Small World
We were fortunate enough to meet briefly with Jason Caplain of Southern Capitol Ventures, a Raleigh-based VC firm, and Scot Wingo of Channel Advisor (and a rather successful serial entrepreneur). They both seemed to “get” the idea, which was encouraging — especially given the brevity of the pitch. They provided some useful pointers, though I couldn’t shake a feeling they were pulling some punches on real criticism; surely, at this early stage, the idea must have some significant blindspots. Granted, they only had a few minutes to digest the plan and provide feedback. Probably the most gratifying aspect of the meeting, though, was that they both requested invites to the alpha test when it’s ready.
Already we’re seeing that the world of startups — or perhaps, at least, startups in RTP — is a surprisingly small one. Scot made a suggestion that we talk with DisrupterMonkey, as there could be some overlap between our technologies and we might be able to help each other out. Ironically, Nick Napp — DisrupterMonkey’s founder — and I had been exchanging emails already, having met through Nick’s blog, and were planning on meeting for lunch soon — but neither of us really yet had any idea what the other’s working on.
Thanks to Scot and Jason; if luck holds we’ll be darkening their doors again at some point.