Episodes

Yan Ness, CEO of Verge.io joins us to talk about managing the complexity of cloud infrastructure. Verge.io consolidates several tools into one platform that doesn’t require a team of people to manage. Before Verge.io, Yan built OnlineTech, so he has plenty of entrepreneurship experience. He talks about starting and running companies, and what led him to start Verge.io. The conversation also covers the tech scene in Michigan and where it’s going.

This week, we were joined by Rashone Bryant aka Afrikan Caesar from the Sneaker Box Podcast. Most recently, Rashone was featured on the History Channel’s “Fast History Of, Swoosh Dreams” that you can watch here. We’ve never gotten into sneaker culture on IT in the D and it was genuinely fascinating the way Nike and others have built a mega sub-culture around the trade of rare shoes.

[podcast-buttons] Paul Blatt was back to talk about the combining of two local non-profit organizations JVS Human Services and Kadima. The organization also has a new name: Gesher Human Services. Gesher Human Services (“gesher” means “bridge” in Hebrew) offers career counseling and job placement for job seekers with obstacles to employment, supportive housing for individuals with severe mental illness, financial education, day programs for adults living with developmental disabilities and/or m...

[podcast-buttons] This week, we had a fun chat with Brian “Schneebs” Schneble of Abnormal Security and The Great Security Debate podcast fame. Immediately, we jumped into a couple of personal stories about email phishing that made us laugh, but then things got serious as we talked about companies that have been hit with spoofed emails which cost them well into 6-figures. Brian is a wealth of knowledge in the email security space and this episode is well worth the listen—hope you enjoy it! Th...

No lies—we love when tech entrepreneurs get into the booze business. Dennis Weiss is the CEO of IPQualityScore, owner of Weiss Distilling, and owner of Sabbath Coffee Roasters. Dennis’s story was very similar to the story of Jeff Hussey, Founder of F5 Networks, where IPQS was founded out of necessity. When Dennis was working in the marketing industry and got tired of fraud, he built his own company. Pretty amazing story overall! Of course, since Dennis owns a distillery and a coffee roasters,...

Bob and Randy were joined this week by Ryan Angott of LapLok. LapLok is a new style of security device for laptop computers. It’s easier to use than a cable lock and works with any laptop—no security slot required. Ryan told some crazy statistics about laptop theft and security, how he got the idea for LapLok, and about crowdfunding the project on Indiegogo. Ryan has a compelling product in LapLok and we hope you learn as much about it as we did.

This week, Alex Linebrink, CEO of Passage, joined Bob and Randy to talk about all things event ticketing. Alex told us how he got started in tech, and then how he came up with Passage (it involves one of our favorite holidays!), an online event tickets platform. Passage has grown to selling over six million tickets, and has also launched several niche ticket websites like HauntPay for haunted houses, EscapeTix for escape rooms, and SoccerStub for soccer. Alex says that support for virtual even...

Bob and Randy were joined this week by Monica Wheat, Managing Director of Techstars Detroit Powered by JP Morgan. Before that, she most recently led Techstars Equitech in Baltimore. First, Bob and Monica talked about Techstars. Techstars is a global seed-stage accelerator in 40+ cities worldwide. Over 500 companies participate each year. There are over 15,000 investors, 7,000 mentors, and 3,000 alumni in the Techstars network. Techstars Detroit is a 13-week hybrid/virtual program that starts o...

This week, we got to chat with Steve Marney and Jake Waggoner from DMI. DMI is a mix of Compuware and many other acquisitions and Steve’s team is focused on Auto Industry disruption. We had a great chat surrounding the recent boom in EV cars, what a software-defined vehicle is, and how security impacts the entire experience. We finished the chat talking about the talent gap, competing for IT talent, and how they home-grow and grow their technical teams. Overall this was a phenomenal listen, ...

This week, we were super lucky to chat with Kevin McCarty of The McCartys. Kevin is behind the YouTube channel The McCartys that had amassed close to 3M subscribers on YouTube just this year. They also have 5.2M followers on their TikTok channel. This is a pretty amazing story considering Kevin was a high school teacher for 15 years, did some hype videos for the sports teams, and began messing around during Covid when he had downtime being home all the time. Being 100% self taught and shooti...

Bob and Randy were joined this week by Matt Van Itallie, founder and CEO of Sema. Sema has two great tools: Code Review, a Chrome extension that makes code reviews more robust with structured feedback and easy access to best practices, and Codebase Solution that offers comprehensive reports that evaluate the quality of code, code security, and third party IP risk. Matt tells Bob and Randy the history of the company and these tools, and then explains that these tools not only strengthen product...

