That's Kerbey Lane Cafe in the background. We had just eaten brunch together.
Matt met Jeremy in 1998, when the two of them were the first full-time employees hired by the founders of a start-up called TManage. Jeremy lived in Austin, TX, where the three founders were basing their new company, and Matt and I still lived in Chapel Hill, NC. But it was a company focused on helping other companies roll out telework programs, so they were pretty OK with having Matt work remotely (and me too, soon after). For a while.
Matt and Jeremy worked together quite a lot in the early days. Matt was in charge of software development, and Jeremy was in charge of building out the IT infrastructure. So they became friends through this shared experience in the trenches.
The short version of the story is that eventually, as the company quickly grew, having Matt work from North Carolina became too difficult. He was always flying back and forth and started staying longer than he was home. So we finally moved to Austin. And then we became friends with Jeremy and his wife. The four of us had so many good times together, full of lots of laughing.
Fast forward maybe four years, and when it was time for us to leave TManage (it was acquired and we wanted to try something new), the three of us started a business together. That business is the one that Matt and I still own and run together.
Several years ago Jeremy and his family moved from Austin to be closer to family, and Jeremy has started his own company there. But they were recently in town and we all got together for brunch. This photo of the first two employees 16 years later makes me very happy because it reminds me of some really good times and big dreams.
Product/technique notes
Almost everything on this page is from Echo Park’s “This & That Charming” collection.
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