Even with a global pandemic underway, we knew we could find a ways to celebrate the biggest Atlanta tech and startup awards of the year. What better way to bring our winners, audience and sponsors together for a tech celebration than via tech?
With more than 450 RSVPs, we logged on Thursday afternoon to kick off Atlanta Inno's second annual 50 on Fire awards via GoToMeeting.
After an introduction from Atlanta Business Chronicle publisher David Rubinger, we gained insight into the future of the workspace with Brooke Gothard with JLL. Gothard stressed that the trends of today's office space would likely change due to the pandemic. One aspect she said tenants would most likely focus on is health and wellness.
"We had a client the other day that suggested they only want to focus on lower floors in the office towers we're looking at...they want to offer stairs to the space... we'll see if that sticks around long-term... You'll see different trends come out of all this," she said.
When asked about coworking, Gothard said while the coworking model had certainly taken a hit, there will still be room for the community office space in the future.
"The companies that want to implement these flexible work schedules... I think coworking is going to thrive there. It may not make sense to have a super expensive office where employees are only coming in two or three times a week."
Next, we unveiled our 10 Inno Blazer winners --- AKA the hottest 50 on Fire winners in their categories. Following our video reveal of the winners, we sat down with Inno Blazers Allie Young, founder of Axis Replay, Amy Appleton with BELAY and Kimberly Lexow, co-founder of Sifted.
Here are some insights about the current climate of the ecosystem, why 2020 is still an on fire year for these startups and challenges they've faced along the way.
- "It's been really interesting to not have to explain how working from home works anymore now that it's becoming a reality for so many people." --- Appleton
- "We started in the first quarter in February celebrating our 5th anniversary, which is extremely important for us because we are a completely bootstrapped company." --- Lexow
- "In 2019 when I was talking to investors and talking to people about Axis Replay, it was always like, 'What? What do you mean? Oh, you must have a lot of kids there.'" --- Young
- "We have had the opportunity to work with people like Offset and Tip Harris with a lot of different capacities for charity and good. This year, especially with social justice issues that have been happening, to be a front runner in that, that's what we love to do." --- Young
- "We've had to live in a lot of gray. I think that has been a challenge not only for leaders of organizations, leaders at Belay, but our team, too... Living in the gray is not comfortable and we've just really had to power through that... The obstacle and the biggest challenge was living in the gray and the reinforcement that at the end of the day, people make or break your company and taking care of those people." --- Appleton
- "All our clients closed their offices in a matter of a week in March... I think something that has been very difficult for my partner and I is the level of creativity needed for this time... It's so hard to be creative when you're stressed, when there's a lot of pressure to perform." --- Lexow
- "One of our values is actually vision and refusing to accept the status quo... One of the lessons was really how that lives out and how the reactions of our leaders and our teams can further that for us." --- Appleton
- "It's all the added pressure on top of that. You really see the nature of people. What I've learned is, one, my level of empathy of thinking of what other people are going through has raised dramatically... Being secluded from everywhere in the world, that feeling of isolation, is so draining. That whole psyche, the psychological effects of all of this has been very trying... It's very hard to be creative, it's very hard to pivot. Grit is the word we use around here." --- Young
- "The rest of our 2020 is actually looking really good. It's crazy how all of the live events that are not happening right now are converting to digital and virtual events. We're really good at digital experiences... Plans for expansion are still going strong. We're still in talks about our next two locations. Our phones still have not stopped ringing... We're going to keep blazing away when it comes to our industry." --- Young
- "We're moving forward as planned with most of our 2020 with the way we thought it would go... still looking to expand ourselves in the market." --- Appleton
- "I think the rest of the year is, I anticipate it'll continue to be complicated because we are still in this place of dramatic uncertainty... We are shipping across the country virtual food boxes... We believe in the power of sharing a meal and we still believe in doing that, it just looks very different now." --- Lexow
Missed the event? That's the beauty of tech --- we have the entire event recorded online for you to watch below.
A special thanks to this year’s judges: Jessica Saunders, managing editor at the Atlanta Business Chronicle; Marshall Mosher, founder of Vestigo and former 50 on Fire winner; Barry Etra, RAISE Forum and former 50 on Fire Inno Blazer; and Sanjay Parekh, founder of MailMosh and former 50 on Fire Inno Blazer.
We’d also like to thank our partners, the Atlanta Business Chronicle, and our terrific sponsor, JLL.
You can read more about all 50 on Fire winners here. Now, let’s get a look of those Inno Blazers.
The Inno Blazers
B2B: BELAY
B2C: Worthpoint
Firestarter: Collab Capital
Food on Fire: Sifted
AI & Cybersecurity: Bark
Fintech: Greenlight
Hotspaces: Axis Replay
Health Care & Medicine: BioIQ
Marketing, Advertising & Design: Mailchimp
Social Impact/Environment: Cloverly
Meet the 2020 Atlanta Inno 50 on Fire Winners and the Blazers (video)
Check out the full event here.
Presented by JLL.
