David Baxter is known to many in the Triangle and beyond as the “Chief Pixel” at Big Pixel.
For those who may not be familiar, Big Pixel is a Wake Forest-based company that offers software solutions and additional strategic support for tech-driven startups. (In the interest of full disclosure, they have also sponsored GrepBeat events.)
Working in this space and helping countless founders and startups find their footing, Baxter noticed that, as he put it, every business owner he was talking to had the same problem:
“The answers they need are sitting right there in their own data but they can’t get to them without calling on someone technical. And that [technical] person is always slammed. So decisions get made on gut feel, or they just get delayed.”
In an effort to solve this problem (and by way of “playing with all these new AI tools”), Baxter wound up working toward his own startup for the first time. It’s called Teela, and Baxter describes its function as being akin to “giving everyone on your team their own data analyst.”
A “nerd tool for non-nerds”
As a longtime developer now armed with AI, Baxter set out to build Teela on his own (though he named Chip Royce and Clark Dudek as key advisors and shouted out CivicReach Co-Founder Chip Kennedy, DeShawn Brown of Coworks, Primordial’s own Jenn Summe, and the Big Pixel team for additional support and FourScore for legal assistance). His goal was to create a solution that would be useful to those who may not be as technologically inclined or experienced.
“There are a lot of ‘nerd tools for nerds,’” Baxter said. “But I believe that the real need for this is with the non-technical user. Companies are spending real money collecting data, storing data, paying people to manage data, and then most of the people who actually run the business can’t touch it.”
He also identified trust as a common problem when it comes to data visibility and interpretation.
“If you do get an answer, how do you know it’s right? How do you know the tool actually understands your business and not just some generic version of it? That’s the part that keeps people going back to their IT team.
“Teela aims to solve both,” Baxter said of the dual issues of access and trust. “We get you access and we make sure the answer actually means something to your specific business.” He added that everything Teela does can be “verified and validated” by a company’s IT team, such that if anything is wrong it can be fixed easily.
Where the “nerd tool for non-nerds” factor comes into play is in Teela’s simplicity of use. The platform is built such that users can simply ask questions in plain English and receive clear, actionable responses.
Furthermore, when queried with something deeper or more complex, the platform can tap into its recently released “exploration mode” to help the user flesh out the topic.
Baxter said this feature is not triggered by a specific command but rather implemented automatically when necessary. If a user asks, for instance, “Why did my revenue go down last month?” Teela recognizes a deep question, breaks it down, and makes inquiries to approach the problem from different angles.
Building to stand out
Baxter acknowledged that there is competition in the space Teela aims to occupy. He noted that this tells him the problem is real, however, and explained that he’s not trying to be a first mover so much as offer a better solution.
“What makes us different from most of these tools (even the AI ones),” he said, “is that they are figuring out your data from scratch every single time you ask a question. They don’t really know your business.
“When you connect to Teela, we learn your system up front, your terminology, your structure, what your company calls things. So when your sales manager asks how her top accounts are doing, Teela already knows what that means in your world. It’s not guessing every time.”
As of this writing, Teela is in beta, but already has active pilots and is searching for more paid beta users.
What’s next for Teela?
Baxter described himself more or less like the infamous “longtime listener, first-time caller” to a radio program or podcast—but for founding.
“It’s funny,” he said. “I have been a mentor, judge, advisor, and everything else to startups for over a decade now…. But I have never actually started my own ‘till now and it is truly a humbling experience.”
QUICK BITS
Startup: Teela
Founder: David Baxter
Founded: 2025
Location: Wake Forest
Website: teela.ai
Funding: Bootstrapped
That humility is leading Baxter to cover all his bases as he continues to refine Teela. He is bootstrapping the startup (though not ruling out investment) and applying to local accelerator programs.
But he’s also selling a product that he sees coming into shape.
“We released our latest version the other day and I feel like Teela finally started to match what has been living in my head the last six-plus months,” he said. “Being able to ask your data deep “why” questions is really cool to watch.
Those interested can join the beta or book a free demo at Teela’s website.
