Editor’s note: WRAL TechWire’s newest contributor is Dr. Sarah Glova, a globally recognized speaker, successful entrepreneur, university instructor, and business consultant. A seasoned educator and entrepreneur, Sarah is CEO of the award-winning digital media firm, Reify Media, With a Ph.D. in Instructional Technology and a Master of Science in Technical Communication, she is dedicated to cultivating forward-thinking work environments.

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RALEIGH — Dubbed the “Startup Whisperer,” Chris Heivly, serial entrepreneur and startup expert, co-chaired Raleigh-Durham Startup Week (RDSW) again this year.

Heivly co-founded MapQuest, which sold to AOL for $1.2 billion, and was the sole managing director of 77 Capital, a $25 million venture fund, and a managing director of The Startup Factory, at the time the largest seed investment firm in the Southeast.

What you need to know about Raleigh-Durham Startup Week 2023

Now, Heivly is co-chairing the three-day RDSW event that kicked off in Durham on Tuesday and features programming again today in Durham and Thursday in Raleigh.

“The most common feedback I heard last year was, ‘I can’t believe this is all free,'” Heivly shared with WRAL TechWire in an exclusive interview. “And I just I’ve said to the team, over and over again, we got to do everything in our power to keep it that way.”

RDSW follows the Techstars startup week format and is being held in the region for the second time; last year’s inaugural event was also held in April.

Entrepreneurial ecosystem feeds on connections at Raleigh-Durham Startup Week

Heivly shared that the event is fueled by smaller donations from multiple companies rather than big donations from a headliner.

“So the idea is, we can go around and find 10, 15, maybe 20 other companies just to throw in maybe $2,500 a year,” said Heivly. “We think we can do a lot with that. And so this isn’t a big, like, money deal. I just don’t ever want it to be like that.”

Heivly also told me he wants startups to be able to support the event and involve everyone on their team, not just their founders.

“So imagine you’re a 20-person company, maybe you’re generating maybe a million a year revenue,” said Heivly. “Could you carve out $1,000 to throw into this thing and say, ‘Listen, I want all my employees, I want my marketing people to go talk to marketing people, and I want my dev people to learn from dev people,’ etcetera, etcetera.”

Heivly’s newest book is a guide for startup community builders

In 2015, Heivly released his book, Build The Fort: Why 5 Simple Lessons You Learned as a 10-Year-Old Can Set You Up for Startup Success, which drew from his acclaimed 2014 TEDx talk. The book focused on those critical months of getting an idea off the ground.

His newest book, Build the Fort: The Startup Community Builder’s Field Guide, will debut later this month and includes an introduction by Brad Feld, a well-known early-stage investor and co-founder of Techstars.

Heivly told me that the book draws heavily on his experience helping to build the startup community in the Triangle.

“It’s my experience of the last ten years, in Raleigh Durham here, and helping to build this startup community, stuff that Rick [Smith of WRAL TechWire] has covered for years and years, Big Top, Startup Factory, all the other things that led to where we are today,” said Heivly.

He also told me that the book draws on his experience in other cities, including his time with Techstars and his consulting work in other communities.

“It’s putting that all together and saying, alright, you’re sitting here in Wilmington, or you’re sitting here in Poughkeepsie, or you’re sitting here in Des Moines, Iowa, Norfolk, Virginia, and you want to know more about how to do this yourself? Well, here’s some experiences from Raleigh and Durham, and some observations and insights, and even a little bit of a framework and some science around how this kind of should work.”

I told him the book sounded like a mix of information and action, and he agreed.

“It’s a mix of both, right?” Heivly said. “I outlined a couple of frameworks that help you simplify your mindset and then give you some, hopefully, some things that you can do tomorrow to help your community, regardless of what role you play in your community, founder, investor, instructor, economic development person, you know, even the media.”

What’s next for Raleigh-Durham Startup Week?

Heivly told me that he hopes the annual RDSW event spins off into more programming.

“The biggest dream I have is that there’s something happening that’s of interest to somebody at least every month,” said Heivly. “Maybe there’s 10 to 12 of these things, with a signature event like this, you know, once a year. So no matter what role you have, you can learn best practices, you could find other peers, you could use it as a way for people to connect with each other so they can do their jobs better.”

Heivly also talked about expanding the event from “just tech” to more of a celebration.

“Maybe we also celebrate food and music,” said Heivly. “How can we interest other people who may not normally say, ‘Well, I’m not going to a tech conference.’ Well, it’s more than that. So that’s me dreaming a little bit but it depends on this crew of 14 to 18 people.”

The “crew” Heivly referenced is the team of volunteers. This year’s event, Heivly told me, included 18 different volunteers who met weekly to plan the four different tracks at RDSW: Startup 101, Technology & Society, Design, Development & Product Management, and Legal & Finance.

Heivly’s new book is available to preorder from Amazon and Barnes & Noble.

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Editor’s note: WRAL TechWire contributor Sarah Glova is speaking at RDSW 2023 on Thursday.