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It’s been a long and busy week in the Triangle tech startup ecosystem that we capped—as usual—with an episode of The Friday Nooner sponsored by Whitley Recruiting.
This week’s guest was Zakiya Alta Lee-Hill, a Senior Associate at Chapel Hill-based IDEA Fund Partners. We talked about how her varied background—everything from dancing for the NBA’s Atlanta Hawks to running a business to train aspiring dancers for pro teams—affects the way she evaluates founders and their businesses.
We also talked about her (multiple) names and the names of Joe’s kids, her daughter and her soon-to-be-son scheduled for a June arrival.
This week’s Friday Nooner—sponsored by Whitley Recruiting—provided a look into the near future, at least once the GrepBeat Godfather finished talking about his chickens. (A new chick was allegedly eaten by a hawk.)
Joe and Pete welcomed guest Archie O’Connor, the Co-Founder (with Chris Heivly) of Raleigh-Durham Startup Week. RDSW returns for Year Three next week as a four-day, all-free event from Tuesday-Friday, April 9-12. The first two days are in Durham before shifting to Raleigh for the last two days.
Archie recommends checking out the RDSW site and then downloading the event’s Whova app to make the most of your time. You can also check out our full preview of the event here.
Watch the full episode on LinkedIn here or Facebook here.
Welcome to the Good Friday edition of the Friday Nooner—though in truth, any Friday with a new Nooner episode is a good one. This week, Primordial’s Jenn Summe sat in Joe’s chair (literally) because the GrepBeat Godfather is on a Spring Break trip with his kids to the nation’s capital.
Our guest was Susan Mahlburg, the Founder and CEO of Durham-based DiffyQ, an edtech platform that helps teachers better focus on the needs of individual students. We first profiled DiffyQ last October, shortly after she earned a $10K MICRO grant from NC DEA and shortly before we saw her pitch as part of CED’s GRO Incubator Demo Day.
Also in 2023: Mahlburg participated in the Launch Chapel Hill accelerator and finished her MBA at UNC’s Kenan-Flagler, to go with her doctorate in education. Big year!
With this past week’s Venture Connect 2024 now in the books, it’s no surprise that we discussed it plenty on this episode of The Friday Nooner sponsored by Whitley Recruiting.
That included with our guest Ivan Barajas Vargas, the CEO and Co-Founder of Raleigh-based MuukTest, which automates software testing for B2B customers; we first profiled them in August, 2019. Vargas was one of 120-some founders who pitched at Venture Connect. (See our Day One highlights stories from the morning session, including a picture of Vargas onstage; and the afternoon session.)
In a Friday Nooner first, this week’s episode featured a live concert. Sort of.
MyMatR Founder and CEO John Starke (briefly) played the bagpipes, which he does as part of two groups. This is their busiest season with St. Patrick’s Day celebrations and then various Highland Games.
John also talked plenty about MyMatR, of course. The Raleigh-based startup (we first profiled them in June 2021) is putting the finishing touches on its next-generation version of its smart waste container that automatically separates recycling from regular trash while providing customers with valuable data. MyMatR is a cohort startup of GrepBeat sister company Primordial.
Watch the full episode on LinkedIn here or Facebook here.
Warning: Alexa owners might want to be careful watching this week’s episode, especially around 13-15 minutes into the show, when GrepBeat Godfather Joe Colopy may or may not instruct your Alexa device to play a specific song.
Fortunately, guest Nate Branscomb popped in shortly after that to get this episode of The Friday Nooner—sponsored by Whitley Recruiting—back on track.
Nate is the Co-Founder of Cary-based BCombs, which is a CRM (customer relationship management) software platform designed for nonprofits, especially those that mentor youth. BCombs has won both a MICRO ($10K) and SEED ($50K) grant from NC IDEA. We first profiled the startup in December, 2022.
Pete and Joe welcomed guest Lee Whitley, the Founder of Raleigh-based Whitley Recruiting. Not coincidentally, Whitley Recruiting is the sponsor for the next 10 Friday Nooner episodes.
Lee talked about how he first got into recruiting, then out of it, then back into it for good, as well as how his firm specializes in recruiting sales professionals for SaaS and technology companies in the Triangle and Southeast.
After talking Nvidia’s rocket-ship rise, Techstars changes and the newly redesigned Toyota Prius that the GrepBeat Godfather drove to the office today, Joe and Pete welcomed this week’s guest. She is Andrea Inokon, the COO of Raleigh-based startup Cadence Cash.
The fintech helps small businesses—especially those owned by minorities and women—access capital quickly. The startup was founded by Andrea’s husband, Charles, and his two sisters, Angel and Cheryl.
The GrepBeat Godfather is out of town so Pete is joined by guest co-host Melissa Crosby!
On this week's episode, they spoke with Matt Schmidt, the Founder and CEO of Durham-based Peoplelogic. Typically selling into the HR departments of organizations with between 100-1,000 employees, the startup bills itself as the AI for more effective scaling.
Matt was also a Co-Founder of Triangle-based DZone/Devada, where he spent 15+ years before leaving to start Peoplelogic.
This week’s episode had something for everyone. For viewers who tune in for the greatest hits, the GrepBeat Godfather brought up his Vespa unsolicited less than 10 seconds into the show.
