Woo-hoo! We’re hitting a milestone today by sending out the 500th GrepBeat newsletter since our first edition on Aug. 7, 2018. Thanks for taking this journey with us!
Knowledge Sharers
As a high schooler, Austin Ketola was surprised to learn that rates for online tutors approached $100/hour. Now that he’s an NC State student, the alum of the North Carolina School of Science and Mathematics is doing something about making tutoring more affordable with his startup, TutorSmiths. Austin is participating in the summer cohort of NC State’s Andrews Launch Accelerator.
With colleges and universities fighting the stark demographics of a shrinking cohort of potential students, it’s become more important to them than ever to keep their alumni engaged. Cary-based Varsity Bridge is the latest startup to tackle that problem. As a longtime member and current president of the Triangle chapter of Virginia Tech alumni, Varsity Bridge Founder and CEO Ken Hoes has insight into the challenges and potential solutions. Varsity Bridge—which is participating in the current cohort of the RIoT Accelerator Program (RAP)—is especially focused on in-person events.
UNC alum Ritwik Pavan was first featured in GrepBeat in November, 2018, when his pitch for tech-driven parking startupVADE won first place at the Carolina Challenge for student startups. That already qualified him as a serial entrepreneur since he’d launched software design and development agency Linker Logic Technologies back in 2014 and created the hit iOS game Flappy Yeet while in high school.
Now based in Austin, Ritwik came out of stealth mode this week with his newest startup, Krava, which is in the modular construction space. It’s starting by taking beta orders for its K1 unit, a standalone, souped-up shed that can be assembled by a licensed contractor in less than four hours and used as anything from a home office to a personal gym to a podcast studio. The K1 is also intended to be a beachhead for a broader mission to disrupt the homebuilding industry. Check out Ritwik’s Twitter thread introducing Krava here, or the Krava site here—where you can reserve your K1.
Momentum-NCCU
North Carolina Central University (NCCU) is partnering with Durham-based coding school Momentum to offer a job training program in software engineering to eligible Durham residents. The 24-week, part-time training program will run from Sept. 18, 2023 through March 22, 2024. The initiative is fully funded via a grant from the National Telecommunications and Information Administration.
Momentum and NCCU have an ask for the GrepBeat community—they’re seeking companies to get involved to provide guest lectures, field trips, mock interviews and future job opportunities for the students during and after the program. You can find more detail on the program here.
Spiffy Moves
Finding, hiring and retaining quality employees is a challenge for every kind of company these days. RTP-based Spiffy is making moves to enhance its mission of being the “employer of choice” for automotive services professionals. Spiffy is promoting Nicole Haight—a past guest on our Tech Culture Club podcast—to Chief People Office and naming Sheri Peck as its new head of Talent Acquisiton. You can read more about the moves here.
New HQ Sought
We mentioned a few weeks back that Citrix is leaving its downtown Raleigh office at 120 West Street. Now real estate firm CBRE | Raleigh is teaming with both the Economic Development Partnership of North Carolina and Wake County Economic Development to try to lure a new corporate HQ to fill the 170,000 square feet spread across several floors. See TechWire for more info.
Awards Time
Raleigh-based Allstacks has earned recognition from the Summer 2023 survey of customers on G2, the world’s largest software marketplace. Allstacks won badges as the “easiest software company to do business with” and “best estimated ROI when using the platform.” We named Allstacks to our 2022 Startups To Watch list and also welcomed Co-Founder and CEO Hersh Tapadia as a Friday Nooner guest last summer. See more about the G2 news here.
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
So Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg might be fighting each other in a literal cage? Two reactions: 1) I’m sick of tech billionaires trying to suck the oxygen out of our communal room by dominating the headlines; 2) I’d totally watch. Pro tip: Bet on Zuck.
Real talk: doing our best to serve you costs money. Businesses and organizations that would like to support our efforts should see our sponsorship opportunities here.
