Village News

The Village Gains a Coding School- DigitalCrafts

May 11, 2016

With their third cohort starting in the Village this summer, DigitalCrafts is an Accelerated Learning Program or "coding school" newly headquartered at the Village. They transform beginners into full-stack web developers with cutting edge skill sets, polished portfolios, interview training, and on-going career support.DigitalCrafts help to complete our vibrant and growing community with technical students mixing with our 285+ hiring startups. Led by founders Max McChesney and Jake Hadden, they are an excellent culture fit for the Village. Learn more about what they do below and become a builder of things!

Good Vibes with DataVibe

May 4, 2016

Disclaimer: DataVibe was Founded by David Cummings who is also the Founder of Atlanta Tech Village (read: he's my boss), but he also has no idea I am writing this. So, there's that.One of my weaknesses as a leader is creating and tracking strong, detailed, measurable metrics. One of my strengths is that I am a big picture, bottom line kind of gal. I can set goals and meet them all day long. We need to hit x amount in revenue? Got it. We need to bring in x amount of new members for growth? Done. We need to curate a community of awesome people? Intangible, but right up my alley.I naturally operate with a high sense of urgency, love getting stuff done, and can push through a lot of challenges to achieve any bottom line goal we set, but the minutia of setting and tracking the metrics for each goal? That is hard for me. And in my mind, it's not nearly as exciting so it doesn't get prioritized.So when David Cummings' new startup DataVibe was introduced, I had to put on my "oh boy" positive leadership attitude. DataVibe aligns strategy with real-time metrics and updates. I was not super excited about the value of tracking all these detailed personal and team metrics (that's just not my jam), but I dove in with our team and we started using their platform.Bottom line- I should not have devalued systematizing those goals and metrics because I have greatly appreciated the value DataVibe has brought to me and to our Atlanta Tech Village team. So to all those people out there who think they don't have time to track and set goals and metrics? I hear you, that was me. But I was wrong. DataVibe is sending me good vibes.Here are 5 ways I think it will win you over too:

Raising Our Series A Round - A Founder's Perspective

April 27, 2016

Now, I’ve got a ton of respect for Cuban, and there has been a lot of doomsday talk about venture capital slowing down funding new startups. After all, 2016 is an election year. If you attended Jason Lemkin’s SaaStr Annual Conference in San Francisco this year, I think there was no shortage of comments like: “buckle up” and “the storm is about to hit your company head on.”I knew next-to-nothing about raising venture capital when I jumped ship from being a Head of Marketing at Pardot (acquired by Salesforce) to a startup calledTerminus. But here’s what I did know: there was a need for account-based marketing (ABM) software. As a marketer, I saw an emerging product category for ABM and account-based sales development (ABSD) technology. There was a big problem I wanted to see solved: how do you focus your B2B marketing efforts on only the best-fit accounts instead of wasting time, money and resources on lead generation? Fortunately, I met my two amazing co-founders: Eric Spett and Eric Vass. They have an incredible passion for the problem we set out to solve.

5 Ways to Become the Leader You Want to Be

April 21, 2016

This post was written by guest author Jason Young who recently ran a leadership workshop at the Village.All of us want to be great.You are busy. You are tired. You don’t have margin to focus. You are afraid to say no. You underestimate your value. You feel an unspoken performance pressure.What if you could create a little margin to exponentially improve your skills as a leader?Sir Dave Brailsford came to an underperforming Team Sky British Cycling Team in 2010. They had never won a Tour de France. Under his coaching, they would win twice in the first three years of his leadership. He also coached the British cycling team to win 70% of the gold medals in 2012 London Olympic Games.Brailsford found 1 percent improvements that others were overlooking. Identify the best pillow for sleep and take it with them to hotels. Find the most effective massage gel. Avoid infection by helping riders know how to wash their hands.What does this look like for you as an entrepreneur? Try making these five simple decisions:

Top 10 List of Coolest Apps in the Village

April 13, 2016

Part of being in the Village means I get a first look at a lot of awesome apps. From beta testing to true launches, if a startup in the Village is creating a new app- chances are I have it on my phone. So here is my completely biased Top 10 list of coolest apps in the Village. You're welcome.

BeeTold - Getting Honest Answers, Fast.

April 6, 2016

BeeTold is a new and totally simple way to ask questions in real-time to any groups — people you work with, friends or anybody that might be relevant. Whether you’re working on a project, making internal decisions, or simply contemplating what outfit to wear on date night, you can use this App any time a question arises. With BeeTold, you have a very easy, organized, and fun method to gather feedback to help make decisions. Founder Bryan Kujawski shares more about his app and startup journey below as he works to help folks just like you and me get honest answers, fast.

