Charlotte Angel Connection

Eric Kirsch started out running basketball camps as a 17-year old which mostly paid his way through college and ultimately became a physician's assistant.  In 2003, he moved down to Charlotte to start his life in the medical community. After several years as an employee, he started his own specialty/niche practice, grew it to four locations (Charlotte, Mooresville, Asheville, and Cary) and ultimately sold those practices. In the process, he learned how to code in order to build solutions for his own practice.  As he has re-started his entrepreneurial journey after taking several years off  his knowledge of technology has served as a springboard. He's created a holding company where he tests ideas for the medical community and if it starts to gain traction he raises money to help launch those companies.  So he has done this with three of the four companies/ideas and hopes to travel down that path with the fourth soon. He is currently excited about his roles with the Society of Physician Entrepreneurs which h

Last week, we spent time with Seth Twery - who led a successful corporate career prior to leaving in 2011 to seek “growth opportunities.” Can you execute?  That’s the thing Seth sees being the reason behind success of a startup team.  He cites the fact that IDEA Fund looks at over 1,000 ideas per year, more than a few with overlap.  If there are that many ideas in the NC region (and further) then how many ideas are being incubated across the US and the world?  If you can’t execute against that type of volume and competition it is highly unlikely the founding group is going to create success. We also continue discussing the opportunity ahead of Seth as he is about to start his new role with Tookitaki – the Singapore based company looking to use Artificial Intelligence to solve.  Fortunately for Charlotte, we learn they are looking to hire a development/technical team here. From there, we transition into a discussion on early stage investing and Charlotte.  Here Seth thinks out loud about the investing and e

A successful corporate career with travel and very good compensation with a well-respected Fortune 500 company comes to an end in 2012 – so an individual can pursue ‘growth.’ What does ‘growth’ even mean as a pursuit?  Can you find it in Charlotte?  What does it look like? How about ‘consciously stumbling’ into the very early days of a little parking app in Charlotte, offering a 5 page critique of their software and eventually becoming an early investor as part of the friends and family raise?  What happens when that company goes on to become Passport and raises in excess of $40 million from the likes of Bain Capital and chases the opportunity to become the next unicorn in Charlotte? What happens when pursuit of ‘growth’ leads you to mentoring early stage companies at QC Fintech and several years later you have the opportunity to work with a successful foreign based company looking to establish their US headquarters in Charlotte, not New York or San Francisco or Austin?  Tookitaki is a Singapore based comp

Walt Frye has been a friend of the startup community for the last several years.  A little more than 18 months ago, Walt took on a new challenge as the Executive Director of a somewhat stagnant entity – the Charlotte Regional Fund for Entrepreneurship (CRFE). As you heard last week, Innovate Charlotte has sprung out of CRFE and has a clear vision Walt helped to establish. Listen to Walt continue his thoughts on the Charlotte startup ecosystem - past, present and future - and his time as Executive Director of Innovate Charlotte. In what I consider to be bad news for the Charlotte ecosystem, Walt has stepped down as the Executive Director – as the news was officially announced Thursday August 16.  Few people have the unselfish motivation the ecosystem currently needs, Walt did. The opportunities are great within the ecosystem if it’s allowed to grow naturally (look no further than the recent successful exit of DealCloud).  Politics and egos can ruin those opportunities and the young ecosystem if allowed. For

Last time we spoke to Walt Frye (summer 2017 here) he was working on reinventing the Charlotte Regional Fund for Entrepreneurship (CFRE). Fast forward a year and Walt has made tremendous strides as Innovate Charlotte has become the execution arm for CRFE. Walt has taken on a job few probably wanted or truly understood since CRFE was initially funded by the Charlotte Chamber of Commerce and the city of Charlotte.  As such it's a political juggling job looking to balance the desires of the Chamber and the needs (political and other) of the city - along with other stakeholders.   Yet Walt has balanced that well and is in the process of growing a mentoring program through Innovate Charlotte which targets early stage companies in Charlotte (business process, validation stage, Charlotte based, and not too much investment/revenue). If successful the mentoring program has the opportunity to serve a great role in the city's entrepreneurial space. This mentoring program has been launched through an initiative with MI

LinkedIn member 1,434. It goes to show how Robert has been plugged into the startup scene for a long time.  Listening to and joining social networks.  He visits trade shows and finds value in the conversations that can develop in those discussions. He's failed in previous startups, he's worked side hustles while working with  companies.  Essentially, Robert has continued to build knowledge to be ready to build his next startup - Gatestaff. Yet, when a Venture Capitalist calls his baby ugly he listens and ultimately changes the direction of his company based on the feedback. Does that mean this startup is the success he is looking for?  It's hard to say.  He's watched and participated.  He's seen failure and watched success. But this team has a focus that seems real.  They have three people on the team right now yet Robert mentions 'culture' numerous times in our podcast.  Specifically, he says 'the culture of the company is product focused.'  Repeating they want to build great products.  Let's hope they ha

