Read on Twitter
Like all historical accounts, this thread has great points but is missing key parts of the ATL story. Mainly because two West Georgia knuckleheads selling toilets online & a seed stage investor shined a bright spotlight on others rather than themselves. Here’s a thread 1/ https://twitter.com/romeensheth/status/1329453038172508162
2/ I first walked into @hypopotamus six months after @hhyneman and @kevinbwallace had opened the doors to the basement suite in the Biltmore. Fittingly the space was the old hotel bar and they opened to the doors to anyone who wanted to whiteboard out problems to solve.
3/ They had been recruiting GT students for their company (then National Builder Supply) for years and decided to rent the space for a year. Their company operated out near Six Flags and they were considering their options for how to get to the next level.
4/ This was 2012 and ATL was in the smoldering ruins of the real estate collapse (ATL is a CRE town) and lingering wounds of the late (dumb) money in the Dot Com bubble. However, there were some key exits at the time. All of them ended up reinvesting in the ATL scene.
5/ What brought me to Hype that day was a lunch meeting with @rkischuk who had written a blog post about those exits and he himself had just received funding from @mcuban. We had a mutual friend @tscottcase who suggested we connect since I had just moved back to ATL.
6/ Here was Rob's blog post about the MarTech exits of @ReggieBradford (RIP) @Dave360 and @davidcummings, which totaled a half billion dollars https://blog.kischuk.com/2012/10/12/proof-of-atlantas-marketing-tech-hub-12-a-billion-dollars-pardot-vitrue-blinq/
7/ It was a gorgeous Sept day so we ate lunch outside at the Tech Square Barrel House and in the course of an hour, Rob had like 5 impromptu mini-meetings with other tech founders walking by on the sidewalk. I had moved back from Boston and it felt like I was in Kendall Square.
8/ We walked back to Hype which had a hodgepodge of folks working there, each adding something to the pot. That's where I met @jharris9999, Jeff Levy, @mariajoyner, and host of others. It was the go-to spot for meetups, including ATL Startup Village meetups started by @JonnyBird
9/ I spent about an hour talking w/ @hhyneman and @kevinbwallace where they both mapped out their vision for creating what they called a "media layer" that created content to attract the attention of GT students on the emerging ATL tech scene. "Do that and everyone else lines up"
10/ They had spent the previous year as mentors for @FlashpointGT which created a weekly cadence of ATL tech founders coming to Tech Square to help out. Heath and Kevin realized those teams going in or out of the accelerator needed a landing spot.
11/ They didn't charge anyone for the use of the space and allowed anyone to set up either in a dedicated office or hot desks whenever the doors were unlocked. It became the pickup basketball court next to the crossfit ( @FlashpointGT) and the gym ( @ATDC).
12/ By this time, @ashishmistry had joined with them to help underwrite the physical space. They only promised folks they would fund the space for a year and then decide what to do after that based on who stepped forward.
13/ That was the magic of what happening. Startup founders leading efforts to gather the community and leverage media to get the rest of ATL and the country to pay attention. Like a huge potluck block party with all kinds of people showing up.
14/ I joined as the first paid staff and went to work on figuring out what would become the current Hype webdsite while conceiving and producing Startup Rally - the largest gathering of startups in the southeast since 1895 https://hypepotamus.com/featured-events/the-impact-of-startup-rally/
15/ That day was a community effort and a collective success. That's when all the corporations, universities, and chamber folks started to pay attention. So many people made that day possible and "we" made that happen.
16/ Along the way, we captured some great early founder stories like this from @davidcummings https://hypepotamus.com/people/fireside-chat-with-david-cummings/
18/ As ATL became to rise to the national awareness horizon, we even came together to throw this @WaffleHouse catered breakfast event featuring @alexisohanian https://hypepotamus.com/people/alexis-ohanian-full-video/
19/ The following year, @alexisohanian featured @jewelmelanie on his Small Empires series https://hypepotamus.com/news/atl-tech-co-featured-small-empires-alexis-ohanian/
20/ My point in all this is that many of the major ATL tech startup community players can trace their paths back to 2012-2013 when these guys selling toilets online helped make sure the ATL community knew its own story so it could then in turn tell the rest of the world
21/ I played a small role and wisely handed the torch over to @TriciaWhitlock who really helped grow Hype as a digital publication once we decided to shutter the doors. Much like any moments in history, this is but one thread in the ATL story. But it's one worth remembering.
22/ As a postscript, those knuckleheads aren't very visible on purpose. They burrowed themselves into their ecommerce company and built it up until they sold it for a very large, undisclosed amount to a Fortune 100 company who chose not to issue a press release about the exit.
23/ Why ATL is so hot right now is because of what founders were doing to invest in the broader community starting in 2012. It was in late 2012, @davidcummings announced the creation of @ATLTechVillage
24/ @Dave360 continued to gather & invest in his network of founders, @ReggieBradford always had time to mentor before he passed, and @pauljudge began to double, triple, and quadruple down on ATL. Without all these exits leading to reinvestment, 2020 ATL is very different.
25/ When @tavani and @davempayne shifted from @scoutmob to @switchyards, we had another great node. @cohnhead and @rachelkford leading @Techstars ATL connected the city into a global powerhouse network.
26/ What gets me excited about ATL is the work of @jewelmelanie @goodienation @DreamMaven who are leveraging their experiences and exits to invest in the next wave of companies that will define the ATL of 2030.
27/ And there's definite respect to the OG @StrongboxWest community. @tzamy and Ric have always been there for anyone just getting started.
28/ I'll end it here, because I think this thread can help any community looking to start or grow its startup community. Now back to my regularly scheduled work. /end
29/ Consider this the gooey cheese on top of the nachos https://twitter.com/tjmule/status/1329490013201985539?s=20
