Episode 17 - Jeff Jefferson

04/03/14 • 33 min

I've been wanting to do this interview since we've started CreateVirginia. I've been friends with Jeff and his partner Sean Harrington for a long time (note: Sean was one of my college roommates and cross country teammates). Jeff and I sit down to talk about their experiences of creating a company called Easy Software Solutions and their product, TimeSheasy. Jeff gives an honest look at what it took for them to get started, to grow, to fight through adversity, and to ultimately sell the company to a larger player in their industry.

There is a lot of romanticism around having a software startup. Although Jeff becomes successful, his story shows that it did not come with a huge amount of work and risk. I think anyone interested in starting a software startup should listen to this interview. Jeff and Sean started a partnership thinking that they would start a staffing company. Along the way, they found a great opportunity in a market that they understood very well. From there, they completely shifted focus into becoming a software company.

The story of the software company is a bit of a roller-coaster. They found something that people wanted, but there were plenty of issues with the development of the product and funding of the company. On the flip side, they are really fun guys with great stories of going to trade shows and partnering up with other companies in the industry.

We end the conversation with what is coming next in Jeff's future, as he has his sights on another opportunity to uniquely serve a market he understands.

We end the conversation with what is coming next in Jeff's future, as he has his sights on another opportunity to uniquely serve a market he understands.

Previous Episode

Episode 16 - Kim Mahan

Episode 16 is a fun conversation with Kim Mahan of Maxx Potential. Kim has a lot going on. We talk in detail about Maxx Potential, which has an interesting value proposition for both customers and employees. We also talk about GLASSFIT, another venture of hers. This one involves Google Glass, so we got to talk about how she was able to get into Google's Glass Explorer Program. We also talk about her involvement with RVA Techsters, which is a great after school program for getting middle school aged girls involved in technology.

Kim's background story is very interesting. She taught herself web programming and put herself through school. This led into her career at GE and Genworth, but it also ties in directly with what she does today at Maxx Potential. Thanks again to Kim for coming on the show and sharing her story.

Next Episode

Episode 18 - Eric Martin

In episode 18, we visit with Eric Martin of 80amps. This is a very overdue episode, as we recorded this way back in the Spring. That speaks more to how busy I've been more than the quality of the episode. This was a great conversation, that I really enjoyed at the time and I had a great time revisiting it this week.

During this conversation, Eric and I focus mostly on the origin of 80amps and its relationship to the Martin Agency. 80amps is using its experience with startup projects to create 80amps for Enterprise, where they are consulting with larger corporations to coach them through disrupting their own industries (or even how to guard against themselves being disrupted). Their value proposition is that they can be a catalyst for thinking about problems differently.

We talk about 80amps' current portfolio of companies and their different levels of maturity. We also talk about how 80amps does not fit in to the definition of an incubator or accelerator, and how it is more modeled after Idea Labs (http://www.idealab.com/).

I had a great time talking to Eric, and really enjoyed hanging out at the 80amps new office in the Manchester District.