A Conversation on Mentoring for Startups

March 30, 2016

Entrepreneurs’ primary mission is for their companies to grow and succeed. One of the best ways to wade through the crazy ups and downs of being an entrepreneur is to partner with someone who’s done it before.As a healthcare executive, entrepreneur, and consultant for over 3 decades, Terry Bauer has focused upon establishing, managing, and motivating high-performance, market-driven executive and management teams. He has built several organizations from startup through exit.For the past year and a half, Terry has mentored one of our awesome Villagers, Kashi Segal, CEO of Gigabark. Village Mentor Coordinator, Raleigh Rose, sat down with these two entrepreneurs to get the scoop on how this whole mentoring things works for them.

Journey to $1 Million ARR in 9 months - A Startup Story

March 23, 2016

Terminus hit $1M in ARR last December. We went from $0 to $1M in ARR in nine months! This post is dedicated to all the "Terminators" (that's how we refer ourselves) and all of our collective hard work.Terminus: an account based marketing journey begins.In late 2014, I met Eric Spett, the CEO of Terminus, along with his amazing co-founder and CTO, Eric Vass. These guys are two amazing co-founders. Neither of them are marketers by trade, but interestingly enough, they were building really cool marketing technology. Terminus was just eight months in the making, functioning more like an agency assisting B2B marketing teams with targeted, automated advertising. We didn’t have a product. Our vision couldn’t have been more blurry. The future of the company with just two employees (i.e. the co-founders) was totally uncertain. That’s why I felt like it was perfect opportunity to join as a co-founder and pivot. Spett is all about hustle, operational excellence, and hiring the absolute best people. Vass loves building great products that people love and creating relationships that last. I felt at home coming in as a super goofy marketer with a big vision, unwavering optimism for the future, and an audacious goal to challenge the status-quo of B2B sales and marketing.I know it sounds crazy, but that’s exactly what I felt. I knew instantly I could make a difference in every aspect of this company. From setting the vision, building a completely new category called Account-Based Marketing (ABM) which I passionately believed in for years, sell a product we built from the ground up, and to be part of something bigger than myself. It was so refreshing, and still is today.

IO Education - Using Educational Data To Empower Educators

March 16, 2016

IO Education(formerly Longleaf Solutions) is the startup with a recent merger that is quietly scaling quicker than almost anyone else at the Village. With a passion for education and a super likable, dedicated team, they are using technology to positively impact and change our education system. They offer insights on a holistic view of educational data that empower educators to identify and implement improvements in their classrooms, schools and districts. Bottom line? They improve parent engagement, increase student achievement, empower teachers and create operational efficiency. Who wouldn't love that, right?Keep reading to learn more from the CEO of IO Education, Michael Williamson.

The Village Grows to 1,000 Members Strong

March 10, 2016

The Village reached a huge milestone yesterday. We are officially 1,000 current members strong! This speaks volumes to the power of community for entrepreneurs and the electric atmosphere of the Atlanta startup community. We are on fire!When we first began the Village story, we had no idea we would end up here. As our founder David Cummings said, "Ever since buying the building a little over three years ago, I never thought we’d have 1,000 members. 700 or 800 sure, but 1,000 — that seemed crazy."And yet here we are in three short years: 285 startups, over 1,ooo entrepreneurs, over $250M in funding raised, and graduates like Bitpay, YikYak,insightpool, and Salesloft. At Atlanta Tech Village, we are startups' biggest fans. They are the hero of our story and we can't wait to see where we go from here together.#wearefamily

Michael Cohn's Advice for Startups

March 2, 2016

Entrepreneurs' primary mission is for their companies to grow and succeed. One of the best ways to wade through the crazy ups and downs of being an entrepreneur is to partner with someone who’s done it before.Michael Cohn co-founded Cloud Sherpas in 2008 and remained a member of the senior leadership team running Global Marketing as the business scaled to over 1,100 employees before exiting to Accenture in 2015. He enjoys spending his time with his wife and two children, and he loves helping entrepreneurs solve challenges as they try to get through their first year as a Village Mentor.Here are 4 pieces of startup advice from Michael's startup story:

The Village Leader Board- Yes, we have one.

February 24, 2016

The Village leader board? Yes, we have one. And it's more obvious than you may realize. While we have the community value of "Be Nice", there is certainly plenty of competitive swagger in the Village. If you are a startup, you are fighting hard to win and any recognition for that hard earned growth is always celebrated.The Village is located on the north side of Atlanta in the heart of Buckhead, right at the corner of Lenox and Piedmont. If all that doesn't mean much to you, here's what you need to know- it's a high traffic, prime real estate kind of spot. And right there on the corner of that busy intersection, we have a large monument sign. That monument lists 6 companies.And that my friends, is the Village leader board. Want to know who the 6 largest startups in the Village are? Check out that sign. You can't pay to be on it, you earn it. And we update it every quarter. We even update the order the companies are listed in. And trust me, moving up or down that line really triggers that competitive startup spirit. After all, not a lot of startups get that kind of brand placement.So next time you drive by the Village, check out our leader board. Those startups are going places, fast.

Spotlight on Innovation: Atlanta Startup Village #95 Welcomes Four Dynamic Tech Startups