Housing and construction has been in the news a lot over the past few days. And this news has been positive.
The news substantiates discussions I have been having with those I know in the construction industry, both residential and commercial, that construction is on the upswing. Now, I am not saying it is on the late 1990′s, early 2000′s upswing. But then again, look at what ended up happening.
Continue reading “Triangle Construction’s Good News” »
Last Thursday afternoon was the latest installment of Innovate Raleigh, Innovate Raleigh 2013: Building on the Past, Creating the Future. If you are a newer reader to my blog, or just not sure what Innovate Raleigh is, you can get an understanding of it from previous post here and here. Although I have been to several of the meetups over the past year or so, this event was, in my opinion, something special. Most of the previous meetups were evening affairs that informed the community about some industry or something specific that is going on in Raleigh that is innovative in some way. Typically before and after the main event, there was open networking and some good food and drinks as well.
Well, this one still had a great session of open networking and some great food and drinks from Bolt Bistro & Bar. But that was the only thing that was the same.
Continue reading “One Man’s Perspective on Why Innovate Raleigh Is Important” »
Welcome to this series of semi-live blogs from the Triangle Entrepreneurship Week 2012 (#TEW2012) conference in Raleigh and Durham, NC. Any errors, omissions, or silly side comments are my own.
Government Role With Startups
Panel: Derrick Minor (Innovation & Entrepreneurship Manager, Raleigh) Mary-Ann Baldwin, Deborah Ross (NC General Assembly), Bonner Gaylord, Casey Steinbacher (Durham Chamber of Commerce)
Questions were asked of the panel members. These are most of the questions and the answers provided. Continue reading “Triangle Entrepreneurship Week 2012: Government Role With Startup #TEW2012” »
Well, for those of you that visited any portion of Internet Summit this week, you know it was packed with information sessions, panels, keynote speakers, exhibitors, a lot of networking with new connections and old friends, and very cool swag.
Because the conference had so much going on, I am breaking down reviews and highlights of the conference in three blog post. This is the first talking about just the Startup Summit. I will have two more about the Internet Summit Pre-Conference sessions and Internet Summit itself. All the comments are my own take-aways from sessions I listened in on as well as what people at the conference were Tweeting about.
Continue reading “Internet Summit 12: A Review of Startup Summit” »
For regular readers of this blog, not reading something market research related on a Monday morning may seem like you have entered into the Twilight Zone. Well, don’t fret. Because of major conferences in the Raleigh-Durham area over the next two weeks, the blogs will be shorter and related to what I hear about the conferences. My traditional postings will resume the week of November 19.
This week, the fifth year of Internet Summit will be held and, in my opinion, the best of the the two that I have been aware of. Although the conference, as a whole, does not start until it Tuesday, I am already excited about it just on what I am seeing as the setup and who is talking. You can see all the details and the agenda here, but the typically two day conference is now a full three days with the addition of Startup Summit and Preconference Intensive Workshops. Continue reading “Internet Summit 12 Is Here” »
For the regular readers of this blog, you know that I am a huge proponent on start-ups and entrepreneurship. In the past, I have blogged about various events that promoted start-ups and entrepreneurship. This blog is not different. Last night was IdeaMensch, Raleigh edition. IdeaMensch is a community of people who inspire others to act on ideas and the Road Trip is a traveling idea generation platform that covers 48 states, with 50 events over 4 months.
Along with Mario Schulzke, who started IdeaMensch, there were 5 great entrepreneurial speakers about their ventures, opportunities, and things they learned. Here are some quick highlights of all the speakers:
Continue reading “Bring Your Ideas to Life, with IdeaMensch” »
The Raleigh-Cary area is consistently getting top rankings in it seems every ranking by every newspaper, magazine, or study. Again, this week is no different. In a Bloomberg-BusinessWeek article, the Raleigh area ranked #1 for the Best City In America. The article goes into detail in why Raleigh got the top ranking.
For the past 20 months, the Raleigh area has been at or near the top of over 114 list, including more than 10 so far this year. The types of lists ranges from quality of life to residential market quality to various employment clusters to being one of the top funniest cities.
Continue reading “Which Is America’s Best City? Raleigh (Again)” »
I enjoy being in the outdoors. Hiking and camping are two of my hobbies I have had since I was a kid. Well, last night I got the opportunity to hear about RGreenway Raleigh, with an App in process (You can also check them out on Twitter). It will ensure that you never get lost in Raleigh’s and the Triangle’s Greenways. I got to hear about them because last night was another Innovate Raleigh meetup.
The purpose of these meetups is to let people know about the people, companies, and organizations that are being innovative and to help promote Raleigh as a hub of innovation across the country. Continue reading “The Need For Raleigh (and The Triangle) To Be Innovative” »
You would think we would get used to it. ”Get used to what?” you may ask. Well I am not referring to the 100+ degree heat that the city will be experiencing for the next five days. It is to another Top 10 or Top 15 ranking by some outside organization looking in. This time AOL Real Estate included Raleigh in its listing of 15 Cities Where The Future Looks Bright. Why? Jobs, jobs, and more jobs.
Continue reading “Raleigh’s Future Looks Bright” »
On Wednesday evening, The Flying Saucer in Raleigh was packed full of entrepreneurs, startups and throngs of people who want to be near them.
This is just another example of how dynamic Raleigh (and the Triangle) truly is. And based on discussions and interviews with Aaron Gerry and Patrick Shampine, who organized the event, they think so too.
Aaron told WRAL “The big idea is to create a groundswell of support for consumer-facing Triangle startups by connecting the companies with the community at large,” He continues to stay that both he and Patrick “strongly that the Triangle community is stronger if we all work together. We want to help bridge the Durham-Chapel Hill-Raleigh ecoystems through a collective celebration of entrepreneurship.”
“My focus is to foster relationship building and continue to put momentum behind our ever growing startup community in the Triangle,” Shampine told WRAL.
The whole idea of Startup and Play was not only to get people together that had an interest in startups and the entrepreneurial community, but to introduce many of them to the public. People were able to learn about Matt Senter and his new privacy oriented photo sharing, play the newest game “Plight of the Zombie” by Sparkplug Games, or sign up with LiPi’s to be beta testers for their new platform.
The list of Raleigh-based startups include:
Be sure to check out all of the great companies. Although these are not all inclusive, these companies are just an example of the entrepreneurial community in Raleigh and the Triangle.
Let me know what local startups are your favorite.
–J. Nolfo helps companies understand their market and customers though a variety of market research strategies. He has over ten years of experience of market research for strategic planning purposes. He is the Director of Research at Rhino Market Research. He shares his thoughts about market research and business concepts with his blog “Pensare…Understanding Market Research in Business“. If you would like to discuss this blog or how J. can help you understand your market and customer needs, email him at jnolfo@rhinomarketresearch.com.
