Episode 6: Bridging the Tech Gaps in San Antonio with Jesse from DEVSA

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Host: Welcome back to another episode of Beyond Giving the best nonprofit podcast on the Boost Network. I’m Zac, the nonprofit guy, and today we’ve got a conversation with Jesse from Dev sa. Thanks so much for joining us on the show, Jesse. Zac, happy to be here. Definitely. So, uh, kind of let’s start by telling us a little bit about what Dev SA actually is and what it is.

Guest: Whenever I step outside this little tech bubble, they’re like, how do you pronounce? Is that, what is that thing? Whatcha doing over there? Is it Debase? It’s Deb. Okay, cool. I was like, is this a subtle, uh, you pronounce it wrong word the whole time? Uh, no. Uh, what it is in its current iteration and, and one thing I’ve told people, and I definitely need to really fine tune, uh, the, the messaging even on, even on our website, but the, the, the core focus is we are that one connector.

So if you [00:01:00] go to thee channel. Dev say, will lead you to all of the active other tech groups in the city. The beauty with the tech groups that are active in the city, they’ve really find, they’ve really joined our mission, our big mission was tech events, tech groups that were focused on learning and networking on the tooling and the programming versus, uh, events that were, uh, pretty much the, in the space when we entered, which was primarily, um, sales driven marketing.

I mean, the. I always hear stories about a very active tech space before the pandemic. That was before my time here, but, uh, when we entered the space, there was a gap that needed to be filled and, uh, we happily filled that and, uh, that’s who we are. So, land a plane, Jesse. We, we try to make it easy for people to find a tech communities who are not wasting time on Indeed or Indeed on Meetup or Eventbrite.

Host: Nice. Yeah. Okay. So it’s, you basically are just connecting the tech community and the different events across the San Antonio area. Awesome. And [00:02:00] so we met, was it, it was January, I think of last year at a local startup bootcamp. Right. I’m almost, it did. I’m almost positive that’s where we met. That’s true.

And at the time, I think you were, you were at the beginning stages of forming what is now Dev sa, right? It was like Adobe. Adobe something, um, I think was the original name. And then. Oh, what was that? You’re so 

Guest: close. But it’s amazing. It, it is funny. I look back at that picture and there was an amazing cast of like entrepreneurs trying to get their journey started.

Um, and uh, yeah, it’s funny ’cause I look back now, like I’ve been able to get to know a lot of people that were a part of that experience and are still. On their journey now today. But what was it? It was, uh, it wasn’t devs a, uh, specifically it was, uh, digital Canvas, which is another passion project, digital canvas.

Okay. So kind of sa uh, same [00:03:00] concept as far as focused on the learning and the networking, the tooling and the programming. But in the creative space that we’re talking, like you mentioned the Adobe and the Figma, and my big thing was like, no one’s talking about how these creatives are using the tooling.

And with all the AI updates happening now, it’s like after that photographer ca captures that concert or that wedding or whatever, I wanted to focus in on their process on the computer. Are they using generative fill for, for, for video or, or whatnot? I, I just wanna do that because. Very similar to the tech scene.

Before Dee entered there, there was a lot of socials. So like in the tech space, there was a geeks and drinks and a data nuts or data nerds, whatever they’re called. Um, but they were just socials and that’s all it was. And I’d always hear people from, I’d always hear feedback from people that would attend those and be like, yeah, somebody took off his shirt and was dancing on a table.

Somebody pulled out the warm So. Folks that were trying to find a tech community just couldn’t find it. And when you look at the [00:04:00] creative space, um, a lot of the events that I saw then and that I still see now, which is why, uh, and we’ll circle back to digital canvas ’cause that’s. It’s something that 

Host: is coming full circle.

Well, that it, when you start talking about digital chemists, and, and I remember I’ve always known you as that creative dude I met at bootcamp. Right. And so I was trying to remember, think back to, ’cause like, uh, you, you’re pretty much known for Dev SA now, right? Yeah. And you’ve built quite a community, uh, in this last year, year and a half.

