Jul. 19, 2023

First Off

Announcements and the like.

Lian: Rural Sourcing, now rebranded as Sparq, arrived in Buffalo in 2021 and has since grown its team to 133 workers.

That's no small feat in a relatively small market where there's often hot competition for tech talent. 

Natascha Thomas, Sparq’s regional director for Buffalo, talked with me about how the organization has been able to hire locally. Read on to learn more.

The Big One

Breaking down the day's biggest Inno story

When Rural Sourcing, now rebranded as Sparq, came to Buffalo in 2021, the Atlanta-based company hired its first 40 employees in less than 12 months.

Since then, the business, which uses a 100% remote model to tap into underutilized technology talent, has more than tripled its local team to 133 workers and aims to get to 250 within the next couple of years. The company, which employs 820 nationwide, does business-to-business consulting and provides outsourced digital engineering for clients.

Natascha Thomas, Sparq’s regional director for Buffalo, chalks it up to the company’s business model and culture. That includes going fully remote, having stability and fair pay, promoting people based on their brand rather than just job performance and creating a supportive work environment. 

“We’re not this big, flashy name,” she said. “We need something else, and I think that’s what we offer – a good work-life balance and a respectful, supportive work environment.”

For example, as a regional director, Thomas’ priority when it comes to client accounts is her team. The account manager’s job is keeping the customer satisfied. Then there are multiple managers under each director whose job it is to mentor their employees.

“My manager when I first joined as a senior colleague was just there to help me on my career path, to coach and advise,” Thomas said. “So that’s all he had to worry about, making me the best person I could be. Pay, write-ups and difficult conversations came from the director. It freed the manager up to be a coach, not a punitive person.”

Read more

Making Moves

Inside the people, companies and organizations making moves around Buffalo.

UB spin-out launches first product, starts raising seed money

When Brian Bischoff was about 4, he took apart his family’s television remote. He tried — unsuccessfully — to put it back together afterward. His parents weren’t too happy with him.

Several years later, he’s founder and CEO of Copprium Inc., a Buffalo-based startup spun out from the University at Buffalo.

The business, which officially launched in March 2022, creates conductive inks for manufacturers to use to print electronic pathways – from solar panels and biosensors to antennas and clothing with wearable sensors. Copprium licenses technology from UB, works with one of the school’s entrepreneurs in residence and aims to bring the products to market.

Read more 

After pandemic delays, Buffalo startup ThinkTech is ready to add on customers

In early 2020, Scott Martin left his role as principal at Sweet Home High School in Amherst to focus full time on his startup, ThinkTech. Then the pandemic hit and schools were propelled into remote learning. Administrators’ top priorities became actions such as procuring personal protective equipment.

Martin had a decision to make. Should he continue his startup’s current focus – a learning platform to give tools to teachers to use all the technology at their disposal in the classrooms, and throw resources at something that might not happen? Or should the business pivot to focus on education's hot button at the time, remote learning? He opted to stay focused on the original mission, and to not try and make sales during the pandemic.

Now the business is picking up steam, including landing a three-year agreement with the state's Board of Cooperative Educational Services to be a vendor state public school districts can do business with and qualify for state aid.

Read more

In the Know

The startup and innovation stories you need to read today.

• Life Storage mourns death of Alex Gress, names new CFO - Buffalo Business First
• University at Buffalo unveils plans for $102M engineering building  - Buffalo Business First
• Workers are worried about AI — and they have every right to be - Buffalo Business First

Elsewhere in Inno

Stories from around the Inno network we think you'll dig.

• Cisco to acquire Boston startup founded by one of its former employees - Boston Inno

• Health startup led by Amazon vet plans new clinics after raising $26M - Minneapolis Inno

• Richmond's goHappy expands to Canada - Richmond Inno

Featured Jobs

Below are featured jobs from Forge Buffalo, a talent community of job seekers, employers and entrepreneurial spirits in Buffalo. View the full directory here.

• Jerry - Principal Product Designer
• CleanFiber - Maintenance and Reliability Manager
• Bounce Imaging - Bookkeeper and Grants Manager
• LenderLogix - Customer Success / Account Management Specialist
• PostProcess Technologies - Senior Accountant
• Odoo - ERP Business Analyst

In the Community

The events and happenings to know in the ecosystem

For upcoming events, be sure to browse the Inno events directory.

Random

Where the Beat does its own thing 

If I get someone a pair of tickets to an event as a gift but I know they're most likely going to take me with them, is that a true gift? Or is it really a gift for myself? Just a debate a friend and I were having recently. 

The best gift is when you give someone two tickets to something, and they give you two tickets to a different event. Then you just take each other to both. That's a true win-win.

Inno Info

In-no-fo? Inn-fo? 

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Meet the Authors:

Lian Bunny is the startups and technology reporter behind Buffalo Inno. Contact her at lbunny@bizjournals.com.

Sara Paulson Meehan fills in on the Beat when Lian's not around. Email her at smeehan@bizjournals.com.