For some people, entrepreneurship is a full-time gig. For others, it’s about hedging bets.
Meet Wade Minter, who has founded several startups. And in the early days of each one, he’s worked at other firms to pay the bills, from being the public address announcer for the Carolina Hurricanes (a role he’s had since 2015), to stints at firms such as Custom Communications and Adwerx.
His advice? Stick with the side gig, because sometimes it can emerge into a full-blown startup.
That’s what’s happening right now with one of his side gigs, Suggestion Ox. It’s a startup he cofounded in 2015 as a side project that, thanks to Arizona-based TinySeed accelerator, could soon find traction.
Minter and Andrew Berkowitz – the pair that founded TeamSnap – created Suggestion Ox years ago – it's an online suggestion box. But, as they both were working on other projects, it sort of got shuffled to the side. It scored customers – and even revenue. It just didn’t have the primary focus of its founders, who were busy pushing TeamSnap.
Then TeamSnap was acquired earlier this year.
While Berkowitz is spending much of his time on Suggestion Ox, it’s a side project for Minter – just like TeamSnap was in the beginning.
Minter and Berkowitz met through comedy. Both of them were active in the local improv scene. And conversations about comedy just led to tech talk. And talk led to collaboration.
TeamSnap started as a side project, spinning out into its own company. During that journey, the idea for Suggestion Ox emerged.
“The problem is, it’s very hard for companies to get honest, unbiased feedback from their employers, constituents, stakeholders,” he said. “Everybody could throw up a Google form and say, if you have ideas send them to us, but it’s not really anonymous.”
With Suggestion Ox, companies can receive and respond to anonymous feedback using encrypted emails. Minter said the firm has seen particular interest from organizations focused on human resources.
The firm has about 60,000 users on its platform, a mix of free and paid customers.
“It’s been something we worked on for a little bit, ignored for a little bit,” Minter said. “It’s been generating revenue, but it would be the kind of thing where we never took it seriously as a product.”
That changed when TeamSnap was acquired earlier this year. Berkowitz returned to Suggestion Ox. He shot out some applications, and TinySeed accepted the company.
“For the next year, we’ll get a little bit of investment, a lot of support,” Minter said. “We’re hoping the accelerator will allow us to leverage the knowledge of some of the mentors in the program.”