Science in the Triangle

More than 100 people turned up to American Tobacco Campus Wednesday evening to join Scott Kelly, of KeySource Bank, in his inaugural “Launch Days: Durham.” The event, a first of its kind for the region, aimed to mesh entrepreneurs of newly or recently formed start-ups with their peers and service providers (venture capitalists, attorneys, marketeers) to discuss openly their business ideas.

Chris Heivly of LaunchBox Digital acted as a host and MC. The program began with a dialogue between Jim Tobin of Ignite Social Media (and author of Social Media is a Cocktail Party: Why You Already Know the Rules of Social Media Marketing) and Michael Hubbard of Media Two. Hubbard “played Ed McMahon to [Tobin’s] Johnny Carson,” asking him about how he got Ignite … ignited. The answer was hard, disciplined work:

— Hubbard: “How did it affect your personal life?”

— Tobin: “For the first six to nine months, I was busy, just busy. There were lots of sacrifices and lots of compromises.”

Next, Heivly introduced Duke alumnus Taylor Mingos, whose company Shoeboxed has successfully transitioned from the limbo of Start-Up Town to the prospering of modern business. Mingos said a key to his success was targeting business consumers right off the bat, and not just regular consumers. This provided good cash flow.

Immediately afterwards, four start-up hopefuls pitched their gameplans in front of a panel of three investment experts (two VC’s and one attorney). The premise was similar to ABC reality show “Shark Tank,” minus the manufactured dramatic score. The intent was to engender honest, practical opinions and advice about the prospects and methods for these ideas succeeding in the marketplace. The companies, usually represented by two speakers, began by summarizing what they are and why they are, followed by a battery of pointed questions and comments from the panel. The companies, in order of presentation, were:

1. ruzuku – a personal and professional coaching initiative to help clients learn new skills or expand their brand online; http://www.ruzuku.com/

2. NeoBudget – an online envelope budgeting software to help track purchases and monitor spending; http://www.neobudget.com/

3. Argyle Social – a software-as-a-service platform that helps marketers link social media efforts to business outcomes; http://www.argylesocial.com/

4. BuzzBox – an “out of home advertising” system of kiosks in public venues, which exchange access to social media outlets for personal information and tracking data

The thread amongst the four appeared to be the business opportunities provided by Social Media (the collective Web 2.0 efforts to co-engage the online community we already know and love). The actual range of business ideas and rationales between the four was more diverse; they encompassed ‘just pays my own bills’; to ‘trying to help others monetize their on-line expertise’; to ‘if you thought that email marketing was powerful, wait until you see what we can do with social media mining tools (aka SPAM, the next generation)’; to ‘we have an idea and management experience but need funds, developers, designers and people who understand wide array computer networks (connecting kiosks to the Internet)’. Insight and conversation sparked from all four proposals.

Ideas:

- Let’s put the VC’s and service providers on stage and let the start-ups ask them questions if, indeed, the venue is about the power of the start-up.

- We always talk about revenue and payback, ROI and market-share; instead, let’s discuss strategies for identifying and earning the first 5 or 50 customers. Then start knocking on the marketers’ doors.

Going forward:

1) Now that Launch Days has sailed its maiden voyage, how will it mesh with seemingly similar offerings from CED and NCTA? Is there a void in these organizations’ programs of establishing a reliable place and peer circle for start-ups to be filled by a Launch Days: “x”?

2) What is the proper venue, audience and discussion format to effectively cross-pollinate the entrepreneur community? Is this dialogue, indeed, better conducted digitally or virtually, using – *queue drum roll* – social media?

3) How can the next Launch Days event become more audience interactive?

4) How will the event’s commendable efforts of establishing this start-up community be sustained? Is social media both the puzzle and the solution?

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The Launch Days site can be found here. Twitter hashtag: #launchdays

Video of the entire program is up on the RTP’s YouTube channel (and the front page of SITT).

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All in all, a fresh and constructive experience by Scott Kelly and co. Looking forward to SITTing in on the next Launch.

Christopher Perrien contributed to this post.