Category: Ideas to Invoices Podcast (Page 3 of 10)

Lanham Napier led Rackspace as CEO for 13 years.

Under his leadership, the company grew from $1.5 million in revenue to more than $1.5 billion in revenue and more than 6,000 employees.

When he left Rackspace, he launched his next venture, BuildGroup, a venture capital firm in Austin, which is also his hometown.  

Napier, who has an MBA from Harvard Business School and a BA from Rice University, is also the author of Billion or Bust! Growing a Tech Company in Texas, published last year.

“Austin is this really special emerging tech place,” Napier said, during a Zoom interview for the Ideas to Invoices podcast.

Napier has worked in both San Antonio and Austin and understands the benefits of both cities. The Austin-San Antonio corridor could be a top ten global metropolis in the next ten to 20 years if the region works together, he said. Having a high-speed network between the two cities really matters, and a large regional airport would also help, he said.

“If you have tech in Austin and light manufacturing in San Antonio,  we can really create a lot of growth here,” Napier said.

Central Texas could be a data, tech, light manufacturing powerhouse like the world has never seen, Napier said.

In the last few years, there has been a major influx of California investors and companies moving to the Austin area, which has only increased during the Pandemic. That is a good sign for the city and region as a whole, Napier said. The people moving here like Joe Lonsdale and Jim Breyer are leaders in the VC industry and that only strengthens the city’s brand and the region’s technology base.

“I see it as a blessing and a good thing,” Napier said. “I just think from a Texas point of view, it is a big injection of talent, it’s a big injection of capital, it’s a big injection of experience, we ought to be able to as a state build on top of that and accelerate things.”

Texas also has strong innovation sources with the University of Texas System, the Texas A&M University System, and his alma mater, Rice University in Houston, which consistently ranks as one of the nation’s best engineering schools. Napier believes Rice should expand and double in size to keep up with the growth of the Texas economy.

BuildGroup, founded in 2015, has more than $368 million in assets under management and has investments in Anaconda, Benefitfocus, Cybrary, DigniFi, Fiix, vidmob, X-Mode, and yonder.

BuildGroup makes investments in software as a service companies using data plus marketplaces. Its investments range from $10 million to $40 million.  

Despite the Pandemic, BuildGroup is still making investments. In June, BuildGroup announced a $14 million investment ground in DigniFi, a startup that matches financing solutions to customers and auto dealers.

DigniFi uses data to match a borrower to a bank for a car repair, Napier said.

“The company literally gets loves letters from its customers,” he said.

During the pandemic, BuildGroup is working remotely, but Napier is looking forward to getting back into the office. He does go in every so often, but he’s the only one there and the vacant office feels kind of creepy.

“I miss all my compadres,” he said.

Some companies even after the pandemic will let their employees work remotely but there is real value and magic in getting everyone together, he said.

For more, listen to the entire podcast, pasted below, or wherever you get your podcasts – available on Google play store, Apple iTunes, Spotify, PlayerFM, Libsyn, and more.

A native of Austin, Leigh Christie has seen the city change from a sleepy college town to a high-tech boomtown.

Today, she serves as senior vice president of global technology and innovation at the Greater Austin Chamber of Commerce.

She’s also a lawyer who previously served as executive director of the Entrepreneurs Foundation of Central Texas and served as director of Lemonade Day Austin, which is geared to getting youth involved in entrepreneurship. 

In this episode of the Ideas to Invoices podcast, Christie talks about the 2020 A-List Austin Awards, which has broadened its scope this year to include more entrepreneurs than ever. The deadline for applying to the awards is Friday, August 28^th.

The Chamber is looking for nominations from individuals and companies who create or develop innovative technologies, platforms, or business models that are changemakers.

The A-List event is normally held at Austin City Limits’ Moody Theater downtown, but this year’s event will take place virtually on October 7-8^th. It’s called A-List: Up Close & Personal and its hosted by the Austin Chamber and SXSW. The event will feature a three-part series of virtual award announcements and speakers.

In the podcast, Christie also discusses how the Pandemic has affected entrepreneurship in Austin and how businesses are coping with the dramatic changes. Atlassian, which occupies a downtown office tower, told its 5,000 workers that they can work from home permanently. And Google, which also occupies a downtown office tower and is building another new high-rise, has told its workers they can work from home until the summer of 2021. Facebook, which also last year moved into its new skyscraper in downtown Austin, has also told its employees they can work from home until the summer of 2021. And Austin-based Indeed which has more than 2,000 employees in Austin, has told its employees to work from home as well.