This week, we were joined by Andy Didorosi, owner of The Detroit Bus Company who has been up to quite a few things over the past few years. Early in the pandemic, Andy created Arsenal of Clean to get hand sanitizer to people and businesses who needed them. DBC tours and bus rentals are up and running again, and Farebox.io keeps everything organized. It was developed in-house, but now its available for other businesses who need to keep track of their assets, schedules, and customers. Andy is m...

This was a great show as we chatted with Chris Gordon and Amel Mudjzic, Cloud Security Architects with Trace3. Salespeople take note: We started talking about how vendor websites, vendor webinars, and sales calls are 75% sales/25% technical, and that needs to be completely flipped around. We then got into the four pillars of cloud security, their methodology and how to best secure cloud deployments. We finished on knowledge and career deployment, how they constantly learn, and tips for padawa...

This week was something new for us. We chatted with Sarah Leitz, VP of Marketing for SkySpecs. What started as a college project has blossomed into one of Michigan’s fastest growing companies with a global presence. SkySpecs has changed how wind turbines are managed and maintained. What took one person a day to complete, their drones can now do 25 turbines in a day. We couldn’t have been less knowledgeable in this subject, but Sarah was great explaining not only what SkySpecs does, but the w...

Long-time meetup attendee Jim Beiermeister, who works for RMC, joined us this week. RMC is an IT consulting and placement agency, and our conversation with Jim provides his prospective on recruiting in IT. He talks about what the job market is like and provides advice for prospective IT job seekers.

This week, we got to chat with Jeff Ginn and Bryce Levin with Slalom Build. (Disclaimer: Bob works at Slalom, but in a completely different division.) We chatted about a day in the life as a developer, having empathy as a leader, building a team, and—most importantly—they are hiring. Check out the Detroit openings. Then got into some fun stuff: Jeff built a very cool virtual smart home and dabbles in 3D printing, and Bryce is continuing a 30-year NCAA basketball tradition by building a custom ...

Matt Turner joined us to talk about recruiting, job-seeking, what to put in a resume, how often to switch jobs, and the Great Resignation.

This week, we got to chat with long time offender, Michelle Gilbert, the VP of PR from Comcast. We always like talking to her about the ways Comcast is giving back to the community. One is Internet Essentials, which offers home broadband for $9.95 a month. If you don’t qualify for that, the Affordable Connectivity Program might suit you, which offers $30 off your current bill. Lastly, we talked about Comcast Rise, which gave $10,000 grants to people in the community to get back on their feet ...

This week, we were super lucky to get a chance to talk with serial entrepreneur, keynote speaker, host of the Mentoring Millions podcast, and personal brand expert Nick Cavuoto. We talked about creating personal brands, staying relevant in social media, what not to do in social media, retaining talent, and finding mavericks in your organization. The conversation with Nick could have gone on for hours as his natural speaking ability and candor are magnetic and extremely authentic. This show is...

This week, we chatted with longtime friend Tom Lawrence of Lawrence Systems. We immediately dove into how he grew his Youtube channel to over 250,000 subscribers, how he navigates their algorithm, and what happens if he doesn’t post content consistently. Tom is well versed in open source tools most of us aren’t familiar with. He told us how he finds new technologies to make tutorials for, and the difficulties staying away from doing sponsored content. Tom is always a great guest, and we alway...

This week, we chatted with long time friend of the program, Jer Staes of Daily Detroit. Jer and his team have been recording a daily podcast for the past 3 years, and have close to 1,000 episodes. Jer is one of the most knowledgeable people I know regarding the City of Detroit, the food scene, neighborhoods, etc. Daily Detroit covers things you normally don’t see in mainstream media including being a regular fixture at DCFC games. Jer is a great story teller and this episode is a great listen...

On this episode, we chatted with long time friend of the program Billy Strawter, owner and publisher of BLAC Magazine. We talked about basically starting a print magazine in a digital world and how to balance all forms of media. We then got into expansion, as BLAC has now entered into 6 new markets. Lastly, we talked about Detroit, living in the city vs. 20 years ago, the vibe, and some new places that have popped up around town. All in all, Billy is family to us and we hope you enjoy listeni...

Randy and I had a great conversation with Travis Waye and Bailey Terrell from Call Harbor. We started things off right by making fun of the acronym UCaaS but then really started getting into some interesting stuff. Most of us look at telecommunications as an afterthought in the tech stack, especially when it comes to security, but Travis was a wealth of knowledge and discussed ways to safeguard phone systems. Overall it was a great chat and is well worth a listen, hope you enjoy it!

Friend and former cohost Nuri Gocay has returned to the States after working two years in New Zealand. We catch up and Nuri tells us what life in New Zealand is like, what the biggest culture shocks were, and what he missed most from the US. This was a great, light-hearted end to 2021. It was great to have Nuri back on the show. We’ll be back in 2022!