The (Last) Friday Nooner with a Special Guest to GrepBeat
Like all other good things, some must come to an end. This Friday will constitute as the LAST live Friday Nooner episode for the foreseeable future. But it's not all bad news!
On top of it being our holiday special episode, it'll also cap off the almost four-year anniversary since the FIRST EVER Friday Nooner episode, which premiered on January 8th 2021. There will be TFN trivia for real Friday Nooner fans, some insights and plans shared by the GrepBeat crew and some fun holiday videos to tune into to get you in the merry spirit right before the holidays.
Tune in for the last time this Friday and (oh man you guessed it again!) at noon! Did we mention that a special guest to GrepBeat will be making his final debut? ďż˝
The Friday Nooner with Victoria Fritz
With the holidays around the corner, some may say that the greatest gift of all is the gift of life. And that's what this week's Friday Nooner guest is trying to support with her company BabyBumps.
Victoria Fritz is the Founder and CEO of the Chapel Hill-based startup, which is a high-end, exclusive surrogacy organization that connects parents to potential surrogates via a "match-making" technique similar to dating apps. As a mother-to-be via surrogacy herself, this app particularly prioritizes surrogates first and recognize them "for delivering the most precious gift."
Before founding this company, Victoria was a Cardiothoracic Surgery Resident Physician after she graduated from UNC Chapel Hill School of Medicine with her doctorate. She left her residency early following a new-onset Type 1 Diabetes diagnosis, which led her to the idea of surrogacy later in her life.
Tune in this Friday to hear her amazing story!
The Friday Nooner with Tim Scales
Curious about what it takes to grow and foster a startup hub full of a community of entrepreneurs? Tune in to this week's #FridayNooner, where we welcome Tim Scales, executive director of Durham's American Underground (AU)!
As one of eleven Google for Entrepreneurs tech hubs in North America, the AU offers a global network of resources and mentors to support high-growth, scalable startups in a creative, energetic and inclusive workspace.
Before his time at the AU, Tim previously founded a successful marketing company and an unsuccessful tech startup and learned a lot from both opportunities. He earned his MBA from Duke University.
The Friday Nooner with Emily Foster
Another week, another Friday Nooner episode to come! And this week's guest brings a new and interesting perspective on what you can achieve beyond what you majored in in undergrad.
Emily Foster is the Founder of Raleigh-based Alpacasews, an online e-commerce merchant that once only sold handmade plushies, but now sells dozens of cute and unique stuffed animals—ranging from cows to baby Bigfoots.
Emily was once a meteorology major at NC State, and began making plushies as a form of stress relief. Now after going viral on TikTok, she has closed 3 successful fundraising campaigns and funded thousands of plushies—all based off of her own drawings and handmade designs.
The Friday Nooner with Annie Combs
As a nicer end to this seemingly stressful beginning of the week, we are happy to welcome Annie Combs of Raleigh-based ECPC Travel on to this week's episode of The Friday Nooner, which takes place this Friday at, well, noon!
ECPC (Eco-Conscious, People Centered) Travel originates from Annie's master's capstone idea, where she created a theoretical tourism business model that would strengthen locals’ economic power in struggling ecotourism destinations to increase funds for environmental conservation. ECPC Travel, as a company, developed a set of transparent criteria to spotlight businesses and communities committed to more sustainable tourism practices.
Annie has been an advocate of climate, eco-conscious, and biology fields since 2014, so she will definitely have much to say about eco-friendly and easy peasy (will definitely be a topic to discuss of the name was intentional) eco-conscious travel recommendations.
The Friday Nooner with Rachel Cash (Elroi)
Another week, another Friday Nooner to celebrate the first of November! Wait, it's already November...?
On this week's episode to kick off the penultimate month of the year is Rachel Cash, CEO and Founder of ELROI. This Durham-based startup provides a data privacy management solution for consumers and enterprises in order to bring data privacy protection back into the hands of people. Rachel and this company work with leading data providers to ensure that
data meets the highest standards of quality and compliance.
Rachel is also an attorney licensed in Michigan, specializing in data privacy, therefore making her the perfect candidate to speak on the importance of data privacy in this already unstable data collecting world.
The Friday Nooner with Heather McWhorter
As we have started expanding our coverage into Wilmington, we couldn't have done it without the help of Heather McWhorter, director for the Center of Innovation and Entrepreneurship (CIE) at UNC-Wilmington. That's why we are excited to welcome her on this week's Friday Nooner episode!
Heather has a wealth of experience working with small businesses. Before settling at the beach, she has worked with Penn State College and Penn State University to develop their small business programs and support their entrepreneurs. She also lead an initiative formed to stimulate tech entrepreneurship in NC for SBTDC.
Obviously, we might have much to talk about this Friday. Tune in!
The Friday Nooner with Jay Bigelow
To help celebrate the Council for Entrepreneurial Development's (CED) 40th birthday—on top of attending their birthday bash—we are excited to welcome back Jay Bigelow, head of founder engagement, to this week's Friday Nooner!
If you haven't heard of Jay and what he and CED are doing for the entrepreneurial ecosystem here, this Friday is a great time to hear all about it!
Jay has been a part of CED's 40-year history for about 12 years of it, working to organize local and national expertise to provide guidance, mentorship and capital to the area's budding companies. Jay has also been on NC IDEA's grant review committee for over 11 years, so safe to say he knows a bit about how to help startups.
Tune in live this Friday!
The Friday Nooner with David Reeser
As we are coming down from our post-Wilmington launch high, we are excited to get back up and welcome David Reeser of Wilmington-based OpiAid for this week's episode of The Friday Nooner!
OpiAid is a data science company on a mission to make addiction treatment safer and more effective. With over 20 years of experience under his belt working in radiology, medical marketing, business development and substance abuse programs, Reeser will bring an enhanced perspective of what he plans to do with OpiAid and his roles on multiple substance abuse organizations.
Join him, the GrepBeat Godfather and our professional side-host this Friday at noon!
The Friday Nooner with Daniel Summers
We are celebrating GrepBeat's official launch to Wilmington this month (and the end of the week) by inviting Wilmington-based, long time entrepreneur Daniel Summers to this week's episode of The Friday Nooner!
For over 11 years, Daniel has been the CEO and Founding Partner of Electronic Lab Logs (ELL), which provides a cloud-based software platform that gives laboratories the ability to track and report Regulatory Compliance.
Join him, the GrepBeat Godfather and the unofficial, professional side-host Melissa Crosby this Friday at noon to hear more about ELL and what they're doing in Wilmington!
The Friday Nooner with David Cummings
Another week, another Friday, another Friday Nooner! And we are bringing back Atlanta-based tech entrepreneur David Cummings, who has founded and co-founded 10 startups, including Pardot and Salesloft.
David is also the CEO and Founder of investment company Atlanta Ventures, as well as the founder of Atlanta Tech Village, the fourth largest tech entrepreneurship center in the United States. Join us as we welcome David this Friday at noon!
The Friday Nooner with Mark Littlewood
What does it really mean to "get down to business?" We'll take a deep dive into this question when the GrepBeat Godfather and his co-host speak with Mark Littlewood, Founder and CEO of Business of Software on this week's Friday Nooner!
Business of Software is a multi-day event for software leaders, entrepreneurs and decision makers, with locations in Raleigh and in Europe. Despite being a software conference, the focus of the topics is neither on code nor finance, but rather on anything from marketing to leadership, hiring to mental health and everything in between. Mark will speak on why this conference is necessary and why he's decided to keep the USA version in the budding Raleigh ecosystem.
