Introduction: Welcome to Five & Thrive: a weekly podcast highlighting the Southeast’s most interesting news, entrepreneurs, and information of the week, all under 5 minutes. 

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My name is Jon Birdsong and I’m with Atlanta Ventures.

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Product of the Week: I’ve had two insightful, soulful meetings and conversations in the past month at the Decatur and Downtown Switchyards. Michael Tavani, Brooks Buffington, and their talented Creative Director, Brandon have refined the model of Switchyards through Covid and nailed the product-market fit. Imagine the reverence of a library intertwined with unlimited quality coffee engulfed amongst some of the best Atlanta memorabilia outside of the Atlanta History Museum or Coca-Cola archives and you’ve got Switchyards. Their model changed in three ways: each location is open 24-hours, the overall square footage is smaller, and providing self-serve coffee makes the product more economical and scalable. As a lover of posting up at a library to get work done or focus on deep work – with Emory’s Woodruff Library being my favorite, Switchyard’s product just makes sense. After chatting with Michael and Brandon and listening to their expansion plans, they will most likely be in your hood coming soon.

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Product Launch of the Week launched this week out of Augusta, Georgia and was designed by the Weir / Stewart team. The product is called Big Dog Speakers, spelled Dog, to clarify for all the Yellow Jackets listening. Big Dog Speakers is the biggest, baddest bluetooth speaker designed to work everywhere with everything. With 15 hours of playback, 105db Max Output, and more, Big Dog Speakers is your speaker for the year in 2023, and priced on sale right now for just under $100. Shout out to pushing out product and production just in time for the holiday season. 

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Podcast of the Week: The podcast of the week we’re all listening to is Harry Stebbing’s 20VC with Martín Escobari of General Atlantic. There were several themes that hit home when listening to Martin Escobari’s interview. Themes include General Atlantic’s framework of successful companies including how the market is the single most important factor of success. He also shares how they remain disciplined regardless of market conditions during the highs and lows. They go into several other insightful threads and listening to it was like listening to your wise Uncle at the table over Thanksgiving share stories of his career. So if you don’t have a wise Uncle, just throw your airpods in and press play on this one.    

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Question of the Week: Where is the marketplace for very high-end freelance work? We were having a fun back and forth in the AV office not too long ago brainstorming what a high-end marketplace for freelance work would look like? Today there are marketplaces like Fiverr and Upwork but price plays a significant part in the equation. Let’s say you’re a former Bain Consultant, banker, seasoned writer, or marketer with years of experience, if you wanted to freelance on projects, where can you go online today to get vetted, approved, and allocated to a project? There are several markets where one could go get work, but normally it relies on the network of the individual. Imagine a marketplace where you could find, connect, and consult within days of matchmaking versus months of networking.      

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Company Coming Up: Today is Thanksgiving and what better company coming up to highlight than Thnks — that is Thanks without an “A.” This company spawned out of the Loeb Studio and is now headquartered in Franklin, Tennessee. Thnks has built customer success software to build deeper business relationships by ensuring each customer and prospect feel appreciated. Now every company that uses Thaks equips every employee with the tools to send tokens of appreciation such as coffees, lunches, experiences, and more. There are over 50 employees at Thnks and they are also currently hiring for Account Executives in Franklin, Tennessee. On this Thanksgiving, check out a software company amplifying appreciation.

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And I thank each and everyone of you listening today and onwards!    

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 Annnnd, that’s 5 minutes.

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Thank you for listening to Five and Thrive. We provide 5 minutes of quality information, so you can thrive in the upcoming week. Please subscribe to the show and spread the good word! 

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Resources discussed in this episode:

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Product of the Week: SwitchYards

Product Launch of the Week: Big Dog Speakers

Podcast of the Week:  20VC - General Atlantic

Question of the Week: Where is the high-end marketplace for remote work? 

Company Coming Up: Thnks