Around that and, and are really connecting everything. Um, but I was trying to figure out where that label in my head came from, that creative dude. Right. Other than like, I know you’re, you’re good with like, uh, editing and you, you designed the dev essay logo, right? Yeah. Uh, and that sort of thing. But, uh, so I’m glad I was able to like put, put that back together.

But like, what is your background? Like, why are you the one that was, that, that built this, this community devs a that is, that’s working to kind of bring all of these different facets of tech in San Antonio together. 

Guest: Why is that you? Yeah, it’s a great question. One thing I’ve shared with many people is I’m probably the last [00:05:00] person that should be the face of this thing.

But, uh, um, and, and, and for that, a lot of it is just, um, just my personal journey and, and I don’t like to talk about the, uh, the origin story of Jesse. ’cause it’s not, it’s not, it’s not a very fun story. But ultimately, I, I guess, um, the start of devastate, well, I, I, I guess my personal journey is like, I, uh, yeah.

I, I grew up, I’m, I’m born and raised in San Antonio. Um, wait, an actual San Antonio, I’m, I’m a Santon. That’s a thing. I’m a San Antonian. And, um, but yeah, I mean it’s, it’s, there’s a whole story of um, just, I mean, just growing up, I grew up West side, poor side, I guess what they call now like the, those underserved communities, which are still a thing and, and blah, blah, blah.

But I, uh, yeah, I, I, I, what’s the term they use? Spoodle San Antonio. Like I have a Bootle San Antonio story. Having like a kid, really young, sophomore in high school, stuff like that. So it’s, uh, it, I, but any who land of playing Jesse, I’ve always been labeled as a tech guy. I never worked in tech, but I was always, Hey, can you fix this?

Can you do this? And I was always that guy. Um, as [00:06:00] I got older and, and, and my work life balance in that space that I was in. Became more, uh, easier to manage, more I guess, organized. Um, I started exploring, um, so my last job before this was I, I, I did sales at USAA and USAA offered like tuition reimbursement.

So like I, I was doing some intro to programming courses at the local community college. Did you like Java or like Yeah, it was into a program. So there was some Yeah, it was, it was Java. It was, there was, uh, we started flirting with some like Java script, but it’s funny as I. I, I was, uh, in the second semester pandemic hit, and, and all of us got sent home and I was like, I’m too far in.

I can’t go back to. Talking to people and selling ’em stuff. It’s like, I, I just, I was, I was, I was locked in. So I am, so that’s 

Host: what really launched, like your direction. Yeah. Your, how much, how much time does Dee consume right, uh, of your time? Is that almost like a full-time job by itself? 

Guest: It is. And I also work [00:07:00] full-time as a developer.

Yep. So it’s, uh, it’s definitely, I gotta thank the family and the missus for being super patient. But, uh, so that 

Host: really launched your, complete, like, your pivot into. Pretty deep tech then, right? It was, I, 

Guest: the joke I always say is, I, I was flirting with 40, uh, before I decided to, to make the switch to tech. I, uh, put in my two week notice at USAA, I took out money outta the 401k and I just kind of went all in and, uh, I just hit the three year mark in the tech space in May Oh, uh, like a couple weeks ago.

So I’m still very early in my journey, which is some of the reason why I say like, I should probably be the last person that’s running devastate, but. Um, just because of the, uh, as you, I mean as you start, I mean, they always talk about the imposter syndrome and just being new and you meet people that are always smarter than you.

Um, and I’m like, man, like should I be like having these private meetings with the city of San Antonio or should I be with other executives elsewhere? Should I be the one that’s traveling to Brownsville and representing the, the tech scene and, [00:08:00] and, and doing stuff down there? It’s like, I don’t know, but it’s 

Host: happening.

Yeah, that’s thing. Especially in tech. You, you can be one of the smartest people on your team, but there’s going to be somebody that’s smarter than you, right? Yeah. That knows more about something than you. That’s like that imposter syndrome is, al was always an interesting thing and I grew up in tech, right?

My first job was in, in software engineering and all the way until we started our current company. And so like we, we dealt with that throughout the years. Different teams, different people. Um, it doesn’t. With Dev sa you saw, um, it was difficult to find these different events, to find the different communities and to really get involved with those, right?