For those who like something new and different each week, guest Dezbee McDaniel more than fits the bill. He’s the Co-Founder and CEO of RTP-based CliniSpan Health, a 2022 GrepBeat Startups To Watch selection that we first profiled in March of the same year.
Pete and Joe today welcome guest Scott Babweh Brennen, the Head of Online Expression at the UNC-based Center on Technology Policy. It was an especially fitting time to discuss potential regulations in the tech world as four tech CEOs—including Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg—were raked over the coals at a Capitol Hill hearing on Wednesday.
Before coming back to work at his alma mater, Brennen previously lead research about dis/misinformation concerning coronavirus, 5G and AI at the University of Oxford.
You can watch the full live episode on Youtube, LinkedIn and Facebook.
On this week's Friday Nooner episode, the (post-Jackie) GrepBeat crew chatted with Doug Neumann, the Co-Founder and CEO of Arpio, a fully automated disaster recovery solution for workloads that run in AWS. The Durham-based startup was named to our 2023 GrepBeat Startups to Watch list.
Before founding Arpio, Neumann previously worked for Cary-based Bandwidth and Microsoft.
You can watch the full live episode on YouTube, Facebook and LinkedIn.
This week, the GrepBeat crew chatted with Neal K. Shah, the founder and CEO of CareYaya. CareYaya is a health tech and homecare company that connects pre-health university students with families for on-demand care.
This show is also, sadly, Jackie (Sizing) from GrepBeat's last, as she ventures on to the next part of her career. The GrepBeat crew misses her already.
This week, the GrepBeat crew chatted with Jeff Soplop, the CEO of Nimble Energy, on the Friday Nooner. Located in Pittsboro, Nimble Energy helps building managers lower utility bills, reduce operating costs, and improve occupant comfort and productivity with real-time data. Previously, Soplop worked at Brightly Software and Recurve.
You watch the episode live on Facebook, Youtube and LinkedIn.
The Friday Nooner gang returned for 2024 with guest Ben Wingrove, who is the Founder and CEO of Raleigh-based SchedulePop, a scheduling software platform that was named to our 2023 GrepBeat Startups To Watch list.
Designed originally for scheduling staffs at music venues and restaurants, just before the pandemic the startup found a niche with senior care facilities that it has leaned into fully and now accounts for about 80 percent of SchedulePop’s revenue.
Ben’s career took plenty of twists and turns before then as well. We get into it all.
Watch the full episode on LinkedIn here or Facebook here.
The Friday Nooner closed out its 2023 programming today with a holiday special. It included the world premieres of the soon-to-be-classic song Grep The Halls; and the new GrepBeat holiday mockumentary The Making Of: A GrepMas Carol. This is definitely a show to watch visually!!
The GrepBeat team put a lot of work into these and really hope you enjoy watching them as much as we enjoyed making them. Or even more!
You can watch the full episode on LinkedIn here or Facebook here.
This week’s Friday Nooner might as well have been an episode of Car Talk, covering everything from classic British cars of the 1950s to Toyota minivans from the 2010s. That’s because our guest was Lauren McCullough, the CEO and Co-Founder of Chapel Hill-based Tromml, an ecommerce analytics startup geared to drop-shippers of aftermarket auto parts. (We first profiled Tromml last December.)
We also discussed last night’s GrepBeat Happy Hour held at Lonerider’s Durham location and sponsored by Fourscore Business Law; see pictures from the event and take a crack at our holiday-themed trivia questions here.
Watch the full episode on LinkedIn here and Facebook here.
Are you smarter than an AI designed for a first-grader? That was (sort of) the question that today’s episode set out to answer.
GrepBeat Godfather Joe Colopy has souped up a program for our internal admin site that uses ChatGPT to summarize GrepBeat stories in a few bullet points that are set at a first-grade level of reading comprehension. The results can be pretty cute.
We then tried it live with the Sept. 21 profile story we wrote about Durham-based Keebler Health, the startup led by today’s guest, Isaac Park. In this case the summary was pretty far off what Keebler Health does, but that’s less because it wasn’t an accurate summary of the story and much more because Keebler Health—which is less than a year old—has already changed quite a bit in the past few months. For all the details, you’ll need to watch/listen to the episode.
You can watch on LinkedIn here or Facebook here.
Joe may be back down to one Vespa after selling his yellow scooter this week, but The Friday Noonermust go on. Fortunately the gang was joined by a great guest: Bernard Worthy, the CEO and Co-Founder of Durham-based fintech LoanWell, a 2022 GrepBeat Startups To Watch selection.
Bernard discussed how LoanWell—which bills itself as the “Squarespace for lenders”—pivoted from its B2C roots to its current B2B SaaS solution for community-based lenders; how the startup has benefited from the support of NC IDEA and other ecosystem members; and whether he might buy GrepBeat gear from the ForeverGrep store as a birthday gift for his daughter, who is turning four tomorrow. (Spoiler: he was decidedly non-committal on that last point.)
You can watch the full live episode on LinkedIn here or Facebook here.
This week's Friday Nooner featured Eric Boduch, the founder of 24&Up, CEO of Revcast and the co-founder of local unicorn Pendo. Tune in to learn more about Eric's career, latest ventures, etc.
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