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 s…

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 journe…

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 for…

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, inclu…

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 anoth…

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 Char…

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, …

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 subs…

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 For…

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 entrepr…

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 …

Charlotte Angel Connection Episode 143: Trey PhillsToday 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 …

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 inspirat…

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 financ…

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 th…

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…

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. …

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.…

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 …

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. Thu…

Today we welcome Landon Glenn, CEO and Founder of ASA. I met Landon at the RevTech Labs fall Venture 135 Conference. We ended up sitting at the same table together and quickly started talking about ASA and his background.Landon was a key component of scaling Banzai (an online financial literacy application for kids). During that time (about 5 years…

Today we welcome Paul Clark, Managing Director at VentureSouth, to the podcast. Prior to co-founding VentureSouth, Paul was Senior Vice President of M&A at a multi-billion-dollar bank in South Carolina. Paul has extensive private equity investment and fund experience in New York and London. In 2013 Paul, along with Matt Dunbar and Charlie Banks for…

Today we welcome Dmitry Norenko, CEO and founder of upSWOT, to the podcast. Dmitry and the team at upSWOT have been hard at work building a platform to help small and medium sized businesses (SMBs) make better decisions based on insight, personalized advice, and cashflow insights from within their banking portal.Dmitry and his team moved to Charlot…

Today, we welcome BJ McAndrews, co-founder of Flyp, to the podcast.BJ was introduced to me by Todd Buelow from Dualboot Partners (who was on Episode 95). I always enjoy meeting startup founders in our introductory calls. BJ and I hit it off right out of the gate. Like so many founders, he has an infectious happiness about him. After all he spends e…

Today, we welcome Blake Wood, co-founder of APAY, to the podcast.Blake reached out to me back in 2018 to discuss the beginnings of what would become APAY and asking for advice. At that point, Blake and his co-founder, Owen Brady, were still working in the bank and trying to figure out how to build their company. They had a little bit of seed money …

Today we welcome Justin Adams and Pat Morrell, co-founders of Anduin. Many of you know this is their second startup together as they sold Digitize.ai back in 2019 – which is now part of Waystar. So, this is our first podcast dealing with co-founders in Charlotte who have built and sold and are now building again, together.For that reason, we get to…

Today, we welcome Haley Sutton, Founder of Box Babe Gift Co., to the podcast. I first met Haley when she was an intern for Packard Place a few years ago. She was regularly at Packard Place as we recorded podcasts and showed up for startup/investing events. So it was awesome to have her on the podcast to talk about her own startup and the path she h…

Today we welcome Ben Boyer, co-founder and Executive Chairman of R-Zero Systems, to the podcast. Prior to March 2020, Ben had worked in Venture Capital – getting his feet wet with Lehman Brothers as he came out of college.After the Lehman bankruptcy, he went to work for Tenaya Capital which was spun out of Lehman Brothers. At Tenaya, Ben focused on…

Today we welcome Noam Mani, Co-Founder of Quartix. Quartix is a company combining technology with institutional cash to transform vendor early payments into a true win-win for both the buyer and the vendors. I met Noam several years ago when he was participating in the QC Fintech Accelerator program (run by RevTech Labs).The company has come a long…

Today, we welcome Jim Roberts to the podcast. Jim is a familiar name in the Charlotte area startup and investor ecosystem. Today, Jim runs the Wilmington Angels for Local Entrepreneurs (WALE), Network for Entrepreneurs in Wilmington (NEW), and his own consulting firm, Rojo Octo Ecosystem Consulting.Yet, in 2000, he started a non-profit ecosystem in…

Today we are pleased to welcome Luke Wilcox, CEO and founder of Ethos, to the podcast. Luke was part of the most recent RevTech Labs program and we got the chance to sit down with him and a few of his classmates to talk about their experience with the world class program as well as learn more about their businesses.Ethos is a first-of-its-kind FinT…

Today we are pleased to welcome Nish Krishna, CEO of Lend-Grow, to the podcast. Nish was part of the most recent RevTech Labs program and we got the chance to sit down with him and a few of his classmates to talk about their experience with the world class program as well as learn more about their businesses.Lend-Grow is an online lending marketpla…

Today we are pleased to welcome Lennox McNeary, CEO of ArchiveCore, to the podcast. Lennox was part of the most recent RevTech Labs program and we got the chance to sit down with her and a few of her classmates to talk about their experience with the world class program as well as learn more about their businesses.ArchiveCore is a creating a simpli…

Today, we are fortunate to have Nat Clarkson and Dan Roselli join us on the podcast to talk with us about CFV Ventures. We all know Dan and Nat from their work at RevTech Labs/QC Fintech.We wanted the opportunity to sit down and explore what CFV Ventures has been up to since closing their first fund. Since this is our first time talking with Nat on…

