Drew and James jump pretty quickly into meetups since there is so much to get to this week! They do talk a little about company culture for hiring and things like transparent salaries. The guest this week is Luke Closs from ReCollect.
In 2009, Luke Closs created VanTrash, one of the first civic open data apps in Canada. The project was open source and just a side project. Eventually, VanTrash became ReCollect, a business to help municipalities communicate with citizens about waste collection. They realized that their open source project could provide real value to cities and local governments.
ReCollect is now in multiple cities and providing a few different services helping them save money and make things nicer for their citizens. Luke has a really interesting history. He has worked in the cellular industry, worked in Silicon Valley, and helped build an antispam system. He was always working on side projects and helping the Vancouver tech community through different initiatives.
Because ReCollect is a civic technology tool, Luke has to deal a lot with selling enterprise “software”. He gives some insights and tips for talking with salespeople or when having to sell tools. He also talks about the mindset of developers versus someone in sales.
Finally, we wrap up with some information about how ReCollect makes all these tools, what the future is for ReCollect, as well as the people they need to hire in the next year.
The Vancouver Tech Podcast is a weekly show focusing on the growing tech industry in the city of Vancouver. Get caught up on the events and meetups around town, startups, new businesses, developers, designers, community programs, and news. Each episode includes an interview with an outstanding member of our community.
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