Frederick Hutson

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Frederick Hutson is an American businessman and founder of Pigeonly, a technology company that enables people to search, find and communicate with an incarcerated loved one. Hutson launched and sold his first business at the age of 19 while on active duty in the United States Air Force.

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Early life

Frederick Hutson grew up in Brooklyn, NY with a single mother and three siblings. He moved to St. Petersburg, Florida, where he attended [1] Brandon High School. [2] He then served in the US Air Force [3] [4] where he worked on jet engines at the Nellis Air Force Base as an electrician. [5] During his time in the Air Force he launched and ran several businesses, including a window-tinting business that made about $50,000 when he was 19. [3] He was honorably discharged in 2005 after the base began downsizing, and eventually turned his business efforts to sending marijuana through the parcel companies. The business netted approximately $500,000 annually. [1] [6] Hutson was arrested by the DEA, and Hutson served a sentence of 51 months beginning in 2007 at the age of 23, [4] [7] [1] [8] The indictment was for shipping approximately 2 tons of marijuana, [3] accepting marijuana from Mexico and shipping it to Florida. [9] He was released in 2012 to a half-way house. [10]

Pigeonly

While in prison Hutson encountered the difficulty that American inmates have with communicating with their family and friends outside of the institution and developed an idea for delivering communications for individuals residing in prison. [11] [12] After leaving prison he founded a company, Pigeonly, which prints out electronic communications for prisoners and mails them through the postal system to them in order to be better accepted by the prison system. His business venture was accepted in the incubators Y Combinator [13] and NewMe. [14] [9] [15] The enterprise was cofounded in 2013 with Alfonzo Brooks, [4] whom had employed Hutson during his final year in prison when Hutson was admitted to a work-release program. [2] Hutson currently serves as the company’s CEO. [10] By 2015 the company had forwarded around a million pieces of mail and facilitated about eight million minutes of telephone calls. [16]

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References

  1. 1 2 3 "Pigeonly's CEO helps prison inmates". USA Today.
  2. 1 2 "Idea man's latest inspiration: prison". Tampa Bay Times. 21 April 2013.
  3. 1 2 3 "Pigeon.ly, A Startup Focused On Serving The U.S. Prison Population, Joins Y Combinator". techcrunch.com. TechCrunch. 24 March 2015.
  4. 1 2 3 Slade, Hollie. "How This Man Built A $3M Business A Year After Four Years In Prison". Forbes .
  5. ↑ "The brainchild of a former federal inmate, Pigeonly is a 21st-century lifeline". Las Vegas Weekly. 18 December 2014.
  6. ↑ Vasilogambros, Matt (14 July 2015). "White House: Close the Opportunity Gap, the Whole Country Gets Richer". The Atlantic.
  7. ↑ "Released From Prison, and Starting a Company". The New York Times. 7 November 2013.
  8. ↑ "9 Arrested In Interstate Drug Ring Case". Tampa Bay Times. 11 October 2007.
  9. 1 2 "How an Ex-Con Went from Inmate to Entrepreneur". Success Magazine. 28 June 2015.
  10. 1 2 "SUCCESS STORY: PIGEONLY – Frederick Hutson – Industry Leaders Magazine". Industry Leader Magazine. 9 August 2016.
  11. ↑ "Episode 610: The Prisoner's Solution". NPR.
  12. ↑ "Ex-Con Creates Tech Company To Help Inmates Stay In Touch With Families". The Huffington Post. 2 April 2015.
  13. ↑ "Pigeon.ly, A Startup Focused On Serving The U.S. Prison Population, Joins Y Combinator". techcrunch.com. TechCrunch. 24 March 2015.
  14. ↑ Entis, Laura (10 April 2015). "From Prison to Silicon Valley: How One Entrepreneur Spun a Jail Sentence Into a Y-Combinator Backed Startup".
  15. ↑ Stankorb, Sarah (17 September 2014). "Ex-con launches startup aimed at inmates". CNN.
  16. ↑ Niu, Isabelle (7 September 2015). "Four people who turned prison stints into businesses". Splinter News.
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