We welcome Robert Reddick to the Charlotte Angel Connection today.  Robert is a Co-Founder with GateStaff and has been a part of the Charlotte startup scene for nearly 20 years. Throughout the next two podcasts, you will learn Robert was one of the first people to sign up on Linkedin (listen in to find out his number and then go try to find yours) and has a passion for seeing entrepreneurship take off in Charlotte.  As part of his involvement in the startup scene for the last 20 years - or more - you will hear his opinion on what we can do differently to attract talent and grow the startup scene. You will also hear the thoughts of a startup founder who is working to thread a tight needle - be early to a new space without being so early that adopters won't jump on the bandwagon.  Knowing he's done this act before leads us down the difficult acknowledgement that startups aren't easy and their success isn't guaranteed.  But we also get to see the passion of a man who has been building up to this for the last 2

Today we have Scott Pope, founder of In Scope Ventures, back on the Charlotte Angel Connection.  As we learned last week, Scott is working to bring a health care angle to the Charlotte startup scene – not necessarily in the traditional pharmaceutical or the medical device space but in medicine as a business. I attended the first Health Innovators meeting in July 2018 and it was full – standing room only at the back.  There is certainly an interest from people in the medical community to support Scott right now, so it will be exciting to see where this Scott and the community can take things over the next 12 to 24 months. In our discussion today, we covered the following: Why not move to the triangle where he would have great research institutions and systems in place to support the health care initiative? Can Premier be the catalyst in Charlotte that HCA was for the Nashville area? What is the acquisition strategy of Premier right now? Do you have enough community support at this time to help this thing

Today we have Scott Pope, founder of In Scope Ventures, on the Charlotte Angel Connection.   Scott is working to bring a health care angle to the Charlotte startup scene – not necessarily in the traditional pharmaceutical or the medical device space but in medicine as a business.  It’s an effort gaining support with some key folks in the Charlotte area and I wanted to bring the concept out to the listeners of the podcast. In today’s interview we dive straight into what In Scope Ventures is so we can get a better concept of what Scott’s working on.  From there, we dive into a host of other areas by touching base on the following questions and more. Have you looked around and noticed Charlotte doesn’t have a medical school?  Add in the fact that we don’t have a great pool of early stage capital to invest into companies and it doesn’t seem like a good mix. On a serious note, though, is there another city out there to serve as a model for what you are trying to do? How does your background set you up to do th

Today we have Cor Hoekstra joining us for the second part of his podcast.  As we learned last week, Cor is the CEO of Amicus Solutions, a local Charlotte startup, who has been through the QC Fintech accelerator program and continues to build momentum. Last week we got to know Cor and Amicus and he shared with us a little bit of what it's like to be a startup founder.  In the discussion, he compared it to falling out of an airplane and chasing a parachute.  This week I wanted to dig deeper because the reality is that for at least a little bit there is an initial feeling of 'I'm flying' before you realize you are falling.  So how did Cor and his team handle those two different periods? We also touched base on some of the following: What is it like to show your kids you are chasing a dream/goal? How has his wife, Monica, been during the entire process?  Hint, she's an entrepreneur too as she is the owner of Absolute Pilates in Phillips Place. What has prepared him most for being a CEO of a startup? It's a

Today we have Cor Hoekstra joining us on the podcast.  Cor is the CEO of Amicus Solutions, a local Charlotte startup who has been through the QC Fintech accelerator program and continues to build momentum.   Cor and his team got some great news earlier this year which spurred us to having this podcast so we will cover that.  In today’s podcast, I want to cover some of the basics of the business as it stands now. We’ll start out with some of the basics of the business – background, idea state, etc.  Then we will get into the QC Fintech Accelerator program and his latest round of good news and what that does for the company. For our next podcast, we will circle back through and talk some about the personal experience of Cor the entrepreneur and Cor the CEO of Amicus.  In other words, I’m slowly changing our format here. I hope you enjoy it. In today’s podcast we cover some of the following: Can you give us a little background information on what Amicus does? Based on your LinkedIn profile, you’ve been