All of the Greater Austin Chamber of Commerce’s 41 employees began working from home in mid-March and they don’t plan to return to the office until December at the earliest, Christie said.

In her role, Christie spent a lot of time traveling the globe representing Austin in Singapore, Hong Kong, Dubai, Israel, the United Kingdom, Egypt, and other countries, but all that came to a halt once the Covid-19 Pandemic struck. Still, Christie has managed to reach out to contacts globally and work together virtually. She has worked with entrepreneurs in Israel and Mexico virtually to help make connections in Austin. And because people aren’t commuting as much, some people have more time to spend on a Zoom or phone call than in the past, she said.

For more, listen to the entire podcast, pasted below, or wherever you get your podcasts – available on Google play store, Apple iTunes, Spotify, PlayerFM, Libsyn, and more.

There’s a new angel network in Austin, aimed specifically and women-led startups.

This week, Women@Austin, a nonprofit organization focused on advancing female entrepreneurs, launched the Beam Angel Network.

Notley Venture, a social impact investment firm based in Austin, has pledged $250,000 to kick off the network, which will begin accepting applications on Sept. 1^st.

Jess Gaffney, CEO and Executive Director of Women@Austin, discussed Women@Austin’s new program, the Beam Angel Network on the Ideas to Invoices podcast.

Women@Austin has been around for about six years now. Jan Ryan, serial entrepreneur, started Women@Austin, which kicked off on Valentine’s Day in February of 2014. It began with a steering committee of 16 women with the goal of tripling the number of women-funded companies and providing more mentorship and increasing the visibility of female entrepreneurs in the community.

A few years ago, Ryan became executive director of entrepreneurship and innovation at UT’s College of Fine Arts. That’s when Women@Austin became part of Notley Ventures. In 2019, Women@Austin hired Gaffney as its CEO and Executive Director.

“We have four focus areas: knowledge, connections, capital, and a growth mindset,” Gaffney said.

In focus groups with more than 60 female founders,  Women@Austin learned that lack of access to capital was the biggest barrier female founders faced when trying to scale their ventures, Gaffney said. And the national research bears that out as well, she said. Only about 2.2 percent of VC dollars and 21 percent of angel dollars go to women-founded companies, Gaffney said.

“It’s not equitable,” Gaffney said. “There’s also a very clear opportunity for investors because when women are given a chance they perform. And not only do they perform, they outperform men.”

Women founders perform 63 percent better and exit at least one year quicker than investments with all-men founding teams, according to Women@Austin research.

Beam is aimed at angel investing because women need capital at the earliest stages, Gaffney said. It is looking for fund startups with at least one woman in the founding team. The startups must also be based in Texas. The amount of the investment will vary from $100,000 to $300,000, Gaffney said. It is industry agnostic, she said. It looks at the team, market competition, product, and business model in evaluating the startups it will invest in, Gaffney said.

Beam offers different membership levels to angel investors. Its founding committee and the first group of investors and advisors include Anna Robinson, Ceresa; Cat Dizon, Active Capital, Dan Graham, Notley, Ethan Monreal-Jackson, Notley, Caroline Fabacher, Springdale Ventures, Jane Ko, Taste of Koko, Jennifer Cobb Moynihan, Elevate Communication, Mellie Price, SoftMatch, UT and Capital Factory, Rachel Sanchez-Madhur, One Drop, Sandeep Madhur, Snapdocs, Tina Dai, Silverton Partners, Saurabh Khetrapal, Fair Trade Safaris & Kazana Ventures.

Beam also plans to pair applicants with mentors to help everyone prepare pitch decks and video presentations to pitch to investors. It’s to create an equitable application process to ensure that all women founders and their startups get equal consideration, Gaffney said.

Community Partners include Alliance of Texas Angel Network, Austin Chamber of Commerce, Black Women Talk Tech, BossBabesATX, Capital Factory, Culturati, DivInc, Entrepreneurs Foundation, Greater Austin Black Chamber of Commerce, Hello Alice, In Bold Company, Newchip, SKU, Sputnik ATX, and Kendra Scott Women’s Entrepreneurial Leadership Institute (WEL Institute) at The University of Texas.

