While the Condor is elegant and efficient in flight and the largest flying bird in the world, it does have some less appealing characteristics, as well. Yes, even though it is technically a “bird of prey”, it is mostly a scavenger…not a great marketing note. Perhaps more annoying, however, is the fact that a group of condors is referred to as a “scarcity” or a “condo”. Seriously, who comes up with these terms? Is there a standards body that we can petition to propose something better?
On the brighter side, here at Condor Computing, we are getting to be quite the “condo” of great engineers. But today I wanted to focus more on all the things outside of engineering that are required to start and build a company from scratch. Although I have participated in multiple startups in the past, Condor is the first time that I have been involved from the very beginning. There are so many details that one must deal with to get a company, forgive the pun, off the ground. It does indeed take a village, or a scarcity, or a condo.
First, of course, one must come up with a name. Many thanks to my investors and sponsors who humored me with the name “Condor Computing Corporation”, as I have a weakness for alliteration. Then we had to get a domain, and www.condorcomputing.com was taken, so I had to acquire it through a broker. Then we needed a website. Many thanks to DM for recommending Saras at SV3 Designs, who did a wonderful job putting our website together in record time. Next, we needed a new logo to replace the temp one that I bought from a stock photo site. Thank you, AG, for recommending the site 99designs.com, where I was able to connect with MM, who created the most excellent logo that now graces our website. And this is just for things having to do with appearance so far.
As much of the Condor team will be nesting in Austin, we decided to acquire some office space in town so that we would have a place to meet and work together. Many thanks to BK for connecting me with a great commercial real estate agent, John Scoblick at Savills, even though our companies might be competitors one day. And thanks to John for being so tolerant of working with a leasing newbie. We were able to find some beautiful space that we could afford in the Arboretum area of Austin, which is nicely centrally located for the team. Once you have space, you need to fill it, and many thanks to AA for helping connect us with some lightly used furniture and computers that we could buy on budget. And thanks again John for connecting us with Erika Barnes at Office Furniture Now!, who also patiently walked me through the mechanics of buying office furniture for the first time. We look forward to enjoying all the new and lightly used stuff when we can move into our new space soon.
We would not be much of an IC design house without EDA tools, so many thanks to MG and PB and all the folks at Cadence who have been helping us get started using the Cadence Cloud. This has proven to be a time and cost-effective way to get the design team rolling quickly. We look forward to growing our use as we grow the team and the design. Also, a big thank you to PB2 for connecting us with DK at KH IT Services, who have been taking care of all the computing needs of our growing condo.
Speaking of the growing condo, I need to give a shoutout to Justin Hopper, the best Talent Acquisition Manager in the business. Justin has helped us grow our team with excellent engineers, even faster than I ever thought possible. And thanks once again to DM for hooking us up with the good people at Pace Engineering Recruiting, who have produced a steady stream of highly qualified candidates. AS at Pace has been great to work with, and she really understands our needs and interests. We continue to build our scarcity, so if you are interested, please take a look at our open roles here: https://condorcomputing.com/jobs/
