Last night, Austin Inno had the pleasure of hosting our Insider Innovations meetup at Capital Factory in the Voltron. The event centered around the idea that innovators never stop solving problems, and that drive sometimes produces some of the most creative solutions for day to day problems in their own workspaces.
During the event our Beat guru, Brent, was able to sit down to have a conversation with Patty Cifra, co-founder of Who Made Coffee, and Nick Spiller, co-founder of The Genesis Program and LEA at UT Austin, about each of their respective projects, covering everything from concept to creation!
Cifra talked about how the company she was working at, Spanning Cloud Apps, had grown its team quickly -- but it wasn't quite big enough to warrant having staff to take care of the office kitchen. So, things piled up a bit, and Cifra and her co-worker Gordon Bockus decided to gamify the kitchen with an app that rewarded people for pitching in on keeping the kitchen clean.
They worked on the app in their spare time after work and on weekends. Though the two had already largely developed the Who Made Coffee app before sharing it with other co-workers, she said she had a very supportive CEO at Spanning that encouraged the duo to use the app. Since then, it has taken off and is used by several hundred kitchens -- many of them overseas.
Meanwhile, Spiller took the audience back to the roots of Genesis, the alumni-managed student startup program at The University of Texas, which went on to raise more than $1 million that student venture capitalists deploy to student-run startups.
Spiller said he first became seriously interested in startups after meeting ethernet co-inventor Bob Metcalfe. Metcalfe inspired him and supported him as he and other students and alumni built a strong organization to support student startups.
The night would not have been possible without Capital Factory, which generously allowed us to host in their fantastic space. If you haven’t stopped in to check it out yet, you definitely need to!
If you didn’t make it out to this meetup, don’t fret. You can always catch us at our next event! For more information or questions about upcoming events, contact Cassidy at cbeeglejackson@americaninno.com.
If you liked what you saw and are looking for partner opportunities with Austin Inno, Anthony is your guy. You can reach him at amorris@americaninno.com.
Last but surely not least, we are in 13 (soon to be 14) markets across the U.S. Beyond telling great stories and hosting exciting events, we’re also in the business of making connections. So please reach out to us if there’s anyone local or in one of our other markets you’d like to meet or learn more about and we’ll do our best to make that connection.
Check out some of the best photos from the event below!