“We are proud to support the launch of Women@Austin’s Beam Angel Network. Today, there are more women turning to entrepreneurship than ever before, and 21% of Austin businesses are woman-owned” Leigh Christie, SVP, Global Technology & Innovation, Austin Chamber, said in a news release. “Beam has the opportunity to provide the needed connections and opportunities for these entrepreneurs and our investors.”

For more, listen to the entire podcast, pasted below, or wherever you get your podcasts – available on Google play store, Apple iTunes, Spotify, PlayerFM, Libsyn, and more.

After running out of salsa, Brian White decided to mash up his own version using pickles as the main ingredient.

He added jalapenos, pickles, onions, and spices and came up with what is now known as PickleSmash, which is a salsa made without tomatoes.

“I like experimenting with mashups of different foods,” White said.

White learned how to can pickle salsa and then he started bringing it to doctor’s offices, and law offices where he was doing technology jobs and “everyone loved it,” he said.

In 2018, he went to New York City to attend the summer fancy food show and he got connected to some partners who he still works with today.

Last year, PickleSmash, a bootstrapped consumer packaged goods startup, joined the SKU accelerator in Austin and that had a huge impact on its brand and growth, White said. It started out as White’s Pickle Salsa, but in the SKU program, White met creative director Liz Berry who helped rebranded the company to PickleSmash. She helped the company with packaging, logo, and other brand elements.

Through SKU, White also learned how to pitch investors and raise capital. The company has raised $350,000 in seed-stage funding so far from 15 angel investors, White said.

To raise brand awareness, last  November PickleSmash did a Kickstarter campaign and raised more than $11,000 of a $10,000 goal.

“Kickstarter is a really unique platform,” White said. It provided great exposure to influential consumers and raised brand awareness, he said.

It’s tough running a small business during normal times, but it’s extra tough during pandemic times. The pandemic has been a roller coaster ride for PickleSmash, White said. He discusses the challenges PickleSmash has faced during a Zoom audio interview for Silicon Hills News’ Ideas to Invoices podcast.

“I think everyone is dealing with unique sets of challenges,” he said.

PickleSmash was at the beginning of its events season in mid-March and all of that got shut down, White said. And it was supposed to launch in retail grocery in mid-April and that got shut down, he said.

“So we really had to pivot,” he said.

PickleSmash went to a direct to consumer selling strategy through online sales with a lot of marketing, White said.

During the business lockdowns, PickleSmash was deemed an essential business so it never shut down operations, White said.

Logistics and supply chain continues to be a problem, White said.

Now, PickleSmash is dealing with a unique supply chain problem, he said. There is a glass jar shortage, he said. For the next two to four months, everyone is kind of struggling and vying for those limited resources until the manufacturing plants can catch up, he said.

Meanwhile, White is preparing to roll out PickleSmash into Central Market stores throughout Texas on Sept. 1^st. It’s also talking with Spec’s about stocking PickleSmash, he said.  And it’s hoping to get into H-E-B as soon as it reopens its new products pipeline again, he said. PickleSmash has found a lot of success selling its salsa at Ace Hardware stores.

For more, listen to the entire podcast, pasted below, or wherever you get your podcasts – available on Google play store, Apple iTunes, Spotify, PlayerFM, Libsyn, and more.

A well-known serial entrepreneur in Austin’s technology industry, Ben Lamm loves to solve big hard problems.

That led him to found Hypergiant Industries in 2018. The Austin-based company focuses on emerging tech with tentacles in a myriad of different industries including space, critical infrastructure and defense.

“I felt like the intersection of critical infrastructure, space and defense through the lens of AI was a pretty hard problem,” Lamm said.

“It is by far, the most ambitious thing I’ve done to date,” Lamm said during a talk on the Ideas to Invoices podcast.

And that says a lot for the 38-year-old Austin native who splits his time between his homes in Dallas and Austin. Previously, he was the founder and CEO of Conversable acquired by LivePerson and the co-founder and CEO of Chaotic Moon Studios acquired by Accenture and Team Chaos, acquired by Zynga.

Lamm jokes that a “massive series of character flaws that would make me unemployed at other places” led him to become an entrepreneur. But the real reason is he “loves to create.”

“It’s a way for you to be like this modern-day explorer and to explore new fields and you can constantly be learning and meeting new people,” Lamm said.

 “There are always new challenges to go and tackle,” he said.

Hypergiant is an emerging technology company at its core, Lamm said. He sees a future where all companies are artificial intelligence companies that harvest data to make their operations smarter, he said.

