We help people build better technology.
We started Hamaranth in 2022. We’re of the conviction that we can build technology that has a positive impact on the community through collaboration.
We’re just starting out. For now, Hamaranth is a one-person shop.
What’s in a name?
The name, Hamaranth, is a portmanteau of (surprise!) ham and amaranth.
Ham is also a common and delicious form of cured pig leg.
Ham is the founder’s childhood nickname. This fate was unwittingly self-inflicted; Sam had some difficulty saying hard-G sounds and a bit of a lisp as a toddler.
As it happens, amaranth is a rad color, mildly tasty grain, pretty flower, and a pretty fun word to say. Domain names for colors (even uncommonly used ones) are in scarce supply and are usually taken by some sort of startup already, which is a shame.
The portmanteau, though, has cheaply available domain names and probably won’t get confused with anything else. So that’s nice!
Who works here, though?
Sam is pretty weirded out by referring to the company in the plural form when it’s only one person. On the other hand, it makes him sound like royalty. We think that’s pretty neat.
HSamuel BJones has gotten to know embedded software and hardware deeply over eight years of experience working in firmware for consumer wearable and medical device startups. Before starting Hamaranth, Sam led firmware development for Striiv’s wearable activity trackers, and BioIntelliSense’s portfolio of remote patient monitoring sensors. He holds a Bachelor of Science from the California Institute of Technology in Electrical Engineering.
Outside of the office, you’re pretty likely to find Sam running more miles than is generally advised along the James River Park System trails. He relies on cooking, baking, and homebrewing to get through all those miles.
His miscellaneous hijinks and failed baking experiments get documented here.