Launch tour opens local doors to students

Launch Chapel Hill runs three sessions a year to help innovators get their ventures up and running. But the award-winning startup accelerator’s summer session is specifically geared to help Carolina student entrepreneurs. For eight to 10 weeks, the teams receive free mentoring, intensive programming and downtown office space in the Innovate Carolina Junction at 136 E. Rosemary St.

This year, for the first time, the summer cohort also took a little trip: a short walk down Franklin and Rosemary streets to meet Tar Heel and Launch alumni who opened their ventures downtown.

“You may have walked by them on your way to lunch or meeting up with friends and never realized what was behind that door,” said Ian Baltutis, Launch executive director, to students gathered at the Junction before the tour. “We’re excited today to open that door and introduce you to all that’s going on behind it.”

Over the next few hours, the students glimpsed future possibilities as they met and asked questions of local entrepreneurs. They peeked behind the scenes at businesses launched to sell authentic bagels (Brandwein’s Bagels) and kombucha (Boro Bodega), to help lawyers select jury members (Jury-X) and to use data to personalize health care (Well Digital). They also visited Carolina graduates from the spring Launch cohort who renovated an improv club into a place to hatch business ideas (The Pitch) and fellow students in the current cohort who deliver essentials like energy drinks and ramen to campus by bike (Speedi).

They heard how these entrepreneurs pivoted, recovered from mistakes, adjusted course, managed growth or started over — the joys and headaches of starting your own company.

At the pre-tour panel discussion, Ogugua Nwaezeigwe, director of internal development at Eats2Seats, from the Launch summer 2021 cohort, shared how her company adjusted its mission as they saw the need to match people and jobs. Started as a concessions business, “now we’re a staffing solution,” she said.

The current Launch students are well on their way to being their own bosses, working this summer to electrify skateboards, develop a website extension for job searches and encourage team building with a card-based improvisational game that makes fun of corporate culture (Cubicle).

“Cubicle was actually born out of one of the problems we faced, which was team building within the company,” said sophomore Daniel Rabinovich, who co-founded Underscore Games during the pandemic with his friend, Philip Vishnevsky, and a totally remote staff.

Chris Salazar ’24 is one of the co-founders of Speedi. (Jon Gardiner/UNC-Chapel Hill)

Speedi, another team in the summer cohort, was also a stop on the walking tour. Chris Salazar ‘24 and senior Eli Lippman showed off their second-floor storage space stocked with 800 products and amber bags with a lightning logo. The premise is simple: For a $1.99 fee, from an app order to your hands in 15 minutes. “It’s delivery with a smile,” Salazar said.

With their launch last fall, Speedi joined a very special group of Tar Heel entrepreneurs who stayed close to home and are now sharing their experience with others. Their unofficial cheerleader is Alex Brandwein, who provided lunch to the group from his bagel shop.

“I want to invest in this community that has given so much to me,” the native New Yorker said of his adopted home of Chapel Hill. “Unlike other places, Chapel Hill genuinely supports people in any way it can, and so, whenever I have the chance, I try to pay it forward, too.”

Tim Flood, director of Launch startup accelerators and Kenan-Flagler Business School associate professor, celebrates these local entrepreneurs and their generosity. “Every single one of the success stories we have from Launch gives back,” he said. “It’s a give and a get across the community.”

(Jon Gardiner/UNC-Chapel Hill)