Yeah. So I think that’s the, that’s the qualifier, right? To run an organization that solves that problem. Right? You experience the problem. We, we talk about this all the time when we’re starting companies and starting organizations. If we can experience the problem, it makes this, the, the, the path a lot easier.

It makes the journey a lot easier, right? So that’s really cool, but so you work full-time as a developer? I [00:09:00] do. Okay. And what do you write at, what do you write at work? Like what languages? 

Guest: Yeah. I mean, the, so it’s, it’s a media company, so I’ve been fortunate where, um, it’s a media company and clients that I’m working with already have established, um, like systems that use for tracking their, their data, their, their data.

So. Uh, most of my work is front end base, a lot of UI based, so I have stayed in my JavaScript ecosystem, so I, I use React as my main stack. Um, I’m, I, I use Tailwind for my styling. I, I love integrating motion for some subtle animations, but a lot of it is, um, that the, the bulk of my, uh, connectivity when it comes to forms is, uh.

The, the sales teams that these other clients have, like a Velocity Texas or, uh, the, I, I worked on, um, some stuff with MHM now, but it’s just connecting to API endpoint, so I kind of have some fun on the creative side. Somebody coined the term creative coding and I was like, wow. Interesting. I [00:10:00] love it. But, uh, no, wait, wait, 

Host: wait.

What is creative coding? I just heard that today. Yeah. Not familiar 

Guest: actually, I was, um. So digital canvas was something that I was on, on the calendar to launch this year. So as I was going to create art events of tech events, uh, there’s a group, uh, in town called AM Architect, and, uh, what they do, they’re the ones that kind of introduced the term my way.

And it turns out that there’s a whole. Uh, nonprofit in Austin called Data Geek and they have what they call a data lab and it’s just a warehouse. Um, and they got projector springs all around and, uh, they’re using some open source libraries and they shared ’em with me. I don’t remember what they are off the top of my head, but, uh, I mean, some of it’s like three Js.

You have animation libraries in the JavaScript space like that. Um, but they’re ultimately using code to generate, um, graphics on the screen. They’ll integrate a [00:11:00] DJ or a live band, and it’s happening in real time. This one band am architect who, uh, shout out to Diego and, and April, uh, if they see this. But, uh, what blew my mind with them is one Darren in San Antonio, but two, uh, similar to this little pad you have here.

Um, Diego can have some scripts saved to some of these buttons here, so he can push a button and it can automate images from like Midjourney. Um, oh, okay. And, and, and he had some stuff scripted with Python, but it’s just mind blowing that they were able to use programming languages with some generative AI tooling.

I think they also use like runway, which like a video to AI prompt service, but they were able to kind of integrate these different tools to. Create some live background visuals and they’ve, uh, gotten some gigs like the orchestra locally. Okay. So Eric, I know one event they do at least once a month is, uh, co park at somewhere, I think on the south side.[00:12:00] 

But, uh, they got this really cool structure and they just shoot out projectors on there, and they’re live coding. 

Host: Okay, cool. So creative coding. So unk it, yeah, it’s live, it’s creative, creative coding. I like it. I’m gonna use that term. So then you kind of transitioned into tech. And then, uh, saw the need to connect the ecosystem here.

And so you started Dev sa. What were some of the initial, uh, problems that you were solving, and why is it so important that the different groups of tech in the area be connected and be collaborating 

Guest: well? Um, yeah. During my, my self learning and my studying and, and just kinda, I mean, you’re always, you’re always, I mean, it, I always tell folks like, developers or programmers we’re just wired differently.

And just that, that constant. The studying, the learning and, and upskilling and, and, and just building in general. But I was at a point doing all this remotely and I was like, I can’t be the only one in San Antonio that’s doing this. So yeah, I went down some meetup and event ride rabbit holes, and I found [00:13:00] some events.

And again, most were socials and I’d go and have a great time, but after the events were over, it’s like, well, what happens now? Where’s everybody going? There was just nothing that was keeping the conversation moving forward. So that was really how Devastate started. We just started as a discord and, and, uh, I created the discord.

