Tech Association of the Bluegrass
Founder and CEO of MakeTime, Drura Parrish, began his professional career with the goal of one day becoming an architect. However, you might say he was destined for entrepreneurship based on his roots. The grandson of a manufacturing and farming entrepreneur, he was a part of the family business even as a young boy.
One summer his grandfather decided to teach him a lasting life lesson by asking him to dig a trench a mile long. Asking no questions, Drura worked all summer long, sun up to sun down, to complete the trench. At the end of the project, his grandpa asked him to fill the trench back in and always remember to ask why he’s doing what he’s doing. That was the beginning of the out-of-the-box thinking that would shape Drura’s future.
While studying architecture in Los Angeles, Drura began working around CNC machines. He saw a need to connect architects and designers with the equipment they needed to complete their projects. Later in his career, he began doing arbitrage buying and selling CNC Machine time, demand was so high it quickly became a full-time endeavor. When a friend by the name of Lionel Leventhal jokingly asked Drura if he had ever heard of the internet, MakeTime was born.
Five years ago, KSTC awarded him a grant of $30,000 to help build the first marketplace model and the first ever “machining as a service” business was underway. Today, MakeTime’s goal is to increase efficiency and utilization for the suppliers of CNC machines while providing buyers with the equipment they need faster and at lower cost, all within an online marketplace. This groundbreaking model ultimately shrinks the distance between design, and doing, causing an increase in manufacturing globally.
It’s not just MakeTime that Drura is interested in growing, he is also passionate about entrepreneurship and start-up culture in Kentucky. He sees the need for an increased mindset change in our community when it comes to start-ups, and has a desire for MakeTime be a part of that change.
Chase Southard, VP of Engineering at MakeTime, sits on the TAB Board and is helping us to fulfill our mission of supporting and promoting software development in Central Kentucky. We’re grateful to have MakeTime in our community and are excited to see it continue to grow.