The end of the week is here, which means another episode of The Friday Nooner! This week, Joe is back and discusses the latest in Triangle tech with Pete, including why tech startup founders have flocked to the Raleigh-Durham area (including Joe) for decades, advice for using cloud computing services, and why a startup’s name is so consequential.
Here are some of the highlights:
- Founders of two of the startups GrepBeat recently profiled have moved to the Triangle area within the last few months. Justine Barone of Gearo moved from Denver and Cara Borenstein and Theo Marin, the ByteBase wife-and-husband co-founder team, moved from the Bay Area. The temperate East Coast weather, along with the proximity to local universities, has made the area an appealing place to start a tech company for decades, as reflected by the persistent upward population growth. If only there were a one-stop shop that provides an overview of the area’s tech ecosystem for people considering moving here—wait, look no further! That was Joe’s vision behind creating GrepBeat. To hear Joe and Pete get nostalgic about what drew them to the Triangle, listen starting at 4:00.
- Naming a company is one of the hardest and most consequential early decisions that a startup will make. The way a company brands itself early on has long-term impacts that can make or break a business. For instance, naming a company after an actual object—like Bronto or Apple—is often deliberate. At least, it was for Joe when he named Bronto. It creates an intuitive association that will make people think of the company just by glancing at, say, a dinosaur or a fruit. (16:00)
- Through a friend of a friend of a friend, Pete is connected to Amazon’s new CEO, Andy Jassy (so he basically has an insider scoop). Jassy created Amazon Web Services, which GrepBeat’s partner portal uses. (Hint, hint: for a very reasonable price, you can have your firm’s content featured there too.) Calling cloud computing services the “gateway drug of startups,” Joe advises keeping it simple and going with dominant leaders in the space (like Amazon) if you are considering using them. (24:40)
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