I slid into a bunch of people’s dms on LinkedIn. I was like, Hey, I see you’re a developer. Ah, you work at HEB. I’m trying to do this. Do you wanna. Do you wanna join in on this? And, and there were there. That’s how we started. What’s funny is during that process, some folks were like, like, who the fuck are you?

And I don’t click links from strangers. Uh, so quit sending messages and I’m like, dang. But, uh, that’s how we started. And, and we ultimately, and we started there just because that, that gap of keeping the conversation going and. Ultimately, um, we built enough [00:14:00] momentum to where we started. We started talking about like, maybe we should enter the meetup space.

Maybe we should do something. Maybe we should be more than just a Discord server, and that’s, once we enter that arena, that’s when things really took off. 

Host: And so that’s where you end up with what Dev SA is today, where you’re co-hosting these events. You’re hosting events yourself, you’re partnering with these different players in the tech ecosystem, right?

So what does a, um, how does an what, what, what are some of the organizations or the groups that you kind of work with under the devs a, uh, umbrella and then like, how, how has the, the tech space kind of been improved, uh, since the existence of devs? A. 

Guest: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Uh, that’s a good question. There’s, there’s a lot of groups.

There’s, uh, there’s literally at least like 14 active group Wow. Uh, in the city of San Antonio. And That’s crazy because I knew of like five. Yeah. Right. Yeah. And, uh, and, and that’s where we like a, as we start [00:15:00] focusing on what’s next and we’ll, we’ll talk about here in a bit, um, that’s something that I personally as a challenge as far as the branding and, and, and really trying to simplify the process of.

Finding these groups is what I need to do. The, our, our, our website’s long overdue for a, uh, for, for a makeover and update. But, uh, yes. You’re a marketing guy. You’re a crew guy. I, I’m, I’m guy. 

Host: Why, why is it 

Guest: overdue for, uh, it’s, it’s the work. It’s the workload. It’s just we, we we’re, uh, but the beauty is though, it’s like, uh, uh, because I’ve been with my company now for six months now, so we’re, uh.

Where it’s, we’re, we’re finally getting to a point where it’s like, it’s, it’s time to, to activate, uh, further what we’re trying to accomplish next. But no, some of the groups, uh, some are so there, there, there’s definitely a lot. But I would say some of my favorite as far as just unique groups, total vibes, their own thing, they can thrive on their own without devastate.

And trying to like say, like, check out this event. Uh. There’s a security group here. It’s, it’s a, it’s a ethical [00:16:00] hacker security group. Uh, it’s a San Antonio chapter of Defcon, a big global conference. But, uh, they are a group here in San Antonio. They’re actually having an event tomorrow. It’s their official one year anniversary as a chapter, as a group.

And I, I, I just love going it some of the smartest people I’ve ever met. A mix of senior working professionals, some folks that are retired that just love to hack. And, and, and, and just break stuff and, and explain what they did and how they did it. It’s just a great community. They meet up once a month at Northeast Lakeview College.

The one of the organizers is an instructor out there in the cybersecurity space. Um, but uh, they’re doing their one year anniversary tomorrow at the Endy. If anyone knows Caleb, uh, and his printing service called tap, that’s gonna be the host for the event there. But outside of them, um. Um, yeah, Ansley and The Greater Gaming Society, another group where it’s just, they know who they are, my people.

Um, uh, [00:17:00] and, and I’ve been able to create some really awesome connections for her and her group through some of our partnerships, like at UTSA. But yeah, I, I love the group. I love what they’re doing. Uh, totally awesome. And then it is, go into your specialty groups. You have your. You have Christian with a ITX, you got Daniel and Richard who are, uh, took over Alamo Python, uh, you’ve got Eddie and, and, uh, what’s his name?

Brandon from Zel of Cam that are now doing Alamo Tech Collective. You got the Geeks and they had a big rebrand last year. Um, and I think what we did, what we started was a big, uh, motivator to why they, uh, rebranded. ’cause uh, the goal was that they felt they were stuck as they were labeled as a social group, a party group.

