Trellis technologies build tools to enable businesses to easily access serverless cloud architecture. Their data management tool, PushTable.com, allows customers to maintain control of their data while dramatically simplifying development costs. The result? The ability to create faster, more scalable applications–with fewer engineers.
“Always to do something that you are passionate about. Don’t pursue something because it might look good on a resume.” – Favourite advice from Warren Buffett
Trellis Technologies’ first product, PushTable.com, is a data management tool for popular cloud databases, such as Google’s Firebase. The easy to use, yet in-depth platform allows everyday users to access and query data storage, without requiring any programming skills. The product was born out of Founder Thomas Zhou’s desire to make a platform that was usable for clients and developers alike.
“The project grew out of my own frustrations from working with existing application management platforms,” comments Thomas. “Tools were either built to be user friendly, but difficult for developers to work with, or they were solely developer-focused and normal users could not access them. I always felt that there should be a system that’s easy for users and follows modern development best practices,” he says.
While company was officially incorporated in January of 2017, Thomas had been contemplating solutions since 2014, but was limited by the technological options at the time.
“Back in 2014, the technologies I needed were not yet available, and I was not able to find a clear solution. I ended up co-founding a different venture, VisualCV.com, which in two years grew to 1.5M users and became the top resume app for Android. Once I left VisualCV in 2016, I came back to my original ideas,” Thomas says.
Entrepreneurship always a natural fit
Entrepreneurship was always natural fit for Thomas, ever since starting his career as an engineer. He first worked for a year and a half at various semiconductor companies (PMCS & Intel). While he enjoyed working within a team, it also made him realize that he wasn’t passionate about working in a large corporate environment. After graduating university, he decided to pursue his own ideas and went into entrepreneurship. The words of Warren Buffett, to pursue your calling, ring true to him.
“I’m a big fan of Warren Buffett, and his ability to simplify complicated decisions. The advice that influenced me the most is that you always want to do something that you are passionate about. Life is too short to be spent padding your resume.”
Like many startups, the Trellis team now faces a common challenge: how to maintain laser-sharp focus while in development.
“The team is small, so we need to be lean and agile. It’s difficult to keep focused on just the most important issues. You’ll always find a myriad of tasks to do but at the end of the day only a few will actually move you forward.” he says.
Going forward, the startup aims to provide an end-to-end solution that will allow a businesses to manage a serverless application as easily as managing a blog on WordPress.
And, no matter how much success Thomas has seen, that won’t change his biggest accomplishment to date: becoming a father, and raising his son Elliot.
About Trellis Technologies
Thomas Zhou is Founder of Trellis Technologies. Previously, he was the CTO and Co-Founder of VisualCV.com. Prior to becoming an entrepreneur, Thomas was a systems engineer and product validation engineer at Intel and PMC Sierra.
