I’ve been asked a few times, “How did you find your partners for Servinity?”  Well, the following is a list of my partners, their Servinity roles, and how I came to work with them, listed in the chronological order of my startup life.  

Adam Wolf, Strategic Advisor:   Adam and I went to college together and was my founding partner in our previous startup, Tech Experts.  Although Tech Experts wasn’t a huge success, the experience taught me a lot, including the fact that Adam’s high-level strategic vision is a perfect compliment to my in-the-trenches entreprenuerial drive.  It was clear from the beginning that Adam and I would go into business together again.

Chris Morris, CTO:  Chris was one of our first hires at Tech Experts.  He quickly proved to be technically superior to our other employees, but also possessed an excellent understanding of the business issues relevant to his job.  I’m sure it comes as no surprise for me to say that high quality business acumen is rare in a tech guy.  We soon made Chris a partner at Tech Experts and I made a mental note that when I needed a CTO in the future, Chris would be my guy.

Joe White, Legal Counsel:  Joe and I went to college together and were later housemates while I was in graduate school.  Joe was aware that I had a previous startup and we would often discuss business ideas.  Our conversations inspired me to form an informal startup ideation group which we dubbed the “Meeting of the Minds.”  The group consisted of Adam, Chris, Joe, myself, and one other friend.  We would throw around business ideas, research plausible ones, and deconstruct the many possibilities.

Jeff Gewirtz, Sales/Industry Expert:  As mentioned in our first post, Jeff is the owner of El Bar, a small bar in the Poncey-Highlands section of Atlanta.  The staffing issues he faced while running El Bar were the impetus for Servinity.   Jeff and Joe had been friends for a while at this point, and upon Jeff’s conception of the idea, the two began researching the possibility of turning it into a real business.  At the same time, Joe was involved with Meeting of the Minds and myself.  Joe raised the idea to me one day just to get some feedback.  That ultimately lead to the following conversation between Jeff and I: 

Josh:  “I’ve got a strategic advisor, a CTO, startup experience, and the drive to make this thing work.” 

Jeff:  “I’ve got legal counsel, industry experience, and a great idea.”

And the rest, as they say, is history.