Your Custom Text Here
PHOTO | Lynsey Weatherspoon Photography
Today is Juneteenth, the oldest nationally celebrated commemoration of the ending of slavery in the United States. I originally wanted to post a Juneteenth piece from a local black artist I am honored to know, but as I wrote the post I realized that this was an opportunity to showcase more of the incredible black artists we have here in Atlanta. So that is what I’m doing.
Read moreI get a lot of random PR people trying to convince me that an article on dental clinics or beauty tips or Australian gold mines or something is exactly "what your site needs" from a guest-post. (It does not.) But this is not one of those posts.
Julia reached out to me after attending a recent episode of "Made in Atlanta," a monthly Switchyards collaboration with Alternative Apparel about the best brands made in our city. She had written a recap of the December event and thought I might be interested in cross-posting it here. She was right, so here it is. Enjoy! ~ Aly
Read more
I mean, Switchyards is design-focused, so of course they have posters for every event! | PHOTO: Jason Seagle
Aaaand we are back, for the twenty-first edition of The Consumer Show! That's 107 B2C companies which have come through Switchyards, y'all, how cool is that?
You know what else is cool? SWAGLANTA.com.
No, I am not making that up, that is a real site, made to share "swag for people who ❤ Atlanta."
Read more
Demo Day is the culmination of the 13-weeks Techstars Atlanta program (in partnership with Cox Enterprises) | PHOTO: Jenni Girtman
There's nothing I love more than a pitch event (as y'all well know), and it crushed me last year when I had to miss the inaugural Techstars Atlanta Demo Day. So when Mia Jones-Walker with TAG reached out to me about attending this year, I leapt at the chance to come support some pretty awesome startups, several of them local! (Also, she said the words "open bar." Startups and drinks? Yes, please!)
Read more
Coffee, beer, pitches, wings, and words of wisdom from founders. The best of everything! | PHOTO: Jason Seagle
It appears The Consumer Show crowd is one of moderation — in really good weather or really bad weather, the turnout is so-so, but it takes in-between weather to get standing room only. With a hurricane in the wings, last Thursday erred on the "really bad weather" side. (Also, it was the week after Labor Day, so we could blame three-day weekends too, I suppose.) At any rate, the crowd was still on-hand to check out the five presenting companies, and to eat some wings.
Read more
Y'all, seriously. We can hear you in that back hall when you think you're being super quiet. Just wait til after the show! | PHOTO: Chil Creative
Whew, life really happened in the past week (more on all of that soon)! So I'm really behind but the recap is here nonetheless — better late than never, right?
We're at 17 episodes of The Consumer Show, y'all! And the Switchyards team apparently didn't think they were doing enough, so they've created a new resource called Switchyards Design & Development, they started a new tradition of Switchyards Field Day (thanks to Tallia Deljou for organizing all the crazy teams!), they resuscitated Friends of Switchyards, and Michael Tavani says there's more to come so keep an eye out!
Read more
The Consumer Show at Switchyards: Where presenter seats are reserved for presenter rumps only. Because presenters need places to sit too! | PHOTO: Jason Seagle
Wow, y'all ... between conferences and allergies, I missed two different Switchyards events in May! Shout-out to The Consumer Show #15 guest-post from Andrew with Landing Lion, who somehow managed to write so much like me that Switchyards even accidentally credited me instead in the members' email (don't worry, I made sure he got proper recognition). Andrew, just so you know, you're now top of the guest-post list moving forward. Pro/con there.
Read moreI know I focus a lot on the tech and startup scene, but like it says in the tagline, we're also "all things Southern" over here. So when I read Donna Weber's lovely Instagram post on the anniversary of her move to Atlanta, I knew I had to share it. She kindly consented to letting me cross-post it here; enjoy! ~ Aly
Read more
If you were wondering what Atlanta's startup scene is like when it tries to get fancy ... it looks a little bit like this. | PHOTO: David Ahn
If you follow startups in Atlanta at all on social, you might have seen a few, oh, eleventy-hundred or so tweets and posts about the 2017 Startup Awards recently. (Probably a lot of them from, um, me.)
If it started to feel a bit like pledge drive week on NPR, I'm not surprised: Let me tell you, it is hard to get visibility in our very saturated startup space. It requires dedication, perseverance, and a sublime level of obliviousness to being a nuisance.
Read more
DreamHouse "sets out to build co-living spaces that bring together entrepreneurs from all stages to live, work, and grow under the same roof." | PHOTO: DreamHouse
You've probably heard of co-working spaces, and maybe you've heard of co-living spaces, but John Whatley believes in getting the best of both worlds — so with DreamHouse, his team has combined the two into one concept he calls "co-existing."
DreamHouse is the first of a planned network of locations where entrepreneurs can not only live affordably while sharing common expenses, but also work side-by-side either from the home itself or at one of the many co-working spaces DreamHouse has access to.
Read more