And they were like, we wanna be more than that. And, uh, it happened. Um, and then who else we got out there? We got, uh, we have UXSA, um, your user experience group. You have a IGA, your, uh, uh, which is more of your, uh, designer, more Figma focused group. What does A [00:18:00] IGA stand for? Um, I didn’t tell you, but, uh, there’s another, there’s another fun one.

A-R-D-A-I know that one. Alamo Regional Data Analysis. Okay. And that’s run by Ryan Oringer and a guy named Sarah, a guy named Sarah. A girl named Sarah, a beautiful lady named Sarah. But that they just had their, uh, yearly conference probably about three weeks ago now, uh, called Spark. And it was a one day event filled with talks on, on, on data and ethics and, and how those two worlds are.

I guess the state of ai, how it’s impacting those two factors. It was a great event, great turnout. And there’s a ton. Uh, you got your Google developer groups. There’s A-C-M-S-A, I can’t believe that’s 

Host: zacaria, but so like DEVSA is kind of involved in some fashion with a large portion of the tech community here in San Antonio, right?

Whether that’s supporting Evens, whether it’s helping you guys also have played a role in the recent AI agents showcase. Uh, that happened here in San Antonio, right? Yeah. So, so you’re doing a lot of these things. What is kind of like, [00:19:00] where is devs a going? What is, what is gonna be next for you guys?

Guest: That’s a good question. Uh, it’s, it’s, um, it’s definitely been a journey to get here. So, devs a, we just hit our one year anniversary, uh, at the end of April. Uh, pretty much we did our first event. Uh. This the, the day of the Fiesta Flame bow parades. It was like at the end of Fiesta. So we literally are just weeks past our one year anniversary.

Um, and when I look back to see what we’ve done, um, I, I label year one as. The year of being the loudest, um, the busiest. Um, but it was also a year of just building trust within the community. There’s a lot of OGs that don’t get talked about enough that were vital players in the tech space in San Antonio before the pandemic hit.

They’re still here in San Antonio, but they’re just, they’re, they just were turned off and, and they tuned out with the way the text, I guess, the direction that, that the text space went. [00:20:00] It’s so, it’s so funny ’cause when I first met, um, like Charles and not even Charles, even before that, when I gave my first talk about dev essay, which was like days before our, our first event, uh.

I, um, and again, probably why I’m the last person, I should be even the face of this group, but I, I dropped some, uh, some frustration came out because, um, part, part of our origin story was like, groups like, like, uh, in the past would host like Google Cloud events. And, uh, we, we don’t, we don’t wanna tell the story.

It’s a no story. We don’t have, we don’t have worry about the, the F-bombs, but, uh. Yeah, year one was a lot of nonstop motion. So my internal struggle, uh, going into year two was, um, I knew I was gonna scale back. I had a private event in December for auto organizers and uh, the goal of that event was for everyone to meet each other, get FaceTime because I had told the group, uh, the organizers that Devastate was going to scale back.

’cause from April to November we did 14 events. We featured 24 different speakers. It was insane [00:21:00] and I wanted to scale back our, uh, our schedule for this year and allow the other groups to activate themselves. And if I, if I need to get you a venue done, if I need to create a graphic or a poster figure event done, but I wanted them to collaborate and create events.

And the beauty is that’s happening. Uh, June’s coming up. June is scheduled to be the busiest month in the tech space since the pandemic shut everything down. Wow. Really? June is insanely packed. Uh, and the beauty with that is there’s not an official single devastate event happening at the month of June and this is happening.

And the beauty is they’re not sales driven socials. We’re talking, learning, programming, uh, networking. Like we’re, we’re following devastates core mission, which I think is amazing. Um, but what, what, what, what are we doing next? So the beauty is we’ve been able to kind of motivate and activate the other groups in the city to kind of continue doing events.

What can devastate do [00:22:00] to year two? To to grow? Uh, mm-hmm. I, I don’t wanna repeat the exact same thing I did last year. So what can I do differently? And working with the media company I work for and having access to some amazing videographers and storytellers, I. Strawberry Stacy, uh, social media guru.

