Mark Bavisotto is an entrepreneur with a passion for innovative technology solutions, startups, entrepreneurship, and education. He’s the Co-Founder of Raleigh-based Successive Technologies and Co-Founder and CEO of the Triangle-based Startup Summit.
1. What is in your pockets?
Right now, I have nothing in my pockets because I just finished working out. Typically, I’ll have my AirPods and my cell phone. I listen to a lot of podcasts. I’m a big education guy, so I listen to the top podcasts and I always make sure that I have my AirPods on me.
2. What exciting thing has happened recently for you or your organization?
Successive Technologies is a custom software development agency. We do everything from design to cloud-based work, mobile apps, and things like that. We have our sales and marketing offices in the States and our development center is in Noida, India where we have close to 350 developers and we work on all the latest technologies.
Successive Technologies recently signed one of our biggest client to date, a large government contracting company. That was super exciting for us, as I have been trying to push in the government space for some time mostly because the government is steady work, especially when there are dips in the economy. That’s part one for Successive Technologies.
Part two is I sat down with my partner Sid, and I said, “What can we do? What do we do best at this point in time? How can we help? We know that startups are struggling, we know that a lot of them are trying to figure out how to keep the doors open, how can we add the most value? Let’s just try this out. Let’s offer 30 days free development, no strings attached. If after 30 days they want to keep working with us, we will work with them and their budget. Let’s try and find a win-win and go from there. If after 30 days they decide they are all set and thank us for the help, I’ll say ‘Perfect, and all we require out of it is a testimonial.’”
I’m a big believer in value-adding. The more you give, the more you get back. We’ve got three startups we’re working right now that came through our program. And so, that’s exciting.
Startup Summit is an education events-based company. Our whole motto is to help startups learn practical ideas and topics and apply those to their startup to help them to have the best chance of success. Our whole business model is built around in-person events. We knew that we had to change the way we do things. It is exciting to be more virtual because when working with startups it’s hard to get them out of the office to an event in the first place. They have their heads down and have too much going on. I always thought virtual events would be a good place to go.
We just successfully held our first half-day virtual Startup Summit conference on May 1. We’re also building an Angel List-type feature for startups in the area to get access to outside investors.
3. What is your favorite coffee spot?
Stewart’s Bistro in Wake Forest.
4. What keeps you up at night?
From a business standpoint, I don’t worry much about things. I’m a big believer in TM Meditation and being grateful for what you have. We’re all so blessed to be even born in this country, to have the opportunities we all have so I tend to try to not worry about things that are out of my control. Reading at night is a big thing for me, too. I’m blessed with what I have, so there’s really nothing to worry about because each day is an opportunity for something better. And that’s the way I approach each day.
5. What is your favorite restaurant or happy hour?
Over the Falls in Wake Forest. My wife and I are both from Buffalo, New York, and Niagara Falls is 10 minutes away. When we first moved here into Wake Forest, we found this restaurant in downtown called Over the Falls and the owners are from Niagara Falls, so it has a very Buffalo flair to it and makes us feel like we’re back at home, and so that’s our favorite place to go. We are supporting them now during the pandemic.
6. What is next for you or your organization?
What’s next for Successive Technologies is just trying to find ways to keep innovating, adding value, building strategic partnerships and growing.
And from Startup Summit’s standpoint, it’s how do we take the environment that we’re working in today and go with the environment to add value? Whether that’s through virtual events, whether that’s through building new features, whatever it is. That’s what my focus has been with both—trying to find out, What do my target clients need and how can we build messaging and build tools that are going to make them successful moving forward?
