing tickets for one month. Oh yeah I was a big pro it’s also in New York I will get one hundred down to eighty five stone mountain. I just found it to be so sleazy. I mean like when New York City cops prob did exactly that I mean Max’s bring up is actually a blog post I wrote where they essentially were holding the mayor hostage. They were at the center they say no we’re not going to sit here and force X. Y. and Z. just to hit city hall in the pocket books which is such a divorce you know to to protect and serve a man is is like there. That’s what they’re charged with doing and now they’ve become an extension of the Treasury. Yeah this is just insane. How can how can start a business and technology solve this problem. There’s a whole thing on Google’s cars that can drive themselves solve our traffic problems you know you don’t have to stress out in traffic because you’re not at the wheel anymore. A friend of ours actually working on it and he just goes paged and he has a little inside knowledge on that you know I think you’ll say is not today and that’s tomorrow and probably not by twenty twenty but it’s definitely one hundred percent on the way. I wrote a paper once that this professor I think from you Cal Berkeley wrote that eventually if you want to drive on the highway for free you’re going to have to go into autopilot mode you have to pay if you want to do the driving on the highway. That way they can regulate traffic and regulate accidents and you know and keep insurance companies in line and just like imagine any moment you can gridlock like around the Grady curve or something and everyone accelerated at exactly the same time in a clear the fucking congestion and sometimes if you were at a red light in your car number twenty but as soon as the light turned green every car started you know it would be that you know any. Accident you’d immediately assume that rich asshole just had to drive a car. And only cars that director Mercedes and I think a good part about life for all of us is like you know as you age you suck more at driving I mean I’m watching my parents go through this I’m watching. Of course not I think you know we’ll let you know I just turned thirty I’m about to turn thirty it’s already downhill but like you know it’s like each of us can easily transition into a self driving car. By the time you’re in retirement you don’t have to have that on council come with I want is more like a even afford it but if it’s on the market like I was driving a golf cart I’m imagining to take it out on the golf course that I can like you know drink my beer and check my email now I you know it just drives me to where my ball is I love that I do. I wouldn’t have a car. I think I get into a golf cart and I was able to either do your job on the commute is just chillin you know or can get loaded here going to drive anywhere around everywhere. Well I might even might even bring down in an insidious real state if everyone can move away and there is no more commute if you’re going to find their own state. The concept of urban sprawl becomes a non-factor and then add to that known fact because the only factor. Well yeah I I like like I could like transportation like issues are I think of the past as this car ownership potentially. Maybe not if you live like way far out you missed I want to have your O.L. there are I love that idea that the car that you rent or whatever you shows up at your house of the time for you get more about your Majesty to work in that it was a way to take your calls right there you know where to point out. And for a dollar a day or maybe like you know Sears so that’s how the market for a dollar a day. You don’t even need to own a car. I mean like you know me even if it’s more than five hundred bucks a year our transportation needs unlimited amount done. As you know just just proof that I’m old is that I love to drive. I do I love it. And I wouldn’t want to give it up unless they absolutely Maybe if your insurance premiums went up by like triple you know it’s OK. Although I moved from New York City so everything here seems so recent I have parted as it were guys occasionally trying to think what are they saying was off the record. So I heard a rumor once that they have the opportunity to buy all the self driving cars fuck the human flea out pretty sure that’s not all of the record. Everyone knows that a lot so I was a rebel that’s what they talk about all the time so it’s not like basic income another pseudo code you know. Come on welcome to twenty fifty you know Hoover is the largest taxi service in the world they don’t own any cars. Alibaba is the largest retailer in the world they don’t own any inventory envy is the largest hotelier in the world and they don’t own any property so I mean this is a new economy that we’re living through for the first time you know it’s the pay dependent It’s like college sharing but it’s not it’s like everyone exactly everyone’s a prostitute now and some of them I know and I think that’s a very weak analogy. Any time I mean you can make the necessary money here or the I mean I mean like I’m selling a service that’s prostituting that service know that led to the verb to prostitute named in time like entails some say we’re trying to prostitute or opinions. Sexing our opinions out there that