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 guests are Ian Baltutis, Director of Launch Chapel Hill, and two of Launch’s current accelerator cohort’s, Michael Truesdale and Judy Batista.
Listen to the full conversation with Aaron Keck or read the transcript below, which is lightly edited for clarity.
Aaron Keck: Today we’re talking about Launch Chapel Hill, the fantastic accelerator that has made such a difference in downtown Chapel Hill and the greater community. And we’ve got three special guests here in the studio. First of all, Ian Baltutis, who’s the director of Launch, thank you again for being back.
Ian Baltutis: Good To be back with you.
Keck: And we’ve got two of the current accelerator cohorts here to talk about their ventures and their experience with Launch as well. Michael Trusdale and Judy Batista. Michael Judy, thank you both so much for being here as well.
Judy Batista: Thank You for having us.
Keck: Ian, let’s start with you. Tell us about the accelerator program, just in general, how it works and, and how people get into it.
Baltutis: Launch is entering our second decade of running a business accelerator in Chapel Hill and Orange County, and we do a Spring and a Fall accelerator. Michael and Judy are part of that program, which is geared towards community entrepreneurs. Anyone starting a business of any scale, lifestyle to growth tech. We’re here to support with our 14-week accelerator. We usually take 10 to 12 startups. We’ve got 20 or so entrepreneurs coming through the program right now. And they’re about halfway through the program.
Keck: And then what is Launch’s role in guiding them?
Baltutis: Launch facilitates the accelerator and works to surround them with a community of mentors and other entrepreneurs and folks who they can go to with their questions. Everybody’s entrepreneurial experience is a little different, and our goal is to help them build a strong network of folks who want them to succeed.
Keck: And we were talking beforehand, a lot of people associate Launch with startups that grow out of the University, but it’s startups that grow out of the community at large. Anyone, right?
Baltutis: Yes. We do community and University. Our summer accelerator, which is taking applications until April 24th, we’ll run from June through August, and is geared towards students and the campus population. But right now, we are running our spring accelerator, and that’s geared towards the larger community.
Aaron Keck, Judy Batitsa, Michael Truesdale, Ian Baltutis
Keck: And we have Michael and Judy here to talk about their ventures. Judy Batista let’s start with you. Tell us about yourself and, and your business.
Batista: Thank you so much. Laughing Monitos is my company. I am a speech language pathologist, and my focus is to close that gap and identify children who may be at high risk for speech delays and provide education to parents in a playgroup setting. I offer my classes through Kidzu Children’s Museum and I host them there. Parents come in, they enjoy playing with their kids, learning about language development, and being with me. That’s Laughing Monitos, and Launch has provided such an incredible opportunity to meet great like-minded people, and just to be in an environment that represents you. As a person of color, I feel that it’s so important to be in a community that represents who you are, all your baggage and all yourself, all your authentic self. I really do love that this is a community that has embraced, supported, and loved me. I’m very happy about that.
Keck: Awesome. What have you gotten the most out of from Launch so far?
Batista: Being in that space. We’re allowed to work at The Junction, and we are offered that coworking space. Being surrounded by like-minded people really makes a difference in your mindset and how motivated you are. Every day you think of something new because you hear someone else that is like-minded sharing ideas. And to be able to bounce off ideas with people that have been successful in something that started as a dream that us now a reality.
Keck: That’s so easy. It’s a lot easier to get motivated when you’re surrounded by other motivated people.
Batista: Absolutely. It energizes you.
Keck: And The Junction, I have to mention is the new space on East Rosemary Street, part of that whole big development that’s going in and that’s open now and is really cool.
Batista: It is beautiful. Everything is so nice about it. The parking, the, the access to food around the area, and just the people that work there are just so friendly, so nice. It feels like home.
Keck: I love the idea of the venture in the first place too, thank you. I had a speech delay when I was growing up and now, I talk for a living. You go through the right people, and you can work through it. What inspired you in the first place?
Batista: Having 16 years in this industry and getting parents that we could have done something for early on, and helped these children early on. Also therapy costs a lot of money, and a lot of parents are having to get into debt to send their kids to speech therapy. The frustration as a therapist, to know when a kid is about to start school and he’s not able to say when he needs to go to the bathroom. That’s a big issue. We need to start working early on their language skills, plus the academic, the kid is now having behavioral problems because they’re frustrated. I wanted to close that gap and provide a space for parents and families just to come and get educated, and play, but with a focus and with a purpose.
Keck: Speaking with Judy Batista, who is one of the members of Launch’s current accelerator cohort, also here from the same cohort is Michael Truesdale, tell us about your business.