Hypergiant’s North Star is working to demystify some of these things, he said.  It helps companies and the military to leverage data in a more efficient and faster way, he said.

Hypergiant is almost structured like a private equity firm with subsidiaries that have their own profit and loss statements, Lamm said. Hypergiant Industries drives innovation through strategic partners, research and development, and strategic mergers and acquisitions, he said.

Hypergiant creates software and hardware products. And one of its big product is the Hypergiant Eos Bioreactor powered by algae, which pulls CO₂ from the atmosphere faster than plants.

Hypergiant’s R&D group gets to solve problems and challenges we identify as a company, Lamm said. One of those things is climate change, he said. The company planned to unveil the latest Hypergiant Eos Bioreactor at South by Southwest earlier this year, but the Pandemic put those plans on hold. Hypergiant will put it on display either virtually or in-person later this year, Lamm said.

Also, recently Hypergiant Industries made big news with a partnership with the Air Force to create a new satellite configuration called Hypergiant Project Chameleon, which will ultimately include 24 to 36 satellites.

Hypergiant likes to focus on space because it helps to focus on solving hard problems on earth as well, Lamm said. And to quote Bill Nye “Space brings out the best in us,” he said. And space is moving from a hardware-based industry to a software-based industry, and Hypergiant can help to usher in this next wave of computing in space, Lamm said.

Texas has a long history in the space industry and is breed into the people and there’s a tremendous amount of generational and tribal knowledge, Lamm said. And Texas will continue to be in the forerunner in space, he said.

Hypergiant with 230 employees is dealing with the Pandemic by having everyone work remotely, Lamm said. Some of the changes that have been adopted by businesses like remote work, virtual events and meetings and flexible scheduling will remain after the Pandemic passes, he said.

“The Pandemic has caused people and businesses to become more humanized,” Lamm said.

Another big issue coming up this summer is the black lives matter movement with a focus on diversity and inclusion in the tech industry and that’ something everyone in our society should focus on, Lamm said. He thinks entrepreneurs are in a key position to change things for the better by providing equity stakes for African American employees and including them in leadership positions.

For more, listen to the entire podcast, pasted below, or wherever you get your podcasts – available on Google play store, Apple iTunes, Spotify, PlayerFM, Libsyn, and more.

Editor’s note: Silicon Hills News is running a crowdfunding campaign on GoFundMe for #SmallBusinessRelief. Please visit the site to pledge to support the Ideas to Invoices podcast and other work we do at SiliconHillsNews.com. Thank you in advance for your support!

National Instruments, founded in 1976, and one of Austin’s oldest homegrown technology companies, this week announced plans to rebrand to NI.

The company unveiled its new logo and launched a brand campaign with the slogan “Engineer Ambitiously.”

It also launched Perspectives, an online news site with a message from NI CEO Eric Starkloff.  NI is a publicly-traded company with more than $1 billion in annual revenues, and 7,700 employees, of which 2,200 are based in Austin.

Carla Piñeyro Sublett, the company’s chief marketing officer, talks about the changes underfoot at NI in the latest edition of the Ideas to Invoices podcast. She joined the company a year ago, after taking a year off to travel the world with her family in search of Ubuntu, a quality that includes the essential human virtues; compassion and humanity.

That experience led her to take the job at NI and to focus on showcasing the humans behind the technology at NI. It’s the first time in the company’s history that it has had a Chief Marketing Officer. Previously, Sublett was Chief Marketing Officer at Rackspace and also worked in leadership roles at Dell.

“I was brought to NI to help modernize the brand,” Sublett said. She soon realized the entire test and measurement industry needed to be modern. And that’s what they’ve been working on.

NI’s slogan is “Engineer Ambitiously” is about bold and creative problem solving, Sublett said.

“I think a lot of times folks don’t realize engineers are amazing problem solvers,” Sublett said. “And engineer ambitiously is something that can apply to anybody.”

NI is in the test and measurement industry.

“And so to explain that pretty much anything that has a mechanical outcome needs to be tested and measured whether that’s the car you drive in, the plane you fly on, the phone you use are some really simple and basic examples, has to be tested and measured before it can be put out to the world,” Sublett said.

That’s where NI operates it enables engineers to test and measure products with its software and its hardware.

“In its simplest terms, we joke that we make stuff that makes stuff work,” Sublett said.

NI customers are solving some of the world’s biggest problems such as solutions for clean energy, autonomous vehicles, and space missions.

