As I walked through CCB plaza watching a mix of local entrepreneurs and local brewers interface with other locals and visitors on the first night of Durham’s Paradoxos, I couldn’t help but flash back to this same time roughly two years ago, let’s say early May 2011, when talk amongst the Durham startup community was that there was just nothing going on.

Two years ago:

• Launchbox had just closed up shop.
• Triangle Startup Factory had not yet arrived.
• There was no Groundwork Labs.
• American Underground was just finding its footing.
• Triangle Startup Weekend had not yet come back.
• Tech Jobs under the Big Top had not yet kicked off.

Durham, as a startup community, was at a major crossroads. And while scanning this barren landscape one day in 2011, I got the idea to start a monthly entrepreneur-only anti-networking event if just to give all of us a place to get together once a month. That became the foundation of ExitEvent.

That event quickly grew in leaps and bounds, and then events started emerging from the woodwork – everything from beer-fueled parties with attitude from known entities who hadn’t previously been reaching out directly to entrepreneurs, to obscure marketing meetups that started latching on to other established events, including one or two that advertised themselves as being a part of my own.

Rascals!

The Event Bubble Pops, And No One Really Cares

By early May 2012 there were, I dare say, too many startup events that were too similar and too loosely focused on startups. A small backlash started, the words “event bubble” popped up all too frequently.

At that point, events started quietly disappearing off the calendar or redefining themselves into something less startup. All of those changes were somewhat prescient, and Durham in 2012 would have to make the conscious effort to evolve from celebrating the startup to actually helping it.

Events aren’t normally good at this, because they’re not built for it. It’s like the difference between a party and a Tupperware party (if… they still do those). One is a fun night out and the other everyone dreads and mentions that thing they have to do that night.

In fact, Iast week I got an email from a corporation who wanted to let me know that they would be able to provide all kinds of materials, promotion, even speakers and door prizes, for me to hold an event based on stuff they wanted to sell. I mean, I knew this type of thing existed, but it took everything I had not to fire off an f-bomb-laden response to their invitation to view their webinar.

If I’ve learned anything running ExitEvent for two years, it’s that bad, useless, ulterior-motive events take the whole thing down. In response, good events have to become better events.

Chasing the South by Southeast Dream

Although I’m not a huge fan of the comparison, the motives behind creating a South by Southeast – playing off South by Southwest of Austin fame – are proper. Combine and raise the profile of several events into one big annual (or twice annual, tops) bring-everyone-and-show-off-everything blast.

This is what’s behind Paradoxos, the two-day celebtation integrating startup culture with all the other things the City of Durham as to offer – great food, excellent breweries, a thriving arts and music scene, and a suddenly bustling downtown that is quickly becoming a destination.

Day 1 went off without a hitch, if a little dampened by the remnants of tropical storm (I’m told. I work at a startup and rarely have an idea of what’s going on with things like weather.)

Paradoxos kicked off Thursday with a bigger, more visible to the general public Startup Factory Pitch Day – and I leave Triangle off of Startup Factory because they announced at the end that they’re now THE Startup Factory (and good on them, it’s time).

Organic Transit had a couple of their ELF vehicles outside the Carolina Theatre, this year’s new venue for Pitch Day. The ELFs are quickly becoming a icon for cool startup events – if you see these out front, you should probably go inside.

Once inside, I did a quick video interview on the Paradoxos Red Couch at the behest of Shoebox’s Taylor Mingos. I managed to cram in Durham, Automated Insights, our latest product SiteAI, The Startup Factory, and ExitEvent. In 45 seconds.

Startup America’s Scott Case opened Pitch Day with an impassioned plea to entrepreneurs to invest in the network around their business. They will help you solve your problems, he said. And I could not agree more.

Paul Singh from 500 startups then spoke about how is easy it is to start a company these days but how difficult it has become to scale. Again, this is truth and couldn’t be more pertinent to the Triangle, where many companies struggle to get past the seed stage.

The five companies that made up the class of Spring 2013 were well rehearsed and gave informed, sharp pitches.

Then Came the Monsoon … 

Later on in the day, I headed to CCB plaza for Major Bull. With some work of my own keeping me later than I would have liked, I missed being outside for what turned out to be a deluge – as Donna Cheek from Windstream put it: “a monsoon.”

Adam Klein acknowledged. While they expected “easily 1000” to turn out, about half of that actually did. However, they were prepared. “I was literally watching the radar all afternoon,” Klein said. They pulled the tents off the street and into the plaza itself, creating just the right venue for the startups, breweries, bands, and artists that were on hand.

And as soon as it stopped raining, people started flooding the plaza. Mystery Brewing, who also pours for ExitEvent, ran out of Carolina Dark quickly.

When I ran into TSF’s Chris Heivly, now beer in hand, he asked me about Pitch Day:

“Was it funner?”

“Absolutely,” I said. “Was it funner for you?”

He said that the uncharted territory of the new venue made him a little nervous, and there were some logistical issues, as there inevitably are, right before curtain, but yes, it was a lot of fun.

I then found Square 1’s Zack Mansfield when he photobombed a picture I was taking of Michael LaMarca from TSF graduate BringMeThat (the unphotobombed image is posted with this article). He and I and a few others walked to Bull McCabe’s, conveniently early, for the Square 1-hosted afterparty.

As we walked the three blocks, he and others pointed out bars and restaurants, noting how many of them were fuller than they had seen yet.

Good thing we went early, too, as Bull McCabe’s was packed by 9:45 for a 10 p.m. start time. As we ordered drinks, Mansfield leaned over and said:

“It’s funny. I was here once today already having lunch with Eric Boggs (who introduced TSF graduate Tuee) and Elliott Hauser (from startup Coursefork).”

And it occurred to me that this is what Paradoxos is trying to prove – that Durham isn’t just a place to start a company, it’s a place to live, and a destination spot for after hours.

This event is not just about starting. It’s about scaling.

Editor’s note: Joe Procopio is a serial entrepreneur, writer, and speaker. He is VP of Product at Automated Insights and the founder of startup network and news resource ExitEvent. Follow him at @jproco or read him at http://joeprocopio.com