Father and son team Alex and Ryan Virvo are the forces behind Greatlocalart.com and Localartcard.com, an innovative web approach that weds art, artist and commerce in a synergy that could, among other goals, see artists actually make livings off their art.
The duo both work and “co-work” with other entrepreneurs at the recently refurbished Stamford Innovation Center at 175 Atlantic St. in Stamford.
Alex Virvo is a retired ad executive. Ryan Virvo is the team”™s web designer. Their latest project, called Hackersocial, is an effort to bring techies out of the shadows and into a networking model of ideas feeding ideas and entrenched obstacles falling after perhaps a single serendipitous meeting.
Define your efforts with Hackersocial.com in the framework of economic development. What”™s the best thing that could happen from your efforts from a regional perspective?
“HackerSocial.com, is primarily designed to allow local tech and business people to network and collaborate. We know that if we grow our community then there will be more startups and more startups mean more jobs. Who knows the next Google or Facebook may be a startup from Stamford.
“HackerSocial.com was born of a need to create a local tech and business-friendly community in Stamford. For us it all started with volunteering at Stamford Innovation Center”™s Hacker Night since early January. Each week at Hacker Night we saw many extremely talented people come through the doors. Yet, the community, even those attending, seemed to think that to find good tech people, one had to look outside the area, often in other countries. Yet, we knew that we had great talent right here; it was simply a matter of creating an easy way for them to network and collaborate on their schedule, at their convenience.
“It became obvious to us, that if we created a way that people looking for talent could have a way to view the local talent pool, then some of the projects that are contracted elsewhere could be kept in our community.”
Correctly or incorrectly, computer types have a reputation for introversion, perhaps fueled by the solitary nature of keyboard work. Is there an untapped synergy out there? What is the feedback so far?
“Nothing is further from the truth: Tech types are in fact very social and it is just that they want to be in an environment where they feel they can make a contribution, learn from others and be part of a community. That is exactly the goal of our Tuesday evening events. People come with different skills and share their experiences and learn from others in a collaborative networking environment filled with like-minded people of varying skill levels. The common denominator being that they are here to build community and to help each other. HackerSocial.com is designed to make it easier to continue this community building effort online. One only needs to look at the profiles online to see that we have an abundant variety of talent, from multimedia, front- and back-end coders, social media and marketing experts as well as serial entreprenuers and investors.
“As the list grows, so will the depth and variety of our local tech and business talent.”
This is your fourth try at perfecting this website. How integral was networking to your own efforts to produce a workable platform?
“Without plugging into this community through the Stamford Innovation Center, it would have been nearly impossible. First, we would have never have seen the need for HackerSocial.com. Apart from that, each time we attempted to build this solution we ran into different problems and each time, thanks to the community at Stamford”™s Innovation Center and everyone”™s desire to help, we were able to create a product we are finally proud of. There is still much work to be done, but the site is clean, easy to navigate and lists many of the talented people in our community. Of course we are always looking for more people to submit profiles on HackerSocial.com
Define the division of labor between you and your son Ryan.Â
When is your hard opening date?
“Since January we”™ve been discussing ways to create an online job board site to complement our weekly Hacker Night event. I initially came up with the name HackerSocial.com and we both collaborated on the look and feel, and functionality of the site.
“Ryan then built the site, creating all the code, developing the user experience and even creating the cartoon imagery used throughout site. The site is now live and any tech or businessperson can log on and create a profile, list an event or an opportunity.
Is your model replicable across the landscape or is it specific to southwestern Fairfield County?
“The site is replicable across the landscape and it is our intent to help other communities to use this site to help their tech and business people network and collaborate locally, so that they too can build their respective communities and create exciting startups.”