Today we have Aru Anavekar back joining us on the podcast.  As we learned last week, Aru and her husband Ramu Pulipati are the Co-Founders of botsplash – “a software as a service messaging platform aimed at improving communications between consumers and businesses.”  We focused mostly on Aru and Ramu and how they got to this point.  This week I wanted to focus more on botsplash, the business. So this week, we wanted to talk more about the business and how it’s developing.  We learned last week Ramu is the developer behind the business and Aru is running the business and drumming up new business.  Our conversation focused mostly around the following and just like last week Aru does a great job weaving us in and out of what’s going on. When did they start the business? In a ‘use case’ how would botsplash work for a business segment? They did a big pivot in 2017.  How did the business start? What led them to pivot to their new business model? How are they beginning to use machine learning in the business m

Today we are excited to have Aru Anavekar join the podcast.  Aru and her husband, Ramu Pulipati, are the Co-Founders of botsplash – “a software as a service messaging platform aimed at improving communications between consumers and businesses.”  I saw Ramu pitch this as a very early beta in 2016 at 1 Million Cups in Charlotte.  It has come a long way since then with intense work by Ramu and Aru. In today’s podcast, I wanted to get to know Aru and learn more about the backstory.  As an entrepreneur and investor, I think the background is so important.  It helps bring out the character of the person and lets us peak into some of their values. I love her story of discovery and learning.  It plays so well into the heart of being an entrepreneur.  Not to be left out, we dive into several key aspects of botsplash too as we lay the groundwork for a really good discussion next week.  In today’s podcast, we address the following and much more: What brought Aru to where she is today? We learn they have always had a

This week we welcome Dan Roselli and Sarah Smith back to talk about Class 8 from Class 8 of the QC Fintech Accelerator program as well as about Fintech Generations (their upcoming conference on June 13) - presented by Oracle and Carolina Fintech Hub. Dan and Sarah have somewhat been regulars on the podcast over the last two years and we are glad to have them back.  This episode I wanted to dive further into Class 8, talk about some of the successes previous class members have had over the last 3 -6 months and learn more about the upcoming conference. QC Fintech is a world class accelerator bringing great talent and now great capital to Charlotte twice a year.  And Dan has more planned to bring mature companies to the Queen City too.  Listen in to learn more about what's happening now and what else is on the horizon. Listen to this episode and then register for the Fintech Generations Conference using coupon code CLTANGEL to receive 50% off the registration price.   William Bissett is an Investment Adviso

This week we continue our two part interview with Keith Luedeman, founder of GoodMortgage. Last week, we spent most of our time talking about Keith and GoodMortgage in a really exciting interview.  This week, we wanted to turn the page and talk to Keith about his newfound role as startup advisor and angel investor.  Since he is new to this space/role, we were fortunate to get some really good insight into where Keith is in the process and I think we get a glimpse into where he will be in the future too.  It’s an awesome discussion with someone Charlotte should be thankful we have on our team. Enjoy listening to Keith discuss the following and more. At what point in time after selling Good Mortgage did you realize you wanted to get involved in the startup community? How did Keith find the Charlotte angel investing and entrepreneur scene? How is Keith going to tackle his new hobby of being an angel investor?   After all, it’s not something he has done before so how does he expect to grow into this new role?

It may be because I’m not from Charlotte – then again very few people are - but GoodMortgage was another local success story I hadn't heard much about until recently.  Fortunately, I met Keith Luedeman at a Charlotte Angel Fund meeting and was able to grab coffee with some soon thereafter to learn more about Keith and GoodMortgage. Our discussion was far ranging as we talked about the early days of GoodMortgage all the way to how he’s gotten involved in the startup and investor scene in Charlotte over the last couple of months.  It was a great discussion and you'll soon learn how lucky Charlotte is to have Keith as part of its investor and startup scene.  Listen in as we discuss the following and more: You started an internet-based mortgage company in 1998.  What lead you to believe it was a good idea? Talk about the decision to start an internet business in 1998?  There wasn’t much competition but there also had been people who had laid down the path about how to create businesses on the internet. How mu

For this episode of the Charlotte Angel Connection, we continued our interview with two of the founders of Credpal (they have 4) and one of the founders with Invoiro (they have 2).  In keeping with tradition, the first episode is primarily dedicated to their companies and the second episode will target their experiences thus far (about 1/2 way into the program at the time of the recording). These two companies are part of the QC Fintech Accelerator Program Class 8 – a world class accelerator program. As a reminder, you can come see these two companies and their classmates on June 13 at the Fintech Generations conference at AvidExchange. It will be an awesome event and would love to see you out there. In this episode we tackle some of the following questions: How did you find QC Fintech?  What was the process like for finding it?  I found it interesting they were both very quick to credit (www.f6s.com). What were you looking for out of an accelerator program? What’s been the most surprising thing so far