I'm lucky enough to be a co-founder of the DeveloperTown Family of Companies. Most people know DeveloperTown as a consulting company focused on helping companies design, build, and launch technology products to solve some of their largest problem or to tackle some of their most aggressive opportunities. But we also helped launch some startups in our co-founder studio called DT Starts. We have a number of other companies (real estate, capital, other services, and saas products); and I cover some of them below. My role is mostly to make sure we're all pointed in the same direction (if you know my partners, that isn't always easy). And occasionally I still get to jump in and help our clients develop market-winning strategies for their products.
I'm one of the co-founders of Start Something Ventures. We invest in early stage companies, with a primary focus on B2B SaaS companies operating in the Midwest. It’s an angel group - not a formal fund. We’re just getting started, so if you reach out to us be patient (we will get better once we figure out our process), but investments can range from $50k to $200k and once we’ve made the decision to invest we try really hard to fund within 30 days.
I'm one of the co-founders of FullStack. FullStack helps early-stage companies scale faster by providing the services needed to support your team (payroll, benefits, HR, and compliance). We support companies as small as two people as well as companies that are 200+. If you're launching a company, let's chat. We would love to grow along side you.
1919 Ventures is a Carmel-Indiana based contract distiller focused on producing bespoke spirits. At 1919 Ventures, we combine time-honored distilling traditions with innovative techniques to create custom spirits that stand out in today's competitive market. Our team of experienced distillers and flavor experts work closely with each client to develop distinctive recipes tailored to their brand and target audience.
Cinergy is not your average mastermind group. It’s a carefully curated space where vendors with complementary offerings come together to forge strong trading partnerships, foster direct referrals, establish potent marketing alliances, and collectively amplify vendor value creation.
Our mission is to provide a platform for you to enhance your business, collaborate with industry peers, and explore new avenues of growth.
I'm the founder of Tenant Tracker. We launched Tenant Tracker in 2014 with the goal of simplifying the way commercial real-estate landlords and tenants collaborate with each other around tenant coordination. Today, the Tenant Tracker team has grown past me, and there's an awesome full-time leadership team growing and scaling the business. Now I'm just an advisor and board member, and they occasionally let me help out with fundraising, sales, and strategic partnerships. Tenant Tracker is easily one of my favorite examples to talk about as an example of launching a truly minimum-viable-product (MVP), leveraging customer capital for early growth, and customer-driven development. The team has always exhibited and lived many of the product and business related principles and values we talk about at DeveloperTown.
Waterly is one of my favorite DeveloperTown joint-ventures. Today Waterly helps small municipalities simplify the process of collecting data on their daily rounds related to basic EPA reporting. In the future, Waterly will be one of the many platforms cities, states, and governments use to better manage one of our most precious resources. We launched Waterly with Baxter and Woodman out of Illinois, and it's lead by a passionate leader with a vision to make a huge impact in the coming water crisis. I'm an investor and board-member in Waterly, and they occasionally let me help with sales and overall business strategy.
The Indianapolis Aikikai is affiliated with Aikido Shimbokukai which is officially recognized by the Aikido World Headquarters (Hombu Dojo) and the Aikikai Foundation in Tokyo, Japan.
Please note that aikido, under the auspices of the Indianapolis Aikikai, is one of five complementary arts studied at the dojo. In addition to aikido, there are classes in judo, jodo, iaido, and Systema.
I probably don't volunteer enough of my time, but when I do here are a handful of organizations where my time and energy goes. Obviously, you can see I'm passionate about supporting people who are launching businesses. My partners and I also support a number of different causes and charities through DeveloperTown.
In addition to the companies detailed above where I’m either a founder or more active in the business, the following companies represent some of the more recent organizations where I've been an active investor, board member, and/or advisor. I did not list any of the DT Starts or Start Something Ventures companies here, you can view those here and here.
A number of years ago my family decided to start a hobby farm. We currently raise sheep, pigs, turkeys, chickens, and bees. The focus is not to make money as a farmer. Our goal is to create an awesome environment where we can raise our two boys (Patrick and Thomas) in an unconventional way where they can experience responsibility, meaningful work, entrepreneurship, nature and science, and expereince about every power-tool you can imagine. (That last one sometimes gets me in trouble with my wife.) Patrick and I launched a podcast where we talk about the farm, his experiences growing up, and my experiences being a dad. Subscribe on iTunes, Google Play, and Stitcher.
A number of years ago, I spent a lot of time thinking and writing about software testing. If you'd like to review that content, you can do so here:
- I'm a contributing author to two books:
- HOW TO REDUCE THE COST OF SOFTWARE TESTING Auerbach Publications.
- 5 MINUTES TO PROCESS IMPROVEMENT SUCCESS - 2011 by Bill Fox.
- Blog: I started my core blog in 2004 on testingreflections.com. Since then I've migrated it to my own site, and for a long time the focus remained software testing with an agile slant. Today, if I write a post, it's normally business or startup related.
- Articles: I've authored hundreds of articles for Better Software, Software Test and Performance, AST Update, IBM developerWorks, InformIT, SearchSoftwareQuality.com and others.
- Presentations: I was a regular speaker at conferences and workshops. For most presentations I provide slides, for some I also provide an accompanying paper.
- Questions and Answers: For three years I was a SearchSoftwareQuality.com hosted Expert. During that time I answered numerous questions on software testing.
- Media: Occasionally I was interviewed or provided a webinar or talk where I could get my hands on the media. When I could, I posted that media here for download.
- Quick Testing Tips: Quick Testing Tips was a fun experiment to see if it's authors could come up with a software testing tip each day. Topics can cover anything related to software testing and will always be relatively short. (Archived the site and moved my posts here in 2016.)
- Software Quality Insights: Software Quality Insights is a SearchSoftwareQuality.com blog hosted on TechTarget's IT Knowledge Exchange.
- Testing Podcast: Testing Podcast collects and curates audio podcasts on topics in software testing. I regularly posted content related to the Indianapolis Workshops on Software Testing.
Contact
Email: mike@michaeldkelly.com
Phone: 317-709-2419