Have you ever heard of Spring Training for Startups? Tough Love Work in February should lead to better results in March and April.

I have been working in the North Carolina startup ecosystem for 24 years.

Lightning struck in 2003 when I got frustrated from hearing from local entrepreneurs who were complaining about the lack of venture capital in Asheville, NC.

I knew there were "potential investors" who were interested in supporting local entrepreneurs as a way to grow the local economy. I was currently running a local angel network (BRAIN) in addition to a non-profit Entrepreneur Support Org (BREC).

So what was the REAL problem?

The problem turned out to be the quality of the investor presentations were pretty bad. WHY? Because the local entrepreneurs were only practicing their presentations with friends and family who would only give positive feedback for the fear of upsetting their niece, nephew, neighbor or friendly business contacts.

Soon after, I invited a friend from the Raleigh area who also ran an angel network, but he was and still is a "NO - NONSENSE" kind of guy when it came to giving feedback. Bill Warner of EntreDot is a military veteran of the Army, a former IBMer and leader of investors who has seen it all. (And now a grandfather.)

So we created the "TOUGH LOVE" / Uncle Curmudgeon private event for local entrepreneurs. Tough Love is where the entrepreneurs give a practice presentation but the reviewers in the room are NOT their friends for the nurturing soft skill hugs and pats on the back. But a slide by slide breakdown on what needs to be fixed.

We are trying to prevent the instant and immediate NO from the real investor because of a bad presentation when that meeting happens. While Bill is good at the business statements behind the slides, my role is much more of the tough feedback on the visual look of the slides and the body language while presenting.

WHY?

Early Spring in March and April is the busy investor conference season. The annual CED Venture Connect conference is now 40 years old with 200 plus investors and 1,100 attendees. It is a once in a lifetime opportunity for North Carolina entrepreneurs to live the Silicon Valley life of the entrepreneurs they read about. Past conferences have included some of the biggest VC firms in the world such as Bessemer Ventures, Sequoia Capital and others.

On April 4th, the Network for Entrepreneurs in Wilmington will host our 2nd Annual Wilmington NC INVESTOR BUZZ IN event at the Beach and will host more than 50 investors from the region. This event is the closest thing that the coast has to a true venture capital conference. Six regional investors will give a REVERSE PITCH and six local startups will present in a private session before we open the doors to a more public event with even more investors speaking.

JOBS, JOBS, JOBS

At the end of the day, all of this work is being done to create MORE jobs and opportunities for the people at the coast who have always felt isolated from the real resources of this pro - business state. But to truly have an impact, these startups need to raise capital to be able to scale and afford the kind of talent that is required to scale.

Yes, we are working on the TECH TALENT issue too. March 13th event.

And yes, this is ALL REAL and having a REAL impact. Wilmington NC in 2023, was ranked #7 in job growth and salary growth and only a few spots behind Raleigh. Wilmington was ranked #51 in the Tech Index, more than 100 spot above our population ranking in the USA.

Join us for future events. We have the largest audience for monthly startup events in ALL of North Carolina. How is that for an ecosystem that is only ten years old!!!!