Today, we are fortunate to have Jonathan Kite join us on the podcast to talk with us about Rent Ready. Jonathan and the Rent Ready team (including co-founders Ryan McMillan and Will Brugh) completed a $10 million Series A in March 2021 - another great raise for a Charlotte based company.Jonathan grew up in Charlotte and attended the University of N…

Today, we welcome back Matt Potere, CEO of Sunlight Financial, to the podcast. Matt joined us early in the days of the podcast with Episode 20 and Episode 21. Back in these days, Sunlight Financial was growing rapidly and in the process of moving into their new office space as they 'graduated' from the halls of Packard Place. Fortunately, Matt and …

Today we welcome Mike Murphy, CEO and Co-Founder of ProctorFree and Kevin Eckert, Partner with TFX Capital to the podcast.Mike served in the Army and later worked as a defense contractor. Prior to starting ProctorFree, Mike worked as marketing director for Everblue Training Institute, a startup focused on marketing environmental sustainability and …

Today, Juan Garzon jumps back on the Charlotte Angel Connection – his second time and first since his appearance as the 4th guest (listen to Juan’s first podcast here). Juan is the Executive Director at Innovate Charlotte.Most of us have known Juan, or known of Juan, for nearly a decade now as he has been an integral part of the startup ecosystem. …

Today, Eric Mager and Marco Burgarello, of Bundle join the podcast. I’ve been a fan of Marco’s since I met him while he was working with Dan Roselli at Packard Place. And when I saw Eric pitch Bundle at a Charlotte Angel Fund meeting I knew he was a founder and Bundle was a company worth watching. Bundle sits at the crossroads of privacy, technolog…

Today we welcome Gunner Cuevas, CEO and Co-Founder of CARL. I met Gunnar a few years ago as he was coming through the QC Fintech Accelerator Program. His desire to bring unique quantitative strategies to a broader population caught my attention.CARL is the first to provide easy access to hedge funds through a simple to use mobile app. By taking adv…

Today, we welcome Chris Langford, a Partner at IDEA Fund Partners, to the podcast. Chris has been active in the Charlotte startup scene since at least 2015 when I joined the Charlotte Angel Fund. His education events, support of local founders, and availability to the ecosystem at large has been helpful getting the Charlotte startup community to wh…

Today we welcome Daniel Gouldman, CEO and Co-Founder of Ternio, to the podcast. Daniel is a big picture CEO who has the skillset to get down into details and who very much understands where his business is and where they are going to take it.Ternio is a global fintech platform built on blockchain. Their global banking platform, BlockCard, is fundam…

Happy 2021!On today's podcast, we have John Dillard, founder and CEO of Threatswitch, joining us. In addition to John, we brought Paul Clark from VentureSouth as they have been an investor in Threatswitch for the last couple of years.As you'll hear John discuss, they just closed a $1.7 million capital raise in late 2020 and VentureSouth - in the mi…

On today's podcast, we are fortunate to have Bianca L. Padilla and Jonathan Magolnick, co-founders of Carewell. Carewell is a Charlotte-based, family-led ecommerce company with a mission to improve the lives of caregivers and their loved ones.Their story began with one goal: to find a way to provide better care for loved ones through easy, personal…

Trent Hawthorne, COO at Rabbu, joins us on the podcast today.Trent is a Charlotte native, and he thinks of himself as a builder, who always wanted to be an entrepreneur. Early in his career he worked for Kyck because he knew he wanted to start his own startup one day and was looking to learn while doing it with another company. Kyck's founder, Mac …

Anya Johnson and Will McGuire with CrowdfundNC join us for the podcast today.Will joined us a few years ago to talk about crowdfunding and his own company, CrowdfundNC. I wanted to circle back around and talk with Will and Anya about the crowdfunding initiatives in North Carolina as well as what the industry in general looks like. I have long been …

Today we welcomed Alex Smereczniak, co-Founder and CEO of 2ULaundry, to the podcast. Many of you know the story of 2ULaundry as they have been operating out of Charlotte since 2016 (and we had his co-founder, Dan D’Aquisto as a guest on episode #7).Click here for the video version of the podcast.Yet, this was our first-time having Alex on the podca…

This week we welcome Desmond Wiggan, a co-founder and CEO BatteryXchange to the podcast. Like many entrepreneurs Desmond’s business model was disrupted as a result of Covid19. As an African American entrepreneur, he also engaged in the community promoting equality for minority founders and changing the narrative for minorities in technology. He’s a…

Lee Farabaugh and Joe Maxwell join me on the Charlotte Angel Connection today to discuss Core10.Lee Farabaugh is the Co-Founder and President of Core10. She is a technology design, operations and innovation expert with over a decade of experience in fintech and health care IT – and she’s been fortunate to call Charlotte home before!Joe Maxwell is t…

We are really pleased to have Jordan Schindler, CEO and Founder at Nufabrx (previously known as Textile-Based Delivery, Inc) on the podcast today (watch our podcast on Youtube).Much like our last podcast with Chris Wright from Whystle (click here), Jordan had to deal with a big change to his business model during March. While he was in the midst of…