Thanks to NewCo for inviting us to present at the event and creating the space to share some fun and some very important parts of what it is we do here at Jackrabbit Mobile (more than just apps).

Also thanks to the weather for clearing up before our time slot. We had a packed house at our office on West 6th (and tomorrow we move into our awesome new office on East 7th!).

Culture

Jonathan Rosenberg shared about our Culture & Strategy, specifically about our employee Growth Plans which we are really excited for (and that he and Kyle Zamcheck put a lot of work into!).

He shared that, to build a great company, you must build a great team. And that effective leadership isn’t always one person with all the responsibility and all the power. More effective is collaborative leadership, where individuals are enabled to take initiative and lead in their own way.

As a startup, things get done when people step up, champion an idea, and drive an initiative to success. People also do their best work when they have the opportunity to work on things they’re most passionate about.

Jon explained that in the beginning, everyone did everything, and as we grew, there were growing pains where it wasn’t always clear to everyone where or how they should contribute, or what were the steps to their personal growth.

As a company, it’s important that we enable those steps. These Growth Plans are a tool for facilitating that path.

Labs

JoJo Marion shared information about Jackrabbit Labs.

He explained how that, as a company, we’ve always aspired to be innovative, and we’ve tried many different paths, from hackathons to 20% time.

Last year we started our Labs division to make innovation a core focus of our company. Labs are experiments that we chose, with ideas, technology, and solutions developed by our team.

They’re an exciting opportunity to explore brand new ideas, new technology, and new industries. Labs are fun, challenging, and an outlet for creativity.

A few of our labs that we displayed were Smart Toys (developed by Sam Harris), James Bond Watch Drone (Matt Wanninger, pictured, and David Olesch), Arduino music sensors (Caroline Harrison), and Facial Recognition (Gibrán Gaytán Silva).

Thanks to Capital Factory and all the other sponsors and participants. Thanks to the great Austin community. Thanks to NewCo for inviting us and giving us the space to share =).