Editor’s note: David Rose an entrepreneur, music lover, tech enthusiast, mountain biker and the CEO at PRSONAS, represented his company at the Charlotte Venture Challenge on Thursday along with several other Triangle firms:
- NanoOncology (Chapel Hill, NC)
- Elpis technologies (Raleigh,NC)
- SnapYeti (Raleigh, NC)
- EphRemedies (NC State)
- Track2Quit (NC State)
Rose writes about his experiences for ExitEvent, which is a news partner with WRALTechWire.
CHARLOTTE, N.C. – It’s a little like the Final Four, only the brackets aren’t packed with college basketball teams. They’re packed with North Carolina startup companies.
No whistles, or cheerleaders either, but Thursday’s Charlotte Venture Challenge still had lots of high drama.
Unlike most startup competitions, CVC was an opportunity for me to get my company in front of important corporate eyes. Just about all other startup competitions have you pitching to potential investors. And you do that in Charlotte, too. But the cold, hard fact is: 99% of companies that compete don’t get investor funding. At CVC you also pitch to technology decision makers from the corporate world. That is very, very cool.
Finally, startups put their cases before the public. Attendees get to vote with play money, so there’s a MONOPOLY board game element to the last round. Each group (or panel) selects a bracket winner. And while PRSONAS didn’t land on Boardwalk, we did win our bracket (IT).
I’m excited—can’t wait to get the press release out. But honestly, just getting selected to compete was a big victory.
The full story can be read at ExitEvent.
