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RDSW has come and gone, another high-energy week of hanging out with luminaries in the local startup community. Normally I just freeload off of all the hard work done by the folks at Raleigh Founded, the American Underground, and the other sponsors, but this year I decided to give back a little and help out.
This the first year Startup Week has expanded to the 5th day. Monday was a soft start to the craziness, with a grab bag of workshop session scattered across the Triangle from Durham to Cary. I went to Innovate Carolina Junction for Fadi Hindi's session on the Art of Effective Prompt-Writing for Generative AI. I've been going to a lot of AI-focused talks and meetups in preparation from my talk at UX Yall last September, and have kept in the habit. Fadi is a man who wears many hats - consultant, professor, founder, etc. - and he shared his thoughts on this new technology from the perspective of a 30+ year career in tech. Great information, and my only regret is there was another session scheduled directly after, as we were getting deep in the tactical weeds on how to craft effective AI prompts when the session ended.
I was on the check-in table handing out badges. We hit a snag early on when it turned out that the piles of badges had been separated alphabetically (piles from A-Z) but had not been sorted alphabetically within the stacks. Long lines ensued as the first rush of people arrived, but after the initial rush we were able to do some frantic sorting and bring order (somewhat) to the chaos.
Following the crush, we had a well-deserved M Sushi lunch with design friends and hit up the afternoon sessions as attendees. A highlight for me was the "You Have Users, But Do You Have a Business?" panel. The panelists included a David Baron of Nugget (a physical product startup, one of which is in my daughter's bedroom), Adam Smith of Wrangle (A B2B SaaS startup), and Anna Wilson (currently at Duke University, but spoke about her experience with Silicon Valley B2C products like DoorDash). Not only was each panelist very successful and articulate about their own success, but they brought sharply different perspectives to the issues discussed. (Certainly I've never heard a digial product CEO talk about the wisdom in "letting demand bottle up" instead of committing to scale to meet it, but for the Nugget that was an incredibly successful strategy).
We closed with the GrepBeat Happy Hour at Bull McCabe's and dinner at Queeny's (after a failed attempt to eat at the closed-on-Tuesdays Thaiangle).
Morning was running the check-in table again. This time went smoother because (a) we'd handed out over 600 badges the day before; (b) piles were mostly alphabetized; and (c) I knew alphabetization would be a problem again and arrived early to sort everything. We did run out of plastic badge holders at around 9:30 am, but a quick run to Staples by the American Underground team put us back in business after a short delay.
My afternoon highlight was another panel, this one on selling using social media. Again the panelists were smart and had different perspectives - Darren McKee (LinkedIn), Aaron Dinin (Instagram), and Niki Shamdasani & Ritika Shamdasani (TikTok) had knowledge to drop around how the different platforms worked and what strategies were best. Shoutout to Darren in particular, because I learned more about LinkedIn content creation from my 15-min conversation with him at happy hour the day before than I had in my entire previous 13 years on the platform.
I had some project work to get done, so I skipped the day entirely. (Full disclosure: My energy levels were crashing and I didn't have the stamina to brave I-40 to Raleigh)
One of my client meetings got moved, so I took it as a sign and got in the car. My first time visiting Raleigh Founded, which is a very cool space and MUCH bigger than I thought it was initially. Winding my way back to "The Annex" for the Product track had me checking over my shoulder for wandering minotaurs.
I attended two Product-focused panels:
1. Product Research and Design Thinking with Haley Ahokas, Abby Bouchon Daniels, and Marcia Olson (moderated by Sujay Kansagra).
2. Design is not your Differentiator (unless it is) with Jacob Waites, Dano Spano, and Matthew Mocniak (moderated by Fadi Hindi)
Both sessions were solid - I always enjoy hearing other designers and product people talk shop (and Jacob's portfolio site needs to be seen to be believed - very fresh take in a world full of cookie-cutter templates). Unfortunately I left my notebook in my car so I don't have the highlights written down :(.
Of course it wouldn't be a high-quality conference week without a wrap party - everyone went around the corner to Devolve to have a few drinks and chat with new and old connections. Lots of good energy, motivated people, and fun conversations!
If you didn't make it out this year, put it on your calendar for next year because this event is a priority for folks in the RDU tech / startup space. Connect with me on LinkedIn if we didn't sync up during the event - always happy to make time for folks who want to talk.
Cheers,
Erik
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Also I’m on bluesky now: https://bsky.app/profile/ejexpress.bsky.social
