Friday Nooner: Alpacasews CEO Emily Foster’s Budding Plushie Empire (And Love of Clouds)

Today on the Friday Nooner, co-hosting trio Joe Colopy, Melissa Crosby, and Kaitlyn Dang got us started with some conversation about CED’s GRO Demo Day, which took place Thursday evening (and which you can read more about here). Somehow this led to the revelations that Joe believes he’s going to die at 86 and Kaitlyn was a talented viola…ist… in high school. Evidently there’s now potential for a future musical episode on which Kaitlyn plans her instrument and I honk through an oboe reed.

I hopped on next for an update on the week at GrepBeat.com. This week, that meant another fresh edition of the Monday Mix, original feature stories on startups CN-Seamless, Lumos (based in Wilmington), and Ooga Technologies, and the previously alluded to recap of GRO Demo Day.

Finally we got to the important part and welcomed this week’s guest: Emily Foster, the Founder and CEO of Alpacasews. Emily took us through her journey: from a pursuit of meteorology driven by a love of clouds, through the Andrews Launch Accelerator program at NC State, and ultimately to adorable plushie designs that have fueled her startup (and earned her internet fame). She also teased some Black Friday activity and an upcoming “12 Days of Plushies” promotion you’ll want to learn more about. It has to do with helping cats.

Watch the full episode on LinkedIn here or on Facebook here.

About David Schwartz 134 Articles
David is the Managing Editor at GrepBeat covering Triangle tech startups and entrepreneurs. Before pivoting to journalism, he worked for a London-based digital agency, where he wrote roughly one quarter of the content you see on the internet. Outside of work, David enjoys sports and movies a little too much.