That’s really what I wanna focus on. I’m, I’m going all in on video creating programming. We’re gonna be launch, we haven’t made the announcement yet, but early June, uh, we’re gonna be announcing a partnership with 4 3 4 media, and we’re gonna be activating devastate tv. Uh, and we’re gonna have, that’s exciting.

And, but the goal is to. By focusing on video, making it easier for people outside of our bubble. ’cause there’s, I, I just spent five days in Brownsville, like three weeks ago, and I was hanging out with Dr. Lisa Ochoa. If you guys don’t know Dr. Lisa Ochoa, she is a rockstar, but she’s in the, she’s in the medical space and, and she’s trying to solve some legit problems in San Antonio, [00:23:00] specifically in the south side, east side and west side.

And, and technology has been a big hindrance. They lose so much time. Calling insurance companies, people scheduling appointments, and, and they, they have a need for automation, but of course there’s so much bureaucracy when it comes to trying to get stuff approved in that medical space. But she had no idea that if there was a tech space in the city, she knows that she needs tech.

She has an amazing opportunity quarters funding involved. And she was like, I want to use this on tech. And so we’re we’re also launching a series called Call to Action where. We can talk to people like a Dr. Lisa and mm-hmm. With the way Dee’s structured one channel for a whole group, um, having her or them, uh, the future guests.

Share their pain points, what they would like to see, and then, uh, seeing what the community can do with that and do a follow up like 90 days later. But 

Host: that’s really cool. So you’ll use like devs, a v as a way to kind of highlight the different groups and the things that they’re, they’re [00:24:00] working on and, and people are struggling with in the tech community, 

Guest: but even, uh, bringing in people outside the bowl.

Um, so bringing in people from the medical space, the science space, the, the robotic space, uh, people that all have. Connections to tech in different ways. Mm-hmm. And also telling their stories along with the 14 organizations, every speaker that that organization brings in, spotlighting them and what they’re building.

So there’s so much programming available. There’s so many stories to tell and. We also have the, the people that are at the Velocity, Texas and, and the Methodist Healthcare Ministries and the health cells. And there’s just, there’s just a lot to, to talk to. And I feel by focusing on video, it’s gonna allow us to really tell the story of what’s happening in the text base in San Antonio.

Yeah. Events, events are needed. Community localization, FaceTime is needed. I’m percent grateful that I’ve been able to. Help and these groups to kind of fill in this gap so we can [00:25:00] focus on. On a bigger picture because if we get more eyes on a devs, a channel, that’s automatic eyes to their groups as well.

So that’s my goal. 

Host: Are, are there, are there plans of like bringing, um, a dev SA to, you know, like Brownsville, so Dev Brownsville or some better name than that rider or whatever that looks like? Boiler alert. Uh, we just haven’t map it out, but Dev South Texas. Dev South Texas. That’s exciting. And that’s kind of what, where this dev dev.

TV is gonna kind of fall under Dev South Texas, or, 

Guest: uh, yeah, so that’s, uh, we have, we, uh, I haven’t made the decision as far as when the rebrands gonna happen. Mm-hmm. Uh, I’ve spoken to developers that work at SpaceX in Brownsville. There, there’s developers, like there, there’s a tech community there. That’s the main reason why I was brought in.

Alamo Angels and, and the other groups are there, there’s a three year plan to activate the started space in the Rio Grande Valley. Mm-hmm. Um, I was brought in just to kind of get some FaceTime [00:26:00] kind of experience the vibes, but also if there’s techie people there. I mean, talk to the techie people. You are, you’re a tech guy, Jesse.

And, and I love it. And, and, and there’s just so many parallels to my upbringing, um, that are happening, uh, in that Rio Grande Valley. So I’ve been able to spend time in Harleen West, Lako and Brownsville, and, um, spend, uh, three different visits out there. And it’s, uh, I’m super excited about that, this collaboration, not so much even bringing events down there.

