The sleek San Francisco
office of tech startup LaunchPodium is a big step up for two of its staffers.
Tulio
Cardozo, 32, and Caleb Hunter, 35, were inmates at California's infamous San
Quentin State Prison. But today, their lives are similar to 20-somethings
across Silicon Valley: They're trying to build a startup.
LaunchPodium, founded in the spring of 2013, is an online marketing firm
helping small businesses build websites, social engagement and advertising. The
two men make up half the new company's full-time workforce: Cardozo is a lead
developer, while Hunter is a technology architect.
"LaunchPodium's
main focus is about simplifying an entrepreneur's life," Cardozo said.
"Think of it as an entrepreneur support package in a box."
They
pull all-nighters, weigh Wordpress versus Drupal, and spend their days
white-boarding ideas. But only a short time ago, they wore matching blue
uniforms and had access to nothing more advanced than a prison typewriter.
Cardozo
served just under six years in prison for manufacture of a controlled substance
and was released in October 2011. Hunter served eight years for carjacking and
vehicle theft and was released in October 2013.
LaunchPodium
founder Mike Parsons met the two men through a six-month prison
entrepreneurship program called The
Last Mile, founded by Chris Redlitz.
Inmates
create tech-oriented business plans and learn about the industry from guest
lecturers and books by prominent entrepreneurs, like Guy Kawasaki's
"Enchantment." They finish with a "demo day" where they
pitch to actual Silicon Valley venture capitalists.
Parsons
partners with the program, helping ex-convicts get acquainted with the tech
world when they're released from prison. In addition to Hunter and Cardozo, he
has five other newly released prisoners working as
"entrepreneurs-in-residence" (meaning they work primarily on their
own startups from the LaunchPodium offices). Hunter and Cardozo actually began
their tenure at LaunchPodium three months ago as EIRs, where they perfected
their technical skills. They were hired full time last month.
"We
made a very deliberate choice to go out there and work with people that really
are just so committed to making a contribution," Parsons said. "Their
advantage is in their attitude."
The
program is not just "do-gooderism" -- it's good business. Customers
find the unusual backgrounds of the LP staff a compelling reason to work with
them.
"We
bring a certain level of insight that perhaps someone who's [been] part of the
everyday conversation wouldn't necessarily see," Hunter said.
It's
an unexpected benefit of their isolation, since much of the technology used
today was developed while they were serving time. The smartest phone on the
market when they were incarcerated was the Motorola Razer. Facebook (FB, Fortune 500) still had "The" before its
name.
For
both men, technology was at arm's length for years: Cardozo learned about
Massive Open Online Courses while incarcerated, but to participate, he had to
have his mother download course materials on computer science and mail him
stacks of paper.
"I
always wanted to be a geek and go to MIT ... [but] I knew that wasn't gonna
happen," Cardozo said.
LaunchPodium
has given the men a way to break into the tech world.
"When
they get in front of a computer or they see a smartphone for the first time,
it's really a special moment," said Redlitz. "It's like a kid at
Christmas or someone with a new toy."
Back
inside San Quentin, TLM is starting to select inmates for the program based on
their potential for filling openings at its partner tech companies. It's a sort
of in-prison job recruitment.
After
years of the concerns that cropped up on the cell block, the highs and lows of
the startup world don't phase these guys.
"We're
sitting in a meeting, and it took me a moment to pause and realize, I'm
literally living my dream," said Hunter.
From CNN Money
By Erica Fink
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