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Standing Strong

Concrete certainly seems awfully strong. But are buildings constructed of traditional concrete sturdy enough to deal with the impacts of natural disasters or targeted attacks, both of which have become more common? Unfortunately, the answer can frequently be no. Fortunately, Cary-based 360° Ballistics has developed an innovative process for making concrete that can absorb much greater force without crumbling.
 
The applications vary from “shoot houses” on military and police training installations that are specifically designed for live-fire exercises; to public buildings that need to be hardened to withstand potential attacks from bullets, bombs or careening vehicles; to multi-million-dollar homes built on hurricane-prone coastlines. Read our full story on 360° Ballistics here.

In The Soup

Its first week was such a hit that our In The Soup podcast is back for a second week. (OK, it wasn’t a trial period; like the Friday Nooner, In The Soup is intended to be a weekly program with some periodic hiatuses.) This week’s topic is how a startup can recruit and hire its first employees. Host Jenn Summe (Primordial) and her “sidekick” Melissa Crosby welcome this week’s expert—serial entrepreneur and former Friday Nooner guest Matt Williamson, currently the Founder and CEO of Plum CoOwnership and before that of Windsor Circle—to address the topic.
 
You can listen (and subscribe!) here.

Personal Touch

If you and your startup/business want to send handwritten notes to clients and other key contacts this holiday season but don’t want to actually, you know, write out cards by hand, Raleigh’s Levitate has got your back. The Jes Lipson-founded-and-led startup has announced a new offering: handwritten cards. Or maybe we should say “hand"-written, because the text is generated by AI-assisted software and the physical “writing” is done by a robot. TechWire has all the details.
 
Hey, we get it, writing is hard. But here’s a pro tip from recent experience sending out a bunch of handwritten notes: it’s harder than ever to find company addresses post-pandemic. Lots of companies changed locations or dropped a physical office altogether without “telling” the internet or updating the contact info on their own sites. So I don’t recommend trying to send that thank you note or holiday card as a total surprise; make sure you confirm a current address before you send anything, or you’re asking for a bunch of return-to-senders. Or have a robot do it, I guess.

To The Top

Epic Games has just “beaten” Apple on one front of its ongoing legal battle—the Cary-based game developer has officially petitioned the Supreme Court to weigh in on the case. Apple had said in a July court filing that it also planned to take the case to the Supreme Court, but it hasn’t in fact done so yet. (Though its 90-day window to do so hasn’t yet expired.)
 
The Supreme Court only takes up a small fraction of the cases it receives each year, but the stakes in this one are pretty high, so there’s a chance this could be one of the “lucky” ones. At issue, you’ll likely recall, is whether Apple’s (and Google’s) app stores can essentially maintain mini-monopolies as the only way for phone owners to download apps and pay for services within those apps going forward. Epic Games, for instance, wants to sell “skins” and other in-game items for Fortnite directly to game players on the iPhone on its own payment platform rather than via the App Store—for which Apple historically took a 30% cut. Apple’s argument is that it needs to control what apps go on iPhones and at least some elements of their ongoing operation (including payments) to keep them safe and secure for users, and that costs money.
 
Apple has won most, but not all, elements of the previous court battles. Now the clock is officially started to see if the Supreme Court will weigh in, or if the legal case is officially over. See the N&O or MacRumors for more.

BREAKING! OK, here's something that the GrepBeat Godfather pointed out just before we hit send: TechCrunch is reporting that Epic Games is laying off 16% of its workforce, affecting almost 900 people. CEO Tim Sweeney tells employees that it's because the company has been spending way more than it takes in to invest in a metaverse-fueled future, but revenue from those initiatives obviously hasn't kicked in soon enough to keep that up without cuts on the expense side that affect jobs.

 

Build Great Software

Founded by serial entrepreneurs, Dualboot is a software and business development company. Their clients include tech and non-tech founders as well as Fortune 500 companies, so they can start small or scale fast depending on what you need. Every client is assigned a U.S.-based Product Director with years of experience bringing products to market, and they can manage the entire development process. They focus on how the software fits into your company to drive revenue and build the business. At Dualboot, they don’t just write your software—they help you grow your business. Intrigued? Email them here.

Extra Bit

GrepBeat is excited to sponsor the Startup Community Mixer that American Underground and Google For Startups are hosting on Thursday, Oct. 12, at AU in downtown Durham. (That's two weeks from today.) In addition to food and drinks from 5-7 p.m., there will be a short panel discussion on AI and Ethics in Entrepreneurship featuring a Duke professor and Google AI exec. The event will also celebrate the Black Founders Exchange program that’s sponsored by Google For Startups and run out of AU; that program will conclude the following day in a Demo Day event. Here’s the Eventbrite to register for the free event.

Because too much news is never enough.

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