the verb to prostitute a prostitute and to entitle sex because I only accept the money it’s just stupid like you like to say you’re whoring yourself out like no you’re providing goods and services that people want and Prostitutes sell sex people want that. To Matthew this is very chauvinist sick of you to think of yourself as higher than prostitutes. I was just thinking the same thing going on today. So we’ve been debating the Internet’s overreaction. Joss Whedon has suddenly deleted his Twitter profile because he can’t deal with the Internet’s criticism of Age of Ultron. It’s not just criticism there’s a lot of through. That’s there and I think that’s where where it goes way beyond the line that we now have a Tea Party of progressives. That’s the Flappy Bird syndrome right the guys making fifty thousand dollars a day but he can’t handle the criticism. Sort of like this is personal from people saying you turn black widow into some kind of like a rape victim. That’s really so I didn’t know that and I like really love following just reading on Twitter. So my favorite all time tweets are to think that he could get to a point where he wouldn’t want to be part of that whole ecosystem is is pretty sad it’s a pretty big statement about how important people report is that people place on social media in general. So we will not be giving an award to the biggest social bully unless we give when you look at it I can do that like our villain of the year I don’t know if you’ve been bringing some or I or Matthew made a joke that the movie Ant-Man would you like to explain. I mean I made a joke that I didn’t like the movie Ant-Man where we should boycott the movie and then because I can’t stand the idea of some guy dressed up in red and black pounding on some guy named The yellow jacket I think you can everyone from the South who’s at least passingly familiar with the city U.G.A. rivalry get the joke they think it’s funny person right person on Castro and the Internet has got so bad like I mean I’ve had people tell me to fuck off before but I’ve never had people say fuck off like such creative in like violent ways it was like you pissed off some techies I was on the Marvel fanboys Yeah we’re Yeah that’s a really scary Marvel fanboys are the ones who scare just weaned off Twitter really. Yeah that’s called P.P. I don’t know if I can take anymore threats against McCain And that is us. Well the first thirty six of the first one was just kind of like a little bit of me like it was like I hope you get soap in your dick in your dick hole or something. Actually the one that stung the most was the one they called me irrelevant. I was like oh. Well I think you can cope with so many mean things to say but I just say I don’t matter it’s like angry and it’s less objective rightly. Who do you not matter to use to say who is relevant. I’m on your show you seem pretty relevant to me but I don’t actually here’s where it came from. I think that the child as it was childish for my part to care what the internet thanks I can just imagine if my dad actually us as he is shaking his head going sign on. I do give a shit about what any nerd on the Internet they share my dad says you have that think a southern accent. It’s He’s from a place called Hickory North Carolina. I don’t I’m not hungry. Yeah I know it’s a gorgeous place but it’s south. There’s not even south it’s but what it’s like the mountains. Yes or so puts a hacker in Hickory and it sucks like when when when people are mean to you on the Internet likely really mean it. I still felt like even as a grown ass man like oh people like me. Like it was a childish response but it’s there. I can’t deny that there’s two sides of that. It depends I guess what your expectations and intent where when you said something. When people are mean to me on the Internet it means i know i got their fuckin buttons. I guess it’s because I was probably mean and then you’re nobody to even sued at least once. I can’t wait for that we are egging them on. So he said the awards are in September Thursday September third center stage. How do you start accepting applications that we are very very much so so you can go to Atlanta and Memo dot org And you can enter there or you can e-mail us and we can help you with the application one. That’s what that’s another thing that I never would have guessed in the U.S. are these brilliant startups who have like the best ideas in the world in the funding and they’ve guys with you know degrees from fancy universities and all that and they can’t figure out how to fill out the application. We get calls just about every single one I’m sorry but you know we need to meet these guys and you know we learned a lot last year in the wards. And want to do things slightly differently and we want to get to know every applicant much more intimacy user experience problem before it is they all that often. Perhaps your application I take full responsibility for that we were talking about a partnership thing before that his partner that’s why I’m taking full responsibility before he says it. But yeah we had under the bus. You know that’s frontier we were really not what we’re talking with are too open and honest right up front that it is partly told me on the way down here we’re both on the phone and we’re stuck in