Engineer Ambitiously ™

At NI, we engineer ambitiously. That’s why we are dedicated to helping engineers, enterprises, and forward thinkers thrive today, tomorrow, and for the next hundred years. https://www.ni.com/en-us/perspectives/a-letter-from-eric-starkloff.html #EngineerAmbitiously, #STEAM, #STEM, #engineering, #stemcareers

NI is primarily focused on semiconductors, the automotive space, aerospace and engineering, and electronics, Sublett said.

In the podcast, Sublett also talks about how recent events like the Black Lives Matter movement and the Pandemic have shaped the company. NI recently made a donation to Notley Tide in response to the Black Lives Matter movement and is reaching out to historically black colleges and universities to increase its workforce diversity, she said.

For more, listen to the entire podcast, pasted below, or wherever you get your podcasts – available on Google play store, Apple iTunes, Spotify, PlayerFM, Libsyn, and more.

Correction: This post has been updated to clarify that NI made a donation to Notley Tide in response to the Black Lives Matter movement.

Editor’s note: Silicon Hills News is on Patreon. Please visit the site to pledge just $1 a month to support the Ideas to Invoices podcast and other work we do at SiliconHillsNews.com. Thank you in advance for your support!

The COVID-19 Pandemic hit suddenly in the U.S. like a tsunami upending businesses and the economy from coast to coast.

And everyone is still dealing with the fallout and the ongoing Pandemic with 1.8 million cases in the U.S. resulting in 107,023 deaths, according to the latest stats from the Coronavirus Research Center at Johns Hopkins University.

But now is the time to look for the Silver Lining and opportunities and solutions from entrepreneurs and innovation, according to Christy Cardenas, managing partner of Austin-based Ecliptic Capital, a venture capital firm focused on early-stage investing.

Cardenas recently published a 42-page report on “The Silver Lining”  outlining the problems revealed by the COVID-19 pandemic and extolling entrepreneurship, private and public partnerships, and innovation as the way to create jobs and build better companies.

“This is the culmination of a storm that has been brewing for decades,” Cardenas writes in the report.  “We are dealing in a situation of record proportions – a record asset bubble, record debt bubble, all fueled by a long period of easy money.  We stand today as a nation divided, with economic strain driving us toward populism.  Global tensions are high.  Coronavirus has exacerbated an already tense status quo, driving unprecedented unemployment and triggering a global recession.”

Cardenas sees this moment in time as an opportunity to build “a better, cleaner and more efficient future.” The full report is available for download here.

In this episode of the Ideas to Invoices podcast, Cardenas talks about how Austin and Texas are well-positioned to be leaders in the new economy.

“There is so much news and information out there hitting us, and it is also fragmented,” Cardenas said. “And it can be really hard to understand what’s going on.  And so, what we really tried to do with the report is to use data to bridge the gap between truth and perception when it comes to the economy.”

Also, with a lot of negative information out there and fear surrounding the Pandemic, Ecliptic Capital wanted to focus on the solution, Cardenas said.

“And get everybody thinking about what positive can come out of this, because I really do believe it’s a huge opportunity for us just to all come together and work together toward a better way.”

Before the Silver Lining report, Cardenas had written another report outlining the problem with a lack of venture capital funding in Texas. Investors in Texas historically have been focused on oil and gas and real estate, Cardenas said. Texas does not have enough venture capital fueling innovation here, she said.

“That is just simply a function of the fact that the capital markets can be slow to move,” Cardenas said.

Eighty-five percent of the venture capital across the U.S. is in invested in three states: California, New York and Massachusetts, Cardenas said.

“We need, particularly in light of COVID and all the economic issues that we’re facing, a nationwide innovation engine,” Cardenas said.

The world has changed with information technology and the digital economy, Cardenas said.

“Things are moving so fast and technological advances are displacing jobs quicker than ever and COVID just kind of lit a fire on that rope,” she said.

Cardenas grew up in New Braunfels and graduated from the University of Texas at Austin and did oil and gas investment banking once she graduated. In 2009, she worked in New York for Citigroup, and even though the credit and equity markets were locked up from the last recession, this whole unconventional shale revolution was going on, Cardenas said.

“Energy was white-hot and a lot of that has happened here in Texas,” she said.

Texas was making big advances in diversifying the economy and then from 2005 to 2010, Texas struck black gold again and the shale revolution redirected the focus back to oil and gas, Cardenas said. And while Texans have made a lot of money in the oil and gas industry, now is the time to refocus on the digital economy, Cardenas said.

