Somewhat Frank

Over the past year, electric scooter startups have erupted as the next set of startups with billion-dollar valuations and unicorn status. Companies like Bird, Spin, Lime, and others have taken on large investments from Alphabet, Uber, Lyft and more. The problem that electric scooters are solving is very clear, they are helping ridesharing companies to cut down on the short two to three block trips which cost more to take on with an automobile. They are also providing rideshare companies with...

Accomplishing the things you want to in life and ultimately being happy can sometimes seem overwhelming. Many people overcomplicate things and end up chasing the wrong things. How do you simplify the pursuit to make sure you accomplish your goals? How do you know you’re taking the right approach? Read the full story on FrankGruber.me

Innovating at a large corporation or at a government agency can be difficult. It means doing things differently, introducing new concepts and embracing failure. The larger you are, the harder it can be to change the way you do things - even if it’s for the better. To combat that, the U.S. Air Force decided to create a new program dedicated to solving some of the toughest problems it faces via collaborations between the nation’s top intrapreneurs, industry experts, academic professionals,...

When you travel, especially by air, you have to make some tough packing choices. Usually my hardest decisions come down to which shoes I’ll bring - because you can’t bring them all, and they take up a ton of space in my carry on bag. When picking the perfect shoe or shoes to pack you have to weigh such factors as weather, length of trip, purpose of the trip, and travel destination. Read the full story on FrankGruber.me

Over the past couple weeks (and I’m sure many others) I have had to fight the urge to send out tweets expressing my opinions on the latest happenings. While I support “freedom of speech” some of these tweets may have been offensive, so I went with the age-old saying: "If you don’t have anything nice to say, don’t say anything at all." Read the full story on FrankGruber.me

As a kid growing up in the rural Midwest surrounded by cornfields, I was well supplied with lumber and the tools necessary to create things with that lumber. So, as soon as I saw Marty McFly in Back to the Future turn a handmade wooden scooter into a skateboard, I was hell-bent on creating my own skateboard by hand. I spent countless weekends carving a 1x6 board into the right shape for a skateboard and hours searching for the right rollerskate to disassemble and add to the bottom of my...

Sometimes I feel like we are living in a Neal Stephenson novel with companies like Amazon making it’s so darn easy to flip through their app on your phone, ordering whatever you need and having it arrive almost instantly (or at least within a few hours). It’s amazing. Remember, it was not too long ago that you’d have to run from store to store searching for an item! Now your “wild goose chases” can happen right from your glowing 4 inch screen. That said, when I’m shopping and there are a...

Sunshine and beaches might be first thing you think of when you think of the Tampa Bay, Florida region. And rightly so, it's gorgeous and has a handful of the top beaches in the country if not the world. But there’s more than crystal clear ocean water in the upcoming startup community. Read the full story on FrankGruber.me

Have you ever asked Apple’s Siri for a hand with something only to find yourself doing more work to try to get what you’re looking for? We’ve all have been there. On this episode of Somewhat Frank, host Frank Gruber sits down over breakfast in Tampa Bay, Florida with the Established team of Jen Consalvo and Joe Corbett to discuss the serious Apple’s Siri and how it works or sometimes doesn’t work the way we all expected. Read the full story on FrankGruber.me