traffic and we’re both comparing my G.P.S. says I’ll be there one minute after you and I were both an hour away you know left an hour ago and he said Tell me the same thing which you’ve got this to do before this and that the other so I know I need to know your launch date for this so that I can have it all done before people here. Oh sure I’ll get it done tonight. That’s what the caffeine’s for so this is what it takes to get you motivated to do the website. Caffeine to have us back on next week. I know dad like I get other stuff or I need a headline Is it being able to perform better under pressure deadlines. That’s how I got it so I’ve been growing up and now now that I’m about to leave my twenty’s that kind of reserve engine is leaving it and I if there’s been days where it’s just not enough sleep maybe like three hours and then you don’t realize you’re not eating you know and then it’s just complete emotional breakdown and then you just after a little bit of taking care of yourself you like this isn’t fair. Like there was an actual problem here it’s not just the food and sleep but no that’s all it was you know. Yeah I do know I had a caffeine fry to go off caffeine after the second startup I had to go off caffeine for about five years. Yeah I try to. That’s another thing you’re right though and that we’re getting back earlier to this what is the start of a culture and I think there’s a lot of. In the start of culture and I’ve had to upgrade to something better to keep going I think but I have like how I’ve had to avoid it I really haven’t had to. I’ve had to in order to keep an even keel and you know stay on target and stay focused on the massive amount of work that needs to be done when you work in a startup. I’ve had to have had to regulate my life in ways that guys who get up and go to a Fortune five hundred they don’t have to think about it they stop at Wendy’s every morning or McDonald’s every morning and still get their job done and they don’t they don’t think about all that stuff but I think if you’re going to have that killer instinct and start a company and be totally dedicated to it you have to start regulating the rest of your life not everybody’s want to make those sacrifices. I think we had a politician on earlier he was busy adamant thirty minutes that’s all I get forty five minutes into his like and then it’s only about the vision if I am a politician talking about himself and that’s that’s all you need. Well it’s a good show but I like I like this guy was clowns on his staff I got to have a plan for every community. He had this part of town between everyone successful and can anyone out of poverty and that’s cool. Yeah yeah. He’s done a lot of good things over the old Fourth Ward them a really cool place. Worked with his office on the Atlanta street food coalition something I did when times were tough and street food trucks were hot and I was like oh another opportunity. I’m still at the rock bottom during this down economy all try it out. Yes And and that’s the A.D.D. I have where I’ll just you know your Josh was talking about being more disciplined and and figuring things out and I’ve I’ve had to jump back and forth from that and anyway I got involved in the street food coalition the mission was to lobby Atlanta for better laws and street food trucks because we got pretty archaic stuff you know a lot of cities you can pull up a food truck and put a quarter in the meter and serve in Atlanta and we sold all of our rights to Chicago based company something like that maybe. A wrong you can misquote me during the Olympics and for street bending so they used it and they left and they still own it and they don’t care about making it any better or letting us have any sort of vibrant street culture and they are safe like a licensing fee whenever you want to be a street vendor and don’t know that I don’t know the ins and outs all I know is what our mission was to lobby to change it. We didn’t get it all changed but we got a lot of things changed and have to be applied for a route or route you could serve in certain places as long as you told the health department where you were going to be and things got better and he was instrumental in that and taken it to the city and really we what we did and he had a city hall meetings over there and we showed up when his when his city hall meetings with food trucks outside so whenever they came out they got free food. That made him look good the made us look at it made everybody happy and things got on the tables and that’s that’s that’s that’s a masterful plan. Yeah it was a lot of fun. But that’s that’s actually how I got in the underground market stuff where I met you guys. Gotcha which is funny to go full circle. Josh came to the last one he was talking about. Ian you know meeting the out of hours and stuff he came this first underground market last week which was in the West End two weeks ago on the beltline that Abdullah dropped the ball there and by this time. Yeah sorry man. Off to subscribe now land to underground market dot com So you got to plug the market now the Atlanta underground market dot com If you haven’t been you guys going to come is really amazing. Where is there a different place every time. I don’t follow talk last time you know like a race sort of wrappings m