Charlotte Angel Connection

  In this episode of the Charlotte Angel Connection, we talk with Heather McCullough of Society 54. During today’s podcast you’ll learn how Heather took a job and turned it into a business by paying attention to what she liked about her work. Heather’s marketing expertise and her drive to help lawyers keep their attention on billable hours built the successful platform now employing 11 remote workers spread across the U.S. Highlights from the episode include: Carving out company with passion Finding leaks in the buckets and using your knowledge to offer value Transitioning from employee to business owner Why gamifying fires up the competitive juices Adding technology to aid a coaching business Coaching vs technology for scaling a business Knowing when to expand Life in the day of an all-female team Challenges and benefits of remote working Funding challenges and benefits of being a female founder How entrepreneurship affects the family How travelling across the US in a camper van is

In this episode of the "Charlotte Angel Connection", Marcia Dawood, a seasoned angel investor, accomplished TEDX Charlotte speaker, member of the Angel Capital Association and SEC Small Business Capital Formation Committee shares her recipe of "doing good by doing well" by “helping entrepreneurs’ dreams come true’. Marcia takes us through her journey of becoming an angel investor, how ALS (Lou Gehrig’s disease) helped her see the true value of investing in start-ups to affect meaningful change, and the value that ALL angel’s bring to the table when investing. Key Highlights: Comparing the angel investment environment across the U.S. Becoming and angel by “contributing through curiosity” and embracing “story time”. The value of waiting for the right opportunity. How to start with as little as $50. How a family ALS diagnosis inspired Marsha to use angel investing to give back. The value of company contribution to changes vs. charities. Encouraging the younger generation to get involved. Learn

  In the latest episode of the Charlotte Angel Connection podcast, we had the privilege of speaking with Leo Adams, the visionary founder of Skye Link Aerial Imaging. At Skye Link, Leo and his team have harnessed the potential of drones to offer solutions in industries ranging from real estate and construction to renewable energy. They are at the forefront of utilizing drone technology to provide valuable insights, streamline operations, and enhance decision-making processes. We delve into the importance of systematizing processes for scalability. Leo emphasizes the significance of creating sustainable, repeatable systems within the business to reach new levels of growth. Key Highlights: Leo Adams' journey from drone hobbyist to the visionary founder of Skye Link Aerial Imaging. Utilizing drone technology to provide solutions across industries, from real estate to renewable energy. Harnessing the power of data for efficient operations and decision-making. The significance of systematizing processe

  Today, we have the pleasure of interviewing Steve Wilcenski, the co-founder of BN Nano, a company that specializes in developing nanomaterials with myriad properties and applications. With a focus on creating materials that are stronger, lighter, and more efficient in dissipating heat, BN Nano has captured the attention of various industries, including aerospace, defense, electronics, and clean energy. During our conversation, Steve delves into the fascinating world of nanomaterials, sharing the challenges he faced during the company's early stages and the strategic approach to expanding their customer base. He sheds light on BN Nano's groundbreaking work in water purification, revealing how their nanomaterials can remove harmful substances from water sources thus addressing environmental concerns we now face. Key Highlights: Introduction to BN Nano and its pioneering work in nanomaterials. Industries benefiting from BN Nano's materials: aerospace, defense, electronics, and clean energy. BN Nano's

  Today we welcome David Jones to the podcast. David founded Peak 10 (now known as Flexential), a hybrid IT infrastructure provider focused on colocation, connectivity, cloud, and managed solutions. David started Peak 10 in 1999 after being fired from a previous job. In 2010, he sold Peak 10 to a private equity group.  In 2014, they sold again to another private equity group (who is still the majority owner of the company).  David stayed on as Chairman until Peak 10 completed its acquisition of ViaWest in 2018, giving the newly formed combined company - Flexential - a national reach.  Today Flexential is a multi-billion-dollar company.   We cover many topics during our conversation with David, including… Surviving a recent critical health event & how it altered his sense of purpose The importance of recognizing and playing to teammates’ strengths Raising $1.5 million in 4 weeks for the original Peak 10 business plan Why expecting success can be a mistake The power of resilience in health, busine

