Welcome to “A Vibrant Chapel Hill, Today and Tomorrow!” a monthly interview series with Chapel Hill’s Economic Development and Parking Services office, exclusively on 97.9 The Hill WCHL & Chapelboro.com.
Every month you’ll get updates from department staff and special guests, to learn about initiatives the town is taking to ensure a Vibrant Chapel Hill, Today and Tomorrow.
This month’s special guest is Ian Baltutis, director of Launch Chapel Hill!
Listen to the full conversation with Aaron Keck or read the transcript below, which is lightly edited for clarity.
Aaron Keck: Today we are talking about Launch Chapel Hill, a startup accelerator and community of innovators, encouraging individual empowerment, innovative thinking, and helping businesses get off the ground and survive and thrive, and now expanding its mission to help even more businesses as well. Ian Baltutis is the Director of Launch Chapel Hill. He was the mayor of Burlington, formerly a Chapel Hill town employee, now back in Chapel Hill, leading this great organization as it gets close to celebrating 10 years in operation. Ian, thank you so much for being here today.
Ian Baltutis: Thank you for having me.
Keck: First of all, tell us about yourself. That was the five second summary of your resume.
Baltutis: I’m a serial entrepreneur and if you’re not familiar with what that means, it means I get distracted and bored, and love wearing a lot of hats and exploring a lot of opportunities. In my 15 year professional entrepreneurship career, I started with product design, I studied at Elon University and invented pads to go under washing machines to absorb vibration. That was my senior capstone project. I won a business plan competition with that, Shark Tank style, got some funding, and the rest has been a wonderful adventure of starting a brewery and restaurant, working on some downtown businesses, and exploring how we do economic development in communities and community building through entrepreneurship.
Keck: What brought you to Launch?
Baltutis: I came to UNC-Chapel Hill to do a master’s degree in city planning after my six years as mayor (of Burlington.) I love local government, I love making better communities, so I wanted to go sharpen the saw. Spent two years here (in Chapel Hill) studying city planning and started getting connected with the Launch community.
Keck: Launch now hitting its 10 year anniversary, which is a super exciting time to be taking over and starting to shift its mission and expand its mission.
Baltutis: We have a wonderful foundation, those 10 years of building Launch Chapel Hill from just a small coworking space in downtown to now this wonderful community of alumni and successful businesses all over North Carolina and the country. It’s exciting to pivot now. We used to be a coworking space. We are now within the Innovate Carolina Junction space downtown, which gives us the flexibility to shift the organization to continue our accelerator. It is the longest running business accelerator in North Carolina. We do a fall, spring, and summer cohorts. We’re closing up applications right now, but that extra capacity allows us to focus on the entrepreneurial ecosystem and what that is. That’s the community. That’s all the different folks, whether they consider themselves entrepreneurs or not. They have an idea. They’re looking to create it. Maybe it’s a new landscaping company. Maybe it’s a lifestyle business. Maybe it’s a high growth FinTech or life sciences company. When we all play together and are all supported and mentored together, we create a really cool community, and a great place to live and Launch Chapel Hill has the capacity to pivot and support entrepreneurs of all walks of life.
Keck: You mentioned the Innovate Carolina Junction, the new big building in downtown Chapel Hill.
Baltutis: 136 East Rosemary, beautifully redone building. Amazing space. Come by and check us out.
Keck: What’s the finished product going to be like there and what’s Launch’s place within it?
Baltutis: It’s a coworking space plus more. It’s an innovation and collaborative space. Really it’s a coming together of university folks, community folks, and inspired minds. So if you’re looking to find that next inspiration or find members for your team, it’s that central gathering place for the community. We encourage you to come on by, check it out. There’s office space to rent there, but more importantly, there’s a community of mentors and programs like our accelerator, but so much more. Wherever you are on your entrepreneurial journey, that’s the right door to walk in, and we’re here to help connect you with whoever you need to talk to, whatever resources you need to keep on your journey,
Keck: That expansion to cover more entrepreneurs, more businesses, more categories of businesses, that’s a long-term goal. What’s your goal for the next six months, the next 12 months?
Baltutis: The next six months are about creating a place to gather. Holding specific events, some morning coffee sessions, some evening speaker series. When somebody walks in our door with a business idea, that may be the wrong idea, but they might be the right person. And so we look at our program as supporting investing in that person and that team because they’re going to strike out a couple times, most likely in their entrepreneurial process. And that’s fine. We learn from our failures. These events that we’re putting together over the next six months are designed for folks to learn from each other, inspire each other when you’re down in the trenches. And it’s hard to find that energy to keep going. We’re excited when folks are willing to tell their story about change and failure and what they learned from the process.
Keck: As an entrepreneur, how do you define success?
Baltutis: Success is really what drives you. If somebody walks into our office and says, I want to make a million dollars and have a yacht, you probably don’t actually have the fortitude to keep pushing through when times are tough. But when you truly identify with the problem that you’re trying to solve in the community, then that will drive you through, because there are so many long nights and hard days as an entrepreneur where you didn’t even realize you were going to run up against the issues you’re running up against. And so you have to find that inner passion and drive that really makes you want to keep going. And when you find that, when you find people who inspire you and who help you zero in on why you’re doing this, then you’re going to find success eventually.
Keck: Launch has been a center for entrepreneurship for now 10 years, celebrating that anniversary this year. For folks out there who may be intrigued by this conversation, maybe thinking about going and seeing you, getting in touch, who’s the right person and when’s the right time to say today’s the day to get in touch with Launch Chapel Hill?
Baltutis: I would say today. We take a mindset of no wrong door. If you walk into Launch’s office at Innovate Carolina Junction, we are there to help connect you. We may not be the right person for this moment, but we will get you in touch with that person, with that organization to help you on your journey. There’s so many wonderful resources, organizations, and support systems in our community, and we’re here to help connect it, so you don’t have to feel like you have to figure everything out on your own. You’ve got a wonderful team and partner in Launch Chapel Hill.
Keck: Anything else that folks should know about Launch today or tomorrow in the future?
Baltutis: Just keep thinking about us. And as you have friends, family, other folks who are coming up with that unique idea to make our community cool and exciting, we’re here to help.
Aaron Keck and Ian Baltutis
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