Following Ticketleap’s acquisition by NYC-based Patron Technology, a group of six staffers were laid off.
A couple of them have already found new gigs, but former Senior Software Engineer Jordan Yaker went and created his own: The technologist is the cofounder of a fintech startup startup R.O.S.S.
Good luck to my friends and former teammates from @ticketleap @sellwithport and @hireross – new beginnings all around, wishing you the best!
— Alexander Kipphut (@ADKipphut) September 18, 2017
Yaker, 36, told Technical.ly the minimum viable product is up and running, in the hopes of onboarding the first customer within the next month and making a splash this November at the WebSummit megaconference.
But what does R.O.S.S. do? Here’s the main pitch behind the platform:
“A lot of companies that deal with multi-sided transactions (think resellers or online marketplaces) have difficulty tracking the balance of payments and creating an audit trail,” Yaker told Technical.ly. “It’s a big data problem. R.O.S.S. can help companies handle transactions in a never-ending stream instead of in ‘buckets’ or ‘batches.'”
At its core, R.O.S.S. was an internal project that started in January. Though the financial intricacies aren’t 100 percent finalized, the tech that drives the system has been “transferred” to Yaker so he may work on building out the platform. Akos Tolnai, COO, is the startup’s second employee.
Port’s not the only startup spawned from this deal. Congrats to @jordanyaker on founding ROSS (@hireross). I predict big things. https://t.co/G4pnbzn1qO
— Tim Raybould (@timraybould) September 18, 2017
Yaker also shared some insight on his final days at Ticketleap.
“The good thing about Ticketleap is that it’s a tight-knit community of people that care about each other,” Yaker said. “That didn’t change with news of the acquisition. People who knew they’d be laid off just kept doing their work as usual and scoped out their next moves.”
Often times, the comments section on our stories provide very interesting context for moves like the Ticketleap acquisision/spinout combo (known to some as the “Philly shuffle”). With R.O.S.S. and Port coming out of the storied Philly startup, Arcweb Technologies CEO Chris Cera’s words on the climate at Ticketleap ring true:
“Many other ‘startups’ were incubated inside Ticketleap over the years (Venmo, Capography, Met, Port, and presumably others that died before they made the news),” Cera wrote. “Around the same time while I was at Traffic.com — we were prohibited from any kind of ‘side hustle’ or else the company owned whatever you created. Props to the founders and leaders of Ticketleap throughout the years for leading by example when it comes to employee-friendly policies that promote more entrepreneurship in the city.”
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