Texas does have a wildcatter and risk-taking spirit that is very independent and entrepreneurial, Cardenas said.

“That is the message we’re trying to communicate to Texas,” she said.

Texas has a huge economy, major research institutions, research and development, talent, and all the right ingredients for making a strong innovation economy, Cardenas said.

“But we just have this disconnect where the capital is not here,” she said.

For more, listen to the entire podcast, pasted below, or wherever you get your podcasts – available on Google play store, Apple iTunes, Spotify, PlayerFM, Libsyn, and more.

Editor’s note: Silicon Hills News is on Patreon. Please visit the site to pledge just $1 a month to support the Ideas to Invoices podcast and other work we do at SiliconHillsNews.com. Thank you in advance for your support!

Five years ago, a big storm knocked down a tree in Steve Cody’s neighborhood in Ottawa, Canada.

His neighbor, Bruce Linton cut up the tree with his chainsaw, but he needed a bigger chainsaw to complete the job.

That’s when Cody and Linton came up with the idea for Ruckify, which bills itself as the world’s largest peer to peer rental platform. They wanted to borrow or rent a bigger chainsaw from a neighbor nearby. Both worked at different companies at the time, but they kept thinking about the idea and put it on the back burner. In June of 2017, they decided to pursue it and they spent the next few years building the software and other tools for Ruckify.

Next, Ruckify did some market tests and identified 30 cities, including 24 cities in the U.S., to build supply and initially put half a million products on the platform. Today, Ruckify has more items than that on its platform, Cody said.

On this episode of the Ideas to Invoices podcast, Cody talks about how Ruckify launched into Austin in March right as the Covid-19 Pandemic hit and how the company has managed to expand despite troubling times.

Cody previously built and sold six rental companies and a software company. Ruckify Co-Founder Linton is also a serial entrepreneur who founded Canopy Growth, one of the world’s largest cannabis businesses.

In March, Ruckify planned to move its headquarters to Austin and launch nationally on March 21^st.

“A huge part of our mission is actually the environmental aspect,” Cody said. “So, if we can get the world sharing that means the world is not going to be making as many things, which is going to have a huge impact on the environment.”

One of the leading cities in North America committed to protecting the environment is Austin and that’s what led Ruckify to choose the city along with Austin’s tech base, younger demographics and adoption of the sharing economy, Cody said.

“A bunch of us had bought one-way tickets and we had started hiring people in Austin,” Cody said. Ruckify also rented a temporary office and it was looking for a permanent office to move into, he said. And then, on March 12^th, everything started getting a little weird, and on March 13^th some of the members of Ruckify went back to Canada to shelter in place, he said.

Ruckify Adapts and Changes as a Result of the Covid-19 Pandemic

Ruckify also had a $700,000 marketing budget set aside to spend over six months, the company has spent close to half of that, Cody said. Ruckify took out ads on Austin Metropolitan buses. But Ruckify decided not to spend the rest of the marketing dollars, because with the Pandemic, all of sudden people started coming to its platform looking for a way to make money and save money, Cody said. Ruckify’s business model shifted, he said.

The company was spending $200,000 a month on advertising before the Pandemic, and since March, it has spent about $10,000 and its business is better than ever, Cody said.

“It became a lot more organic in terms of building the business,” Cody said. “We found a different purpose, I think, a clearer purpose.”

Ruckify had 81 people at the start of the Pandemic on March 12^th. Unfortunately, on March 16^th, Ruckify had to let half its team go, Cody said. Since then, Ruckify has been able to hire back 12 of the people it let go and it’s continuing to hire back people, Cody said.

“Where we are today, we never modeled things going so well,” Cody said.

Today, Ruckify uses Zoom, Google Hangouts, Slack and other online tools to work remotely as a team. It has gone so well, Cody said, Ruckify will continue to allow its employees to work remotely even after the Pandemic and threat of Covid-19 passes, he said.

“I don’t see us going back to an office,” Cody said. “Our company is run better now. We have to run more through process and culture is very much intact.”

Remote working allows for more flexibility and quality of life for employees, Cody said. Each employee is an owner of the company and that provides an incentive to do a good job, he said.

Ruckify Becomes a Side Hustle for People to Make Extra Money

People use Ruckify for three reasons: to foster community, to lessen their impact on the environment, and to make money or save money, Cody said. Ruckify makes money on each rental transaction, taking a 10 percent cut, and another 10 percent if you want insurance on the item, he said. But Ruckify has suspended collecting fees until the end of June to help support people through Covid-19, he said. People can post as many items for rent in their “stores” online and Ruckify doesn’t charge a fee for that, he said.