  Today we welcome Alan Fitzpatrick to the podcast. Alan is the cofounder and CEO of Open Broadband, an internet service provider (ISP) focused on serving traditionally underserved areas. Alan and his cofounder, Kent Wenrich, started Open Broadband in 2016. Today, Open Broadband is one of Charlotte’s fastest growing startups, having been named to Charlotte Business Journal’s Fast 50 list each year since 2018. We cover several topics during our conversation with Alan, including… How $42B of federal government grants are changing the ISP space Rural and urban markets both containing underserved segments Meeting an angel investor through a startup pitch event in Raleigh Weighing exit opportunities in growth and decision-making How this business differs from their previous 2 software companies …as well as what’s next for Open Broadband in the coming years. And for those brave souls who want to listen to our original podcast with Alan, here is Episode 35 and Episode 36. Please enjoy this conversat

  Today we welcome Meggie Williams to the podcast. Meggie is the founder and CEO of Skiptown, an all-in-one ecosystem for bar, park, and pet care services. Skiptown started as a dog-walking company named Waggle in 2016. Fast forward to late last year when Skiptown closed a $28M fundraising round to expand the concept around the country. By next year, Skiptown will have launched in Atlanta, Houston, and Denver in addition to the Charlotte location (with more coming). During our wide-ranging conversation with Meggie, we cover topics including… Losing 95% of revenue during the beginning of COVID Why ‘Riding the Scooter in the Rain’ is an important company value Her process for finding great investors and board members Being a mom and CEO of a fast-growing startup How Charlotte’s entrepreneurial ecosystem has grown over the years …as well as what’s next for Skiptown in the coming years. Please enjoy this conversation with Meggie Williams.   William Bissett is the owner of and an Investment Advis

  Today we welcome Alex Smereczniak and Dan D'Aquisto to the podcast. Alex and Dan are the cofounders of 2U Laundry, a laundry subscription service and laundromat franchising company. Alex and Dan became friends in 6th grade while growing up in Minnesota. Fast forward to today and 2U Laundry recently closed a $20M Series B round to scale their 2U subscription service and LaundroLab franchising model nationwide. We cover several topics with Alex and Dan, including… Pivoting before and during COVID-19 How they remain friends while holding one another accountable Lessons learned from raising and deploying 4 rounds of capital The benefits of great board members Incorporating the good, bad, & ugly into board updates …as well as what’s next for 2U Laundry in 2023, and beyond. Please enjoy this conversation with Alex Smereczniak and Dan D'Aquisto.   William Bissett is the owner of and an Investment Advisor Representative of Portus Wealth Advisors, a Registered Investment Adviser. Registration does

  Today we welcome Sagar Shukla to the podcast. Sagar is a cofounder of Foresight, a B2B software company that helps sales and client success teams reduce churn and expand client relationships. Sagar started his career at Red Ventures and cut his startup teeth as one of DealCloud’s earliest employees. Today, Sagar and his cofounder Nigel are using Foresight’s seed round to help companies (including their former employer DealCloud) create customer-led growth infrastructure. We cover several topics with Sagar, including… Why studying abroad in Bolivia prompted an entrepreneurial epiphany How working at a large company is like the ‘Snap to Grid’ feature The client question that led to founding Foresight The product-building stage vs. the company-building stage for founders What it’s like returning to a more mature CLT startup ecosystem …as well as what’s next for Foresight in 2023, and beyond. Please enjoy this conversation with Sagar Shukla.   William Bissett is the owner of and an Investment

Today we welcome Lauren Marturano to the podcast. Lauren is the founder and CEO of Zinnia, a software company that helps businesses plan in-person events such as offsites, client dinners, and more. Lauren began her career at Microsoft as an Enterprise Account Executive before joining Salesforce and eventually leaving corporate life to pursue entrepreneurship. Now, Lauren is getting ready to close a seed round that will help grow Zinnia’s team and product. We cover several topics with Lauren, including why… Taking a 90% pay cut to pursue entrepreneurship was worth it. Being an Entrepreneur-in-Residence at Atlanta Ventures helped Lauren launch Zinnia. Zinnia became a travel agency. Hypothesis-driven development helps keep product & sales aligned. Enterprise sales budgets are so resilient in economic downturns.  …as well as what’s next for Zinnia in 2023, and more. Please enjoy this conversation with Lauren Marturano.   William Bissett is the owner of and an Investment Advisor Representative of

