Catching up with Codeboxx

The Codeboxx team cuts the ribbon at their new home in the Thrive DTSP coworking space Wednesday.

Founder Nicolas Genest is moving the startup’s headquarters and some of the team to St Pete because he believes the city is just beginning its transformative journey to being a tech hub. Genest says the biggest risk to St Pete not reaching its tech potential is “running out of talent at such a critical time.” He believes that “Talent is here, in your communities waiting to be discovered, trained and employed. This is really what we’re obsessed with.”

Cofounder Meg Charles took it a step further, adding that the brand mission is “to make sure we’re attracting the whole community to our program. We believe in what we call techquity, which is transforming the idea of who people believe can be a coder.”  

The front door for talent is the Codeboxx training program. Over four months, “students” are exposed to several different tech career paths, as well as the hard and soft skills that they’ll need to walk their chosen path successfully. Upon graduation, students can go to work with local companies, which Codeboxx hopes to establish strong relationships with, or move over to Boxx Solutions, a successful on-shore development shop where graduates can continue to hone their skills while earning a living.  

Genest and Charles stopped by the Catalyst studio for a deeper dive into the Codeboxx, including the mission, the program and the choice to move to St. Petersburg. Click the play triangle above to watch the conversation.