In this week’s episode of the Friday Nooner, Pete and Joe discuss our 2021 “Startups to Watch” honorees, Raleigh’s new Office of Strategy and Innovation, and—most importantly— the drink selections from our “Startups to Watch” event.
Our featured guest Josh Owen, the CEO of Cycle Labs, started off the evening at last night’s event with white wine before having an IPA and a glass of Cabernet. Oh, and back to his company: Cycle Labs is a software startup that focuses on modernizing the deployment of enterprise software.
Here are some highlights from today’s episode:
- GrepBeat announced our 2021 “Startups to Watch” list last night at an invite-only event held at The Pit in Downtown Durham. With 71 nominated startups, we had to add a secondary category for newcomers along with the main list. Joe and Pete went through all the honorees, but you can see the names yourself here.
- Pete brought up the City of Raleigh’s quest to hire a leader to run the newly formed Office of Strategy and Innovation. The office’s projected annual budget is $397,474, which includes about $135K for operating expenses, with the rest put toward salaries and benefits. That led to a conversation about grants from organizations, such as Innovate Raleigh, to Triangle media outlets—and how GrepBeat hasn’t received any.
- Josh joined the pair in the last 10 minutes. He discussed Cycle Labs and the spin-out journey from Tryon Solutions, which he founded back in 2009. Josh said it was a natural progression, as most of their employees are from Tryon. Our “Startups to Watch” event also got his stamp of approval, or as he put it: “a welcomed opportunity to see other humans.”
- This episode clarified that Pete is not welcome to Joe’s (theoretical) coffee shop. As Joe likes to say, “If you know, you know.” (No, we don’t really know what he means either.)
Watch the full episode on Facebook here, or on LinkedIn here.
Or on YouTube:
