Raleigh-Durham Startup Week founders Chris Heivly and Archie O’Connor
DURHAM — Downtown Durham and American Underground were heavily trafficked on Tuesday as entrepreneurs, investors, and startup staff hit the first day of this week’s Raleigh-Durham Startup Week (RDSW).
You’d been forgiven for feeling somewhat claustrophobic as spaces are tight this year. According to RDSW co-founder Chris Heivly, nearly 2,000 tickets were sold this year, up from 1,200 last year.
A better data point might be the number of downloads of the conference app, which Heivly reports have roughly doubled from last year’s count. Clearly the event, in its third year, is in its “scale” phase.
Back for Business
Tuesday’s “fireside chat” was a conversation with Anna Wilson, a Duke Professor in Product Management and alum of Google, Pandora, and DoorDash. After more than a dozen year’s in California, the North Carolina native and Duke grad “boomeranged” back to the Triangle. In a conversation with Jessica Mitsch Homes, CEO and co-founder of Momentum, Wilson shared her thoughts on what makes the Triangle special for startups, and how it can benefit from the characteristics that diversifies it from tech hot spots like Silicon Valley.
In terms of competitive advantage, Wilson pointed out that the Triangle’s “outsider mentality” and being removed from larger cities can give our startups a leg up.
“Being able to think differently about a problem than other competitors,” said Wilson. “Being able to have enough geographic distance, literally to be able to not get caught in sort of the maelstrom of all this activity… I think is really unique and can be capitalized on.”
It takes a community: The secrets to success of Raleigh-Durham Startup Week
Naturally, Wilson is also a fan of the Triangle’s “affordable and high-potential talent” pool, however she sees that advantage in more than just highly-educated job candidates. Wilson points out that, in contrast to Silicon Valley, which is deeply focused on tech, the Triangle has a diverse range of skills and perspectives, that include careers like doctors, engineers, and artists.
To that point, Wilson also believes that the Triangle offers better “generalist” hires, which are a tremendous asset to startups seeking a broad skillset.
“We’ve got that in spades here,” Wilson told the audience. “We’ve got new grads who are ambitious and hard working, high intellectual horsepower. And those are the folks that I tended to hire when I was looking for people that could add value in a number of ways.”
Stop, Start, Continue
Homes and Wilson wrapped their conversation on the question of what the Triangle should “stop, start, and continue” doing with respect to the growing startup community. Wilson’s “stop” advice leaned into her faith in the generalist hire.
“Stop thinking that you need to hire a SME (subject-matter expert) with 25 years of experience for your seed or series a startup,” Wilson advised.
Her advice for “start” acknowledged that the Triangle lacks the immense Venture Capital power of a San Francisco or New York, for now. But the Triangle does have a strong community and can leverage that to help find funding sources for new companies.
“How can we diversify the capital streams so that we can continue to grow overall capital availability in this market?” Wilson asked the audience. “I think there’s an appetite for a lot of people here to get involved [in investing].”
Furthering that community mindset, Wilson pointed out the overwhelmingly supportive and connected natives she’s met.
Raleigh-Durham Startup Week continues to evolve in service of entrepreneurs
“[This] energy of lifting all boats, of making introductions, of accepting invitations to meet with other people and really being open and sharing and not having that sense of FOMO or territorialism,” said Wilson. “[It’s] really special and something that I think is a distinct difference about this area versus the Bay. So I’d love to see that continue.”
Stay Tuned
Raleigh-Durham Startup Week continues Wednesday in Durham with more content in the “Idea”, “Build”, and “Scale” tracks. Tomorrow’s evening event, also in Durham, will celebrate the local Tweener Fund with General Partners Scot Wingo and Robbie Allen.
Thursday and Friday the event moves to Raleigh for more tracks, keynotes, office hours, and special events taking place in and around the North Street location of Raleigh Founded.
Tickets are free and are still available on the event website, https://www.raleighdurhamstartupweek.com/.
