If you're looking for advice for early-stage founders from North Carolina ecosystem leaders, don't fret! In The Soup will continue in your earbuds through The GrepBeat Podcast, where we will continue to share the latest and greatest stories, advice, and news for the tech startup communities—all from one place. The podcast includes several of our shows every week. Not sure what they are? Give it a listen and find out for yourself. See you over at The GrepBeat Podcast!

Have you been too busy prepping for the holidays that you forgot to set some goals for the new year? Do you need even more resolutions to think about? In this special holiday edition episode of In The Soup 🍲, hosts Jenn Summe of Primordial and Melissa Crosby of Colopy Ventures explore the different kinds of new year resolutions you can pick up whether in your professional or personal life. They're joined by a few Triangle ecosystem leaders and founders to talk about how they plan to ring in the new year. On today's final episode of the year, Haley Huie of NC State, Parker Mayes of Inbound Revenue and Allison Wood of Davinci Education break down their goals for 2025. And per the words of Melissa in this episode, I can't believe that 2025 is a real year.

In this final episode for the fall season of In The Soup 🍲, hosts Jenn Summe and Melissa Crosby are actually sitting down with a experienced ecosystem leader to talk about all things NC entrepreneurial ecosystem. They discuss how much the ecosystem has grown, what makes our ecosystem different and what is next for the ecosystem's future. For this live edition of In The Soup, they sat down with Jay Bigelow, the head of founder engagement at CED (Center for Entrepreneurial Development), who has not only been with the entrepreneurial support organization for over a decade, but has also been a part of the ecosystem's history for over 30 years.

Happy In The Soup 🍲 Wednesday! For their penultimate episode before the end of the fall season, hosts Jenn Summe of Primordial and Melissa Crosby of Colopy Ventures discuss why startups should think about creating a talent pipeline with graduates from local universities. The Triangle is home to some of the nation's top research universities and high-performing technical community colleges. That's why our hosts are joined by experienced graduate talent pipeline builders, Haley Huie of NC State's Entrepreneurship Clinic and Jared Sokolsky of Chapel Hill-based Well, to talk about the importance of utilizing these high potential talent coming out of these schools.

Another Wednesday, another episode of #InTheSoup 🍲! In today's episode, hosts Jenn Summe of Primordial Ventures and Melissa Crosby of Colopy Ventures are talking about what kind of and how to utilize product feedback as an early stage company. They especially ask the question of how does feedback change and evolve as your company changes and evolves. On to answer these questions are Jonathan Rollman of ProdUx Design and Scot Wingo of previously Spiffy.

Happy Wednesday and welcome back to another episode of In The Soup 🍲 !  Life as a one-founder startup has its pros and cons, but at the end of the day, it's always going to be a little difficult running a company by yourself. That's why in today's episode, hosts Jenn Summe of Primordial and Melissa Crosby of Colopy Ventures hear from founders who are running their companies solo.  They are joined by solo founders Dr. Sarah Glova of Reify Media and Jeff Soplop of Nimble Energy to break down the good and bad challenges as a one-founder company. 

It's Wednesday, Wednesday, gotta get down on In The Soup 🍲 Wednesday! In today's episode, hosts Jenn Summe of Primordial and Melissa Crosby of Colopy Ventures are taking a deeper dive into one route your company might take: pivoting. What exactly defines a pivot? When and how would you know to take one? These are the questions they answer with the help of Brandon Kashani of Raleigh-based TRAKID and Lauren Goodell of Charlotte-based Zinnia.

Happy #InTheSoup 🍲 Wednesday! Whether you are a very early-stage startup or a far off company, you are always having to discover what your customers need as they (and your business) evolve. That's why in today's episode, hosts Jenn Summe of Primordial and Melissa Crosby of Colopy Ventures are joined by local customer discovery experts to break down customer discovery and what it consists of. They are joined by Rob Cotter, the Founder and CEO of Environmental Transit Authority and the creator of the eco-friendly, solar/hybrid-powered ELF, and John Austin, who is currently a mentor/coach for startups since having graduated from being a Senior Director at NC IDEA for over six years.

Happy #InTheSoup 🍲 Wednesday! Hosts Jenn Summe of Primordial and Melissa Crosby of Colopy Ventures are continuing this series on demystifying venture capital by talking about alternative funding models for your business. In today's episode, they'll be discussing equity crowdfunding as another option in case VCs aren't writing enough checks. Joining them are crowdfunding experts Will McGuire of Incolo and David Shaner of Offline.

In today's episode of In The Soup 🍲, hosts Jenn Summe of Primordial and Melissa Crosby of Colopy Ventures are continuing their mini-series on demystifying the world of venture capital. One of the reasons a VC might pass on a early stage startup is because they don't think it is a "venture scale" business. What does it really mean to be venture scale? Our hosts hear from Kevin Mosley of Jurassic Capital and Doug Kaufman of Belongly to answer that question.