Michael Truesdale: I’m the co-founder of SneakPeek, the AI authentication and asset tracking solution for premium collectibles in the secondhand resale market. I know that’s probably sounds like a lot, but essentially the counterfeit market is huge and counterfeit products end up in the hands of unknowing users. With us, we’re bringing transparency and visibility to the marketplaces. If you’ve ever purchased anything from eBay, StockX, The RealReal, and had to question the authenticity of that item, question it no more with SneakPeek.
Keck: How do you do that?
Truesdale: We leverage computer vision and machine learning to detect defects and anomalies in these items.
Keck: So you’re using AI for the power of good.
Truesdale: Our users start with detection, where you can take a single photo and you get the make, the model, the market value and current or re-retail value of an item. From there, our users take a series of photos and we analyze it with our computer vision and machine learning algorithms, and then they get a response within 90 seconds on whether that item is real or fake. And then once verified, we embed unique IDs into each asset, allowing the authenticity to live with it throughout its lifecycle.
Keck: What inspired you to start that?
Truesdale: Many things, so many life experiences between me, my co-founder and myself. My co-founder is my best friend of 23 years. Over the last 23 years that has evolved into more like a brotherhood, and our shared affinity since day one has been our passion for collecting sneakers. In 2016, I was studying abroad in Shanghai, China, and Justin, who’s my co-founder, was there for work. And the stars aligned, being there at the same time, at the same moment, for several weeks on end . During that time, we found ourselves at various markets in China and realizing the counterfeits are really good. And people take these counterfeits home and give them as a gift or sell them. So for us it’s how can we bring a little bit more visibility in to this issue?
Keck: How’d you get into Launch and what have you gotten out of it?
Truesdale: Launch has been a really cool thing that’s been in my sites for a really long time, since I went to UNC. I saw great companies like Spiffy and Carpe, the hand anti-moisture lotion. This was back in 2014, and I was like, wow, Launch is a really cool place with really cool companies doing really cool things. And for me, as an entrepreneur at heart, it was something that I’ve always wanted to be a part of. I have a longstanding relationship with Tim Flood and the mentorship that we’ve received through that from our pitch practices to our value propositions, to our mission statements and putting it all together. Thanks. Launch . Thanks Tim, for the value prop mission statement. And all the things that we’ve covered to date. Just great mentorship, great ecosystem to just be a creative, great community to get feedback from, and understanding when you have a problem. As a full-time founder, there’s always a problem, there’s always a roadblock. And as the priorities change, there are people there to help you work through it and navigate.
Keck: As we wrap up this conversation, Ian , first of all, talk about these two businesses, because these are awesome!
Baltutis: These are awesome businesses, and I think a testament to the scope of businesses that Launch is able to support. As a nonprofit funded by the county, the town, and the University, we’re able to play a long game and invest in the people. Whatever their ideas are coming in the door, we look at the person and the team around them, and how do we help make them successful in this venture and ventures to come.
Keck: If people have their own ideas they want to get in with Launch. Where do they go? What do they do?
Baltutis: They can check out our website: Launch Chapel Hill 3.0 Startup Accelerator and Community of Innovators & Entrepreneurs. We have our summer student accelerator coming up. The applications are open, and then for Fall, we will have another accelerator just like what Judy and Michael are going through. I think entrepreneurship’s a really intimidating word. And I would love to hear Judy and Michael talk a little more about how they have come to consider themselves entrepreneurs or how folks out in the community who may not yet consider themselves an entrepreneur should be thinking about this and how Launch can support them.
Batista: “Entrepreneur,” just that word alone is so intimidating, but I feel that when you surround yourself by the right support it, again, it’s a community, and it really lifts you up to believing in yourself, believing in your idea, and making the changes to really make it marketable. Something that you can actually sustain a family and move forward. So although it has a lot of challenges, requires patience, it tests a lot of your needs, but it’s still a wonderful journey and I wouldn’t change it.
Truesdale: I think for me, “entrepreneurship” is in one word, it’s hard, right? And one thing that we’ve had to realize on this one year and three-month journey is that, if it was easy, everybody would be doing it. And it’s not. It’s an industry and it’s a passion-driven thing that requires endurance. It requires faith, and it really gets hard when you start building things from a personal experience, when you’re building things for people, and navigating through having a balance of where your heart is, where your head is, and what the vision is, and the people that you’re building it for. So I think it’s a passion driven, people-oriented pursuit to create.
Keck: Ian, Michael, Judy, thank you all so much for being with us today.
Batista/ Truesdale/ Baltutis: Thank you.