Um, Dee events are coming. They’re gonna be more strategic with what we’re trying to accomplish. Mm-hmm. But there will be speakers, uh, from Brownsville, uh, from Monterey, Mexico that we’re bringing in as part of this whole South Texas triangle, um, that, uh, that gets talked about. 

Host: That’s awesome. So like, there’s, there’s some really cool plans for growth and, uh, for like the direction of.

What dev is gonna become and, and the number of people in and around tech [00:27:00] that you’ll be able to support and kind of highlight. 

Guest: Yeah. Especially with the job market the way it is. I just feel like this is, uh, this is really a great channel to kind of really empower, give confidence to developers, especially that, that are out college, that maybe have more free time.

It’s like. I mean, if you get an internship and have a great experience, great. It’s, uh, do it. But for those that maybe can’t land that are struggling to find something, maybe like instead of doing those a hundred applications on a LinkedIn or, or, or an indeed like let’s focus on what you can build. Let’s focus on the tooling that’s available.

That’s makes it easier for you to iterate something quickly. Let’s talk to someone in the medical space or the science space, like what problems can we solve? I know one thing you had mentioned. At Startup week last week was like even like talking to the local small businesses like the local communities, like who’s the direct channel to the people at the front lines in the city that have their businesses.

Like what are their technology pain points? There’s so many, uh, problems to solve and the one thing that developers and programmers may forget, [00:28:00] especially they get caught up on tech Twitter or they’re just, uh, re spitting out whatever someone else told them. It’s like, Hey, stop. Think about process, what process, your skillset process, what you can do, and let’s focus on you.

And if we can help them make that mental decision, um, we can tag in our partners like a geek them, they just started boot camps, geeked them as set that they, uh, well, are, are waiting for Devastated to do some events here. So Charles and Monica and Nick, uh, I’m sorry it took so long, but devastate events are coming to Geekdom.

Um, but. Because yeah, these elevator pitches, these pitch decks, uh, this foundational knowledge when it comes to talking about what you built mm-hmm. Goes a long way. And it’s always so funny ’cause in the beginning, the loudest folks in the community were like, don’t talk to the geeks and the tech blocks and the startups and the venture capital.

Fuck those people. And I’m like, I just, I knew that for what we were building, that we [00:29:00] can live and thrive in that environment. And say a year later, I think has shown that. Definitely. 

Host: And, and you know what, and you hear that all the time too, like, um, you know, the, the, the ecosystem is very fragmented here for sure.

Um, but division is rarely the answer. I think the approach that you took like with Dev sa like kind of creating those bridges and, and connecting and, and empowering people and, and, and making things more collaborative, I think that is the directions. Yeah. 

Guest: I think one thing I’ve shared is like, as long as we don’t lose focus on our mission learning networking tooling program, as long as we know who we are.

We’re never gonna lose our identity. And, and I’ve made sure to structure Dee where those pillars are there, and that devastates in a space to continue even after I leave, because I know I can’t be the face of Dee forever. So just making sure that all the, the, the foundation of what we’re doing is easily transferable to the [00:30:00] community to, to keep this going, but.

Is, uh, is here to stay. Uh, it’s an established business entity. It’s a nonprofit, and, uh, we’ve got a great team. I’ve been able to get a team of volunteers. It’s just mind blowing that I have folks knocking out tasks like updating calendars, keeping our, our coworking space available, uh, keeping it open. So you’ve got a coworking space.

I have a coworking that’s available to your, yeah, so that’s been a gift. People were like, what the, I dunno if I can curse, but I, we were like, what the fuck? I think you have a few times already know. So we’re past that. People are like, what the fuck did he say in that meeting? Like, geeked them. It’s like I just shared the same story I always shared, but, uh, they’ve been an amazing partner.

They’ve gifted us with a space on the sixth floor. For compliance and regulation purposes, we can’t keep the doors open for everybody. So what Dee’s done is, uh, this discord that I’ve talked about, uh, which I need to do a better job of talking about this discord ’cause [00:31:00] all these organizations that I’ve talked about, every single organization has a, a dedicated private channel in there.

