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/> About

me

My name is Corey Ballou and I'm a 40 year old web developer turned technical executive living in Charlotte, NC. My passion for software development started back in middle school. These were the days of Geocities and Angelfire: when CSS didn't exist, layouts were synonymous with nested tables, and frames were cool.

I have a lengthy, 20+ year history in IT. In my last role, I developed and managed innovative fiat and crypto rail solutions as the CTO of Unbanked. We were an industry and US trend-setter, paving the way for the future of fintech. Our mission was unfortunately cut short due to the economic downturn and SEC strong-arming of crypto friendly banks in the US.

I'm an early adopter and avid fan of blockchain technologies, crypto fintechs, startups, and domaining. I was previously the CEO of POP.co, where we helped entrepreneurs and SMBs get their ideas up and online fast with a custom domain, email address, and webpage in under 5 minutes. Before that I was the lead developer of GO.CO up until we were acquired by Neustar. Prior to this, I set out on my own as a freelance web developer and founded my own custom web applications development consultancy, Craft Blue, which is still in operation today. And then there was mojoLive, which was a short lived stint with a very cool startup that unfortunately ran out of funding.

My initial foray into post-collegiate work was a combined five years with two very talented, very creative web design and development agencies: MODE and Skookum. These opportunities gave me an early appreciation for prioritization, simplification, and avoiding early over-engineering.

Some other factoids for your amusement:

  • I'm a proud father of two young boys.
  • I was an active web3 anon from early '21.
  • I grew up in Vermont.
  • My first computer was a Compaq Presario.
  • My first home internet connection was via a 14.4K dialup modem.
  • I got our family kicked off of AOL for phishing and warez.
  • My first dabble with programming was with Visual Basic and Perl.
  • I ran my first domain name, a snowboard site, in the 6th grade.
  • My first snowboard was a neon Burton Air directional.
  • I used to raise a flock of free-range chickens.
  • I love a good microbrew.

my work

My background lends itself to a jack of all trades innovative engineering leader and manager. I have over 20 years experience requirements gathering, speccing, building, launching, and managing dozens of custom web applications; more than most industry veterans could ever hope to achieve.

I'm a leader and mentor by nature: driven to help others succeed. I'm the former co-organizer of the Queen City PHP meetup group in Charlotte. I'm a top 0.5% contributor to StackOverflow. I used to own and operate two circulating development blogs early in my career: Blackbe.lt and JQueryin'. One of the predominant reasons I'm so well respected by my colleagues and peers is I share an extensive background of being in their shoes.

public speaking & coverage