  Today we welcome Ernest Eich to the podcast. Ernest is the founder and CEO of Shandoka, an electric motorcycle company. Ernest began developing his electric motorcycle concept in 2012, performing custom carpentry during the day to bootstrap research, development, and early tinkering. Today, having received a utility patent in late 2022, Shandoka is successfully into a $12M fundraise and is opening a manufacturing facility in South Carolina. We cover several steps along Shandoka’s journey with Ernest, including… Meeting dozens of famous inventors during his time in Colorado The pros and cons of living in an ecosystem not known for CleanTech Why CleanTechs play a major role in advancing developing countries’ public health Unique challenges (and opportunities) presented by running a global hardware company Playing into the tailwinds of global interest in reducing carbon emissions …as well as what’s next for Shandoka in 2023, and more. Please enjoy this conversation with Ernest Eich.   William

Charlotte Angel Connection Episode 143: Trey Phills Today we welcome Trey Phills to the podcast. Trey is the co-founder and CMO of Gymble, a software company helping athletic facilities, personal trainers, and athletic trainers better manage their businesses and client bookings. After graduating from Yale in 2019, Trey played in the NBA G League and launched his TikTok (@tphills), quickly growing to over 800K followers and becoming a TikTok Partner. During 2019 and 2020, Trey and his cofounders (Devon Oakley and Akim Mitchell) began working on the idea that became Gymble. Today, Gymble is participating in Techstars’ Anywhere Accelerator as a member of the 2023 Winter Class. We cover a lot in our wide-ranging conversation, like … Parallels between professional/collegiate athletics and building a company How being transparent about getting cut helped Trey grow a sizeable TikTok following Techstars’ process for helping founders do more, faster with systems Maintaining and growing a professional netwo

  Today we welcome Natalie Waggett to the podcast. Natalie is the co-founder and CEO of Ohanafy, a software company that provides end-to-end craft beverage management software for breweries. After starting out at Bank of America and joining nCino as an early employee, Natalie took a short break from the corporate world. During this break, the inspiration behind Ohanafy came after reading her friend Inez’s book Life After Windows. Natalie reached out to Inez and, while catching up, learned the challenges associated with running a brewery. Shortly thereafter, Natalie (and her co-founders Ian Padrick, Chris Dowling, Davis Bryson, and Matt Keeter) launched Ohanafy to help breweries manage their businesses and build community. We cover several topics in this episode, including how Natalie… Learned to think big as one of nCino’s earliest employees Transitioned from a banker mentality to a founder mentality Thinks about various trends such as Gen Z’s decreased alcohol consumption Created internal systems

Today we welcome Tyler Traudt to the podcast. Tyler is the founder and CEO of DebtBook, a software company that provides debt and lease management software to government, higher education, and healthcare finance teams. After a two-year stint in Citigroup’s public finance investment banking team, Tyler spent several years consulting for public finance teams before connecting with his cofounder, Erik Pelletier. They started DebtBook in 2019 and recently closed a $7.5M Series A round. We cover many topics in this episode, including how Tyler… Signed DebtBook’s first 15 clients pre-product Thinks about fundraising (and why they’ve raised 4 seed rounds) Shaped DebtBook’s culture as it scaled from 0 to 85 FTEs Learned to onboard new employees more quickly Shares DebtBook’s 10-Year Vision regularly with new hires and at All-Hands meetings …as well as a few lessons Tyler learned from reading The Great CEO Within by Matt Mochary. Please enjoy this wide-ranging conversation with Tyler Traudt.   William

  Today we welcome Dr. Margaret Kocherga to the podcast. Margaret is the founder and CEO of Margik, a hardware tech company looking to make organic-based lighting mainstream. A self-described ‘accidental entrepreneur’, Margaret started Margik while earning her PhD in Nanoscale Science at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte. After founding the company, Margaret was awarded a NC IDEA grant, completed the Department of Energy’s Chain Reaction Innovation program, and even appeared on Amazon Prime’s Unicorn Hunters television series. We cover many topics in this episode, including how Margaret… Immigrated from Kyiv, Ukraine to Charlotte, NC at the age of 15 Recovered from an ACL tear that prematurely ended her ballet career Discovered her passion for science out of necessity Navigated different funding sources and grants to finance Margik Knocked on doors in Silicon Valley to land Margik’s first commercial pilot …as well as how Charlotte can stop losing hardware tech startups to places lik

