We turn the page on another year here at GrepBeat by taking our annual look at the top stories of 2023, as defined by most views. True to our mission, the list skews toward profiles of early-stage startups, but with a flavor of Triangle Tech’s OGs (SAS and Red Hat).
Stay tuned after the list for more fun facts about this year’s grepbeat.com traffic and for links to past most-read lists.
Here are the 20 most-read stories of 2023 on GrepBeat, with added color on the top 10:
1. One Triangle-Based Startup Reimagines The Way We Do Homeownership (Nov. 21)—It’s no surprise there was plenty of interest in this real estate tech startup from the team behind First, which was successfully acquired in late 2019 by real estate giant RE/MAX.
2. Raleigh’s Data Bull Has An Answer For Nonprofits And SMBs Drowning In Data (Sept. 7)—While we’re not sure how a startup with “Bull” in the name is based in Raleigh and not Durham, plenty of folks wanted to read about this business intelligence (BI) startup.
3. Meet Beeloo, The Holly Springs Startup That Will Get Your Kids Off Screens (Feb. 23)—Beeloo’s “printables” are fun, educational and can get your kids to put pen/pencil/crayon to paper, three reasons that they also made our 2023 GrepBeat Holiday Gift Guide.
4. The Download: Jack Thompson, Head of U.S. Financial Services, SAS (Aug. 22)—Jack was the first SAS employee ever featured or quoted on grepbeat.com; in fact I’ve never even seen CEO Jim Goodnight or any senior exec at the famously cloistered Cary-based tech giant in person in my 5+ years at GrepBeat. Judging by this story’s traffic, there was some pent-up demand, or at least some solid sharing within the walls of SAS.
5. Triangle High School Students Win TYE Global Contest For Drug-Detecting Device (Sept. 5)—I learned from this story that these are all actual high schools in Cary: “Green Level High School,” “Green Hope High School” and the generically named “Cary High School.” It’s easy to confuse the first two, and the existence of the last means that if you’re trying to compress words in a headline and shorten “High School Students From Cary” to “Cary High School Students” you better make sure they actually go to Cary High School.
6. How Social Media Marketer Is Utilizing AI To Create Video Marketing Platform (July 25)—It was a big year for Syllaby and Founder/CEO Austin Armstrong in GrepBeat World. The platform launched earlier this year; we wrote this story in July; our sister company Primordial announced a seed investment in Syllaby in August; in September, we named Syllaby one of our 2023 Startups To Watch; and Austin was a Friday Nooner guest in November.
7. New Chapel Hill-based VC Focuses On Investing In Female Founders (Jan. 26)—Ryan Perlowin, the Founder of Jemison Alexander—the name comes from the middle names of his two kids—is another Friday Nooner guest. And he put the Forever Grep gift card he received for being a guest to excellent use (see picture).
8. The Download: Bob Young, Co-Founder of Red Hat, Founder and Chairman of Lulu (March 21)—If one was constructing a Mount Rushmore of Triangle Tech, Bob Young would be a no-doubt selection for one of the four slots. So would SAS’ Jim Goodnight. Let the debate start for the other two.
9. Need To Check If A Candidate’s Degree Has ‘Validity’? This Startup Can Help (Sept. 14)—Validity founders and recent Duke grads Mike Liu and Michael Cutro—aka “the Mikes”—are the youngest founders in the top 10.
10. Digital Nomads, Meet Tiny Home Community Builder Nomad Development (Feb. 16)—If a focus group was trying to come up with something that tapped into the trends of tiny homes, remote/hybrid work and “digital nomads,” it would probably look a lot like Nomad Development.
Here are 11-20:
11. Write This Down: Arete Aims To Innovate Traditional Journaling (March 2)
12. Man’s Best Friends Have New Ally In Serial Entrepreneur’s Latest Startup (Jan. 3)
13. Raleigh Startup Uses AI To Help Busy Couples Make A Habit Out Of Date Night (May 18)
14. With UNC Ties, Shipal Brings Affordable International Shipping To Latin America (Jan. 12)
15. Primordial Launches To Invest In Early-Stage Tech Startups In Triangle (April 4)
16. Project Trace Aims To Make It Easier To Be An Everyday Environmentalist (Feb. 14)
17. With Nanode’s New Battery Tech, Will Flying Cars Finally Begin Taking Flight? (March 16)
18. College-Bound Students Can Better Chart Their Course With Undecided (June 27)
19. HeirShares Portal Helps Families Manage Real Estate Across Generations (Aug. 29)
20. NC State Student Launches Affordable, Online Tutoring Platform TutorSmith (June 22)
More fun facts
The 20 most-read stories of the year came from seven different writers, the broadest spread in GrepBeat history. Five were written by former intern Claire Perry (byline: Suzannah Claire Perry). Four each were written by Kaitlyn Dang and Jackie Sizing, though all four of Kaitlyn’s were in the top 10, including the top two and three of the top five.
Two each came from former interns Abby Pender and Sierra President and from Download workhorse Brooks Malone of the newly rebranded EisnerAmper (which has acquired Hughes Pittman Gupton). Finally, one was written by our summer intern, Lauren Zola.
The months that were reflected most often on the list, helped in part by the long tail of stories adding reads over time:
T1. Jan/Feb/March/Sept (3);
T5. June/Aug (2);
T7. April/May/July/Nov (1). (No stories from October or December.)
The most-visited page on the site in 2023—as opposed to an individual story—was the Grep-a-palooza page. The most-viewed story overall was actually the same as the most-read story in 2022: this “Where Are They Now?” story on Organic Transit’s pedal-powered vehicle, the Elf. My theory for why that still gets so much traffic is that the main image features Organic Transit Founder Rob Cotter posing in front of an Elf with Tesla’s two co-founders, neither of whom are Elon Musk, who acquired the company and named himself CEO. I suspect it comes up in Google searches of “who really founded Tesla” or “did Elon Musk found Tesla.”
Here are the Most-Read Lists from 2022, 2021, 2020, 2019 and 2018.
Thanks to our readers for following us through another year! See you in 2024.
