This Friday the 13th episode of The Friday Nooner saw GrepBeat Reporter Suzanne Blake (yours truly) come on screen as a third co-host with Joe and Pete. The episode also welcomed Plum Founder and CEO Matt Williamson. Williamson is a serial entrepreneur who also co-founded predictive marketing startup Windsor Circle before the company was acquired by Output Services Group in 2018. Before that he was an early-ish employee at Bronto Software, where Joe was the CEO.
Williamson’s latest venture is Plum, a platform to make vacation home ownership more accessible through co-ownership. (Here’s our story on the startup from March, and also an Exit Stories podcast episode in which Williamson talks about his Windsor Circle experience.) Plum is currently closing on its $1.5 million pre-seed round and is also hiring a Head of Engineering and a Senior Ruby on Rails Developer.
Here are some highlights from the show:
- Joe, Pete and Suzanne discussed Tesla CEO Elon Musk’s ever-evolving Twitter takeover. Musk tweeted overnight that the acquisition is temporarily on hold because of information released earlier this month that fake accounts comprise less than 5 percent of Twitter users, which he now says he wants to confirm before moving forward. Then Musk backtracked on his backtrack, saying he is still committed to the deal. The future of Twitter remains unclear, but if Musk walks, he will have to pay a $1 billion breakup fee.
- When Williamson entered the show, he shared the two other startup ideas he considered before launching Plum. They included a toy subscription company a la Tiny Earth Toys (before he knew they existed) as well as a different kind of coworking space for manual trades like carpentry.
- Williamson is entering the vacation home ownership tech market at a unique time. Never before have there been so many people able to work from home, from anywhere. This, according to Williamson, opens the doors to a much larger market. Imagine working remotely from one of the most beautiful beaches in the world. It might not have been possible before, but it is now.
- Of course, being a Friday the 13th episode, Pete and Joe debated the merits of January (Joe’s birthday month) being the 13th month. Hawaiian shirts and keg stands were also a lively topic of discussion throughout the show.
Thanks to the sponsor for this quarter, which is our upcoming GrepBeat tech conference Grep-a-palooza. The one-day conference will be held June 9 at the Durham Convention Center. Get your tickets here. The Early-Bird rates expire a week from today, May 20, so don’t delay.
You can watch the full episode on LinkedIn here or on Facebook here.
Or on YouTube:
Auditory learners can listen (and subscribe!) to the podcast version:
