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Ed Balch has been obsessed with technology since an early age.  During the days of personal computers, Ed began building his own MS-DOS computers.  This lead to operating a multi-node electronic bulletin board service (“BBS”) from his bedroom.  The Internet exploded during the early ’90s and Ed abandoned the BBS in favor of building and administering his own co-located Linux servers.  By leveraging Linux, Ed was able to gain access to the power of UNIX and launch his own Internet Relay Chat (“IRC”) servers, web servers and gaming servers.  This was when many popular Internet-based multiplayer games first emerged.  Ed then ventured into collecting “obsolete” Silicon Graphics and Sun Microsystems UNIX workstations.  Ed launched his first company, Tiki Data, Inc. during 2000.  Tiki Data’s focus was computer upgrade, repair and troubleshooting.  Tiki Data also provided networking services but many businesses in smaller geographies like The Shoals had not widely embraced networking yet.  Ed dissolved Tiki Data during 2005 because local “big box” retailers began selling heavily-discounted personal computers and an opportunity locally emerged that provided Ed the opportunity to learn a contact center environment.  Ed worked in telecommunications and systems administrator roles for many years in the contact center, before quickly realizing that an abundance of positions were likely about to be outsourced.  Fortunately, Ed’s “gut feeling” was correct and it was the fear of being outsourced that prompted Ed to found Wildcat Tech Ventures LLC during 2012.  Wildcat Tech Venture’s mission was to explore the latest arena known as “social media.”  Ed used his existing technical know-how to create an initial social media presence for the purposes of testing and learning.  The product of this initial testing is a YouTube channel that has achieved ~100,000 subscribers and ~70 million views as of 2024.  Working to learn and master social media required Ed to become proficient with professional audio, professional video, video editing and marketing.  Harnessing this skillset, Wildcat Tech Ventures is able to provide custom-tailored social media solutions for a fraction of the cost that many “marketing agencies” charge.  Wildcat Tech Ventures is not only the one-stop-shop for social media services but also provides a wealth of traditional computer consulting services.  We provide services via appointment only.  Please contact us and we’ll schedule a free consultation to discuss your needs.