Today we welcome Matt Beck to the podcast. Matt is the co-founder and CEO of Hoppy Planet, a food sustainability company fortifying everyday snacks with the nutrients and vitamins your body needs. While working for Google in Chicago, Matt launched the company along with his co-founder and wife, Allie. During the pandemic, they relocated to Charlotte and scaled the business to new heights by taking on additional funding, growing the product lines, and expanding Hoppy Planet’s retail footprint. We cover several steps along Hoppy Planet’s journey with Matt, like… Why chocolate chip cookies are the perfect food to make with cricket protein Experimenting with 45+ different recipes to crack the code on cricket cookies Maturing the company operationally by moving from Chicago to Charlotte Scaling recipes and ingredients from kitchen quantities to an industrial operation How paranoia helped 5x Hoppy Planet’s SKUs in 4 months …as well as Matt’s goals for the next 12-18 months for Hoppy Planet, and more.

  Today we welcome Andrew Ashur to the podcast. Andrew is the founder and CEO of Lucid Drone Technologies, a YCombinator-backed company building industrial drones for labor-intensive tasks. While studying Economics and Spanish at Davidson College, Andrew learned mechanical, electrical, and software engineering to create Lucid Drones’ first prototype. Fast forward to today and Lucid Drones is scaling rapidly to alleviate labor shortages in the service economy. We cover a wide variety of topics in this episode, like how (and why) Andrew… Increased the company’s “surface area of luck” by cleaning Mercedes Benz Stadium Flew an early-stage drone into a tree minutes before an investor demo Powered through a chemical burn to clean a parking garage in the early days Found his first investor in Chicago and raised funds to fly there to pitch Lucid Drones Fundraises continually with a relationship- and traction-driven process …as well as the role NASCAR played in Andrew’s decision to headquarter Lucid Dro

  Today we welcome David Jones, General Partner of Bull City Venture Partners to the podcast.  BCVP has a great reputation across NC and the southeast and they just finished raising their 3rd fund. Over the pandemic, David reached out to me twice to check in and see how I was doing – and I’m not an investor in the fund or a company they’ve invested in. In a recent conversation with David, it hit me how founder friendly he had to be based on my interactions with him.   I had also recently been having conversations with founders who seemed timid to ask their venture partners/investors questions about what they can/can’t do with company stock or how they should treat certain business situations that greatly impacted them.  As such, I reached back out to David to see if he would be willing to do a podcast discussing what it means to him when someone says a venture firm is founder friendly. Naturally, we start off the podcast learning more about David and how Bull City Venture Partners has developed over the y

    Today we welcome Matt Hudson, founder and CEO of Bildit (pronounced Build It), to the podcast.  Bildit has created a “rapid mobile app development platform for ecommerce brands”.  It’s a concept Matt has had for quite some time and it’s really excited to see him bring it to life. After spending years helping Belk build their mobile app and experience for their shoppers, Matt became acutely aware of the issues companies face when they are trying to deliver content and a shopping experience.  So as any good entrepreneur would do, he left Belk to create the business that could solve the problem for so many other ecommerce companies.  And he’s built a team around him that is ready to pounce on the opportunity ahead of them.  They’ve got a team of 12 at the moment and with their current capital raise they are going to staff up as they start their growth phase. We had a fun time with our interview as we discussed a number of topics.  One area where I thought there was tremendous value for listeners is where

  Today we welcome Rich Camacho, CEO and Co-Founder of BlueRecruit.  BlueRecruit is a startup based in Raleigh NC.  They match blue collar skilled workers to hiring companies based on experience and certifications desired by the hiring company. Rich is a graduate of West Point. Cattle ranching and military service runs in the blood of Rich’s family. Thus, he followed in the family footprints and served in the Army as a Black Hawk helicopter pilot. Following his military service, Rich helped fellow veterans make the transition into corporate America.  While helping many of America’s top companies, he recognized that the recruiting industry largely ignores the need of blue-collar workers and employers desperate for their talent. This inspired him to lead the team at BlueRecruit. In our podcast today, Rich shared his story of how and why he started BlueRecruit.  He talks about the database/platform they built for trades people and the importance of creating the marketplace.  We spoke about their growth patter