Opening a Detroit office in the Elevator Building overlooking the Motor City's riverfront is a bit of a homecoming for the founder of
140 Proof.
John Manoogian III (no, he's not related the mayoral mansion Manoogian) grew up in Metro Detroit and earned his bachelor's degree at the University of Michigan. He moved out to California and now is the CTO of 140 Proof, a social media advertising startup that calls Silicon Valley home. The 3-year-old company's claim to fame is being one of the first development partners with Twitter.
140 Proof employs 20 people and the occasional intern and has offices in New York, Los Angeles, Chicago and Detroit. The Motor City office, the company's first satellite office, was virtually based for its first 18 months. It shared space with other companies until it landed in the
Elevator Building six weeks ago. The two-person office also shares space with fellow startup
Hashgram.
"We have very high hopes for how much we can grow the Detroit office," Manoogian says.
The Elevator Building is a former warehouse turned loft-style office building after an
extensive renovation in 2010. The building overlooks the
Detroit RiverWalk and the
Dequindre Cut and is home to a number of different design and tech startups, including
M1/DTW and
Grit Design. That sort of eclectic environment made the building at 1938 Franklin St. highly desirable.
"There are a bunch of cool people there," says Manoogian III. "We are a business based on technology and design so we wanted to be around other cool people."
Source: John Manoogian III, founder & CTO of 140 Proof
Writer: Jon Zemke
Read more about Metro Detroit's growing entrepreneurial ecosystem at SEMichiganStartup.com.
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