Ruckify allows its members to rent out anything they own to others in their area including lawnmowers, books, video games, musical instruments, even RVs, but during the pandemic some of the most popular items are weights, treadmills, exercise bikes, Cody said. The platform also does really well with renting out niche items like an egg incubator or a water bed pump, he said.

Ruckify also offers webinars to teach people how to operate a rental shop on the platform as a side hustle. Some people make between $700 and $1,000 a month renting out their stuff on Ruckify, Cody said.

To date, Ruckify has raised $17.5 million in angel investment from high net worth individuals and family offices. The company planned to do a listing on the Nasdaq stock market this year, and it may still go forward with those plans, Cody said.

“Tough times are good times for the rental industry,” Cody said.  “The rental industry was literally created in the Great Depression and Airbnb was started by the last recession.”

For more, listen to the entire podcast, pasted below or wherever you get your podcasts – available on Google play store, Apple iTunes, Spotify, PlayerFM, Libsyn, and more.

Editor’s note: Silicon Hills News is on Patreon. Please visit the site to pledge just $1 a month to support the Ideas to Invoices podcast and other work we do at SiliconHillsNews.com. Thank you in advance for your support!

AlertMedia has become a critical communications tool for many companies during this COVID-19 global pandemic.

The Austin-based startup provides emergency communication software, used by over 2,000 enterprise companies in 100 countries to keep employees safe from threats to their health and safety. Its customers include Walmart, HEB, DHL, Greyhound and Healthgrades.

“We’re solving a big problem in this global pandemic,” said Brian Cruver, founder and CEO of AlertMedia.

“Our system is perfect for helping people deal with this,” he said.

And at a time when many companies have taken a huge hit in sales, AlertMedia’s business has increased dramatically. AlertMedia added 250 new enterprise customers in March alone. And the company plans to hire 100 more employees to its staff of 150, Cruver said.

In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, AlertMedia customers are using the platform to send and receive two-way messages, manage operational changes, perform wellness-checks, and dispatch critical communications to their employees.

Buildings are closing down and people are working from home, Cruver said. Things are being canceled and postponed indefinitely, he said. Companies are keeping their employees informed with AlertMedia and responding to their needs during this pandemic, he said.

And AlertMedia is using its own system to communicate urgent messages and updates to its 150 employees, Cruver said.

Cruver spoke recently with Silicon Hills News for its Ideas to Invoices podcast.

And on Tuesday, the company announced it has raised $15 million in Series C funding led by existing investors including JMI Equity, Next Coast Ventures, and Silverton Partners. To date, the company has raised $45 million since its founding in 2013.

AlertMedia plans to use the funding to “accelerate product innovation, continue to support existing customers, and help meet growing market demand by expanding its team,” according to a news release.

“It’s refreshing to see a company like AlertMedia thrive financially while also helping millions of people every day,” Bob Nye, General Partner at JMI Equity said in a news release.

In 2013, Cruver founded AlertMedia when he noticed that most companies in the emergency alert industry only focused on a one-way broadcast.

“Get the word out and get the word out fast with a tech message and that was it,” he said.

He saw an opportunity to create a real-time communications channel. At the time, he watched tragedies like the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting, which occurred in December of 2012, and the Boston Marathon Bombing on April 15, 2013, unfold and he wanted to create a better communications system to deal with emergencies.

Those events were unfolding on social media, Cruver said. People involved in those events were posting to social media about them, he said.

“That for me was a dramatic shift,” he said. “The audience needs more than just a one-way broadcast.”

So Cruver built a platform that allows companies to have a conversation and get information to the audience. And AlertMedia can reach people on all available channels including email, voice, text, slack, social media – “we can do all of that in a couple of clicks,” Cruver said.

Companies are using AlertMedia for important situations involving severe weather, hurricanes, security threats, system outages, and right now the COVID-19 global pandemic.

“That is something we never thought of but it’s kind of exactly what we are built for,” he said.

People are getting the messages no matter where they are throughout the world, he said.

It’s been extraordinary these last few weeks, Cruver said.

“As a company, we don’t celebrate these things,” he said. “We don’t in any way celebrate hurricanes, wildfires and global pandemics. We celebrate the fact we are helping people.”

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