You can easily access any organizer in our discord. Along with Tech Talk and other stuff, but, uh, there’s a dedicated coworked space channel and we use that as our, as our digital key. So anyone that wants to access the COWORKED space just sends a message and it unlocks the door remotely. And, um, we, with the team of volunteers that we have, we have five.

Um, we keep the doors open Monday through Friday, nine to seven. No daily passes required, no monthly membership is required. Just come downtown to beautiful Houston Street. Uh, I will happily show you all the cool food spots that I found. Um, and we’ve got some books. We’ve got some ping pong. We’ve got eight tables with four monitors.

Like it’s literally a space for you to, to learn. Maybe see who you can learn from network with and ultimately build. I use it as [00:32:00] my workspace. I, I have my Monday and Friday work meetings with the 4, 3, 4 media team. I have my task for the week. I come over to the go the coworking space and, and knock out some tasks.

Um, we’ve got a one noise complaint. One just one though. Just one to look. That’s not bad. It, it was our lawyer next door. I apologized to the South Texas, uh, business lawyer, but he was like, you know, I’m trying run.

Host: Sorry. Yeah. And so, so you’re doing all these things. That’s exciting. How can people support Dev SA What is it that you need? How can people get involved? No. Um, 

Guest: how can people get involved? I, I need to clean that up. I, uh, how did I get involved is really just following any one of our channels. Um, we have, uh, Twitter, Insta, uh, Twitter, X account.

We’ve got Instagram. We’re on Facebook, we’re on LinkedIn. I, I would say that most of our. Engagement comes from LinkedIn and um, and Instagram. But um, if you want to be involved, [00:33:00] follow any of our channels, all the content gets uploaded, especially as we clean up the messaging and be more strategic with how we’re posting, uh, there’s gonna be much more value in our social channels.

Discord. Um, if you don’t do it, if you do, do it, um, that’s where conversations happen daily and it’s in real time. I would say that’s one way to do it. Um, but um, as far as how to support go to an event, I always tell folks as we get older, it’s easy to talk yourself into not going to an event. Um, so if, if you can love it.

But there’s so many ways to engage the community. If you see a post from us or one of the other organizations like it, reshare it, leave a comment. I mean, there’s there, there’s so many ways to participate. And hopefully with our update that we’re launching in June, it’s gonna make it [00:34:00] that much easier.

’cause I, I, I know, I know it’s a bubble. I mean, I have kids, I leave work. I, I’m, I’m dancing with my daughter, I’m talking to other parents, and it’s like. No one, no one could give a shit about the stuff that I’m doing. I know this is, it’s, it’s, it’s, we’re, we’re a unique bubble, but, um, it we’re, we’re doing amazing things internally.

The, I have a meeting with Smart Sa coming up soon, so just kind of really. Tuning in and, and bringing people outside of the bubble in. I, I, I, I think that’s gonna be our biggest win for the year, is, uh, getting people outside in while staying true to the mission. I don’t know if I answered your questions.

No, I, 

Host: I quit talking. Definitely. And so, uh, your website, Deb. San Antonio Dev san 

Guest: antonio.com. I did Via New Domain. That’s part of the update. So, but, uh, okay. What’s, what’s the new 

Host: domain? Can you share that? Dev San Antonio. You’ll, you’ll get redirected. Okay, cool. So, dev san antonio.com. You can learn more about what, uh, what is that you need, how you can get involved in the different things that are going on.

Guest: You know, dev san [00:35:00] antonio.com/replay 2 0 2 4. It’s probably my favorite part of the site. It’s a, it’s a recap of our first year, so you see our accomplishments and a pretty amazing, uh. Uh, just memory trail of all the events that we did and all the awesome people in the community. 

Host: Awesome. Cool. So, dev san antonio.com/replay 2024.

Learn about what they’ve been up to, everything they’ve accomplished this year, and why it’s so important that you get involved. Thank you so much for joining us on this episode of Beyond Giving Jesse the Boost Network. Um, uh, special thanks to Nonprofits HQ and the Boost Network for making this podcast possible Leon.

See you time. Thank you, Zac.