IT in the D

Yan Ness, CEO of Verge.io joins us to talk about managing the complexity of cloud infrastructure. Verge.io consolidates several tools into one platform that doesn't require a team of people to manage.

Before Verge.io, Yan built OnlineTech, so he has plenty of entrepreneurship experience. He talks about starting and running companies, and what led him to start Verge.io.

The conversation also covers the tech scene in Michigan and where it's going.

This week, we were joined by Rashone Bryant aka Afrikan Caesar from the Sneaker Box Podcast.

Most recently, Rashone was featured on the History Channel's "Fast History Of, Swoosh Dreams" that you can watch here. 

We've never gotten into sneaker culture on IT in the D and it was genuinely fascinating the way Nike and others have built a mega sub-culture around the trade of rare shoes.

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Paul Blatt was back to talk about the combining of two local non-profit organizations JVS Human Services and Kadima. The organization also has a new name: Gesher Human Services.

Gesher Human Services ("gesher" means "bridge" in Hebrew) offers career counseling and job placement for job seekers with obstacles to employment, supportive housing for individuals with severe mental illness, financial education, day programs for adults living with developmental disabilities and/or mental illness, counseling for families in crisis, assistance and support coordination for adults living with mental health challenges, enrichment activities and more.

Gesher provides valuable services to the Metro Detroit area, last year helping over 12,000 people.

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This week, we had a fun chat with Brian "Schneebs" Schneble of Abnormal Security and The Great Security Debate podcast fame.

Immediately, we jumped into a couple of personal stories about email phishing that made us laugh, but then things got serious as we talked about companies that have been hit with spoofed emails which cost them well into 6-figures.

Brian is a wealth of knowledge in the email security space and this episode is well worth the listen—hope you enjoy it!

No lies—we love when tech entrepreneurs get into the booze business. 

Dennis Weiss is the CEO of IPQualityScore, owner of Weiss Distilling, and owner of Sabbath Coffee Roasters.

Dennis's story was very similar to the story of Jeff Hussey, Founder of F5 Networks, where IPQS was founded out of necessity. When Dennis was working in the marketing industry and got tired of fraud, he built his own company. Pretty amazing story overall!

Of course, since Dennis owns a distillery and a coffee roasters, we also talked a bit about booze and coffee roasting, and how he has integrated technology into the traditionally manual workflows.

Bob and Randy were joined this week by Ryan Angott of LapLok.

LapLok is a new style of security device for laptop computers. It’s easier to use than a cable lock and works with any laptop—no security slot required.

Ryan told some crazy statistics about laptop theft and security, how he got the idea for LapLok, and about crowdfunding the project on Indiegogo.

Ryan has a compelling product in LapLok and we hope you learn as much about it as we did.

This week, Alex Linebrink, CEO of Passage, joined Bob and Randy to talk about all things event ticketing.

Alex told us how he got started in tech, and then how he came up with Passage (it involves one of our favorite holidays!), an online event tickets platform.

Passage has grown to selling over six million tickets, and has also launched several niche ticket websites like HauntPay for haunted houses, EscapeTix for escape rooms, and SoccerStub for soccer. Alex says that support for virtual events helped Passage stay relevant when in-person events all but stopped during the pandemic.

What's next up from Passage? Alex says that soon, event organizers will be able to sell NFTs, which could allow access to exclusive perks and experiences.

We hope you enjoy listening to this episode and learning more about Alex and Passage.

Bob and Randy were joined this week by Monica Wheat, Managing Director of Techstars Detroit Powered by JP Morgan. Before that, she most recently led Techstars Equitech in Baltimore.

First, Bob and Monica talked about Techstars. Techstars is a global seed-stage accelerator in 40+ cities worldwide. Over 500 companies participate each year. There are over 15,000 investors, 7,000 mentors, and 3,000 alumni in the Techstars network.

Techstars Detroit is a 13-week hybrid/virtual program that starts on September 12, 2022. Participating companies will have access to up to $120,000 in investment, plus support from JP Morgan, and resources and benefits to help their business grow and succeed.

Two Detroit companies participated in Techstars Equitech, which was focused on diversity and equity. They are Athlytic, a marketplace that connects student athletes to endorsement opportunities and Sparen Homes, a person-to-person real estate marketplace where people can buy and sell real estate themselves without a bank or an agent. Both are currently currently raising seed rounds. Another company from Techstars Equitech is EcoMap, a company that builds platforms that digitize ecosystems. It has just closed a $3.5M seed round!

Randy asked Monica about Detroit Startup Week. It is the largest entrepreneurship conference in Michigan. It's a collection of education events all about entrepreneurs and building and growing businesses. It attached to Detroit Demo Day, where companies pitch for a share of funding to help them grow.

Bob and Monica also talked about what makes a company a startup, plus Bob pitched some interesting busines ideas.

Techstars Detroit is open to all founders with focused recruiting on diverse founders. Extended applications are still being accepted atbit.ly/techstarsdetroitex.

This week, we got to chat with Steve Marney and  Jake Waggoner from DMI.

DMI is a mix of Compuware and many other acquisitions and Steve's team is focused on Auto Industry disruption.

We had a great chat surrounding the recent boom in EV cars, what a software-defined vehicle is, and how security impacts the entire experience.

We finished the chat talking about the talent gap, competing for IT talent, and how they home-grow and grow their technical teams.

Overall this was a phenomenal listen, as Steve is an encyclopedia in this space. Hope you enjoy it!

This week, we were super lucky to chat with Kevin McCarty of The McCartys.

Kevin is behind the YouTube channel The McCartys  that had amassed close to 3M subscribers on YouTube just this year.

They also have 5.2M followers on their TikTok channel.

This is a pretty amazing story considering Kevin was a high school teacher for 15 years, did some hype videos for the sports teams, and began messing around during Covid when he had downtime being home all the time.

Being 100% self taught and shooting everything on a single iPhone, this entire story couldn't be more fascinating. Hope you enjoy listening!