The Friday Nooner

Apr 19 2024
The Friday Nooner Podcast artwork

The Friday Nooner covers the week in tech in the Triangle and beyond—when it’s not diving down random rabbit holes—in a fast-paced half-hour-and-change. This program is produced by GrepBeat and hosted by GrepBeat Managing Editor Pete McEntegart and Godfather Joe Colopy. In addition to this podcast, The Friday Nooner can also be viewed live each Friday at Noon (ET) on LinkedIn, Facebook or YouTube, or watched afterward on those same platforms. Make sure to subscribe to our twice-a-week newsletter to keep up to date with all things Triangle tech!

RSS feed Share
Copy RSS


Subscribe on Podcast Addict


Look No Further, It’s Givebacks CEO Will Bowen

Apr 19 2024 37 mins  
Grammar nerds will especially enjoy this week’s episode of The Friday Nooner—sponsored by Whitley Recruiting—with its discussion of the difference between farther/further. (Pro tip: Think of the “far” in “farther” as indicating distance, as in “to run far.” That leaves “further” when you mean a difference of degree, not of literal distance.) After the break, J

What’s In A Name With IDEA Fund’s Zakiya Alta Lee-Hill

Apr 12 2024 42 mins  
It’s been a long and busy week in the Triangle tech startup ecosystem that we capped—as usual—with an episode of The Friday Nooner sponsored by Whitley Recruiting. This week’s guest was Zakiya Alta Lee-Hill, a Senior Associate at Chapel Hill-based IDEA Fund Partners. We talked about how her varied background—everything from dancing for the NBA’s Atlanta Hawks to running

Archie O’Connor Talks Raleigh-Durham Startup Week

Apr 05 2024 41 mins  
This week’s Friday Nooner—sponsored by Whitley Recruiting—provided a look into the near future, at least once the GrepBeat Godfather finished talking about his chickens. (A new chick was allegedly eaten by a hawk.) Joe and Pete welcomed guest Archie O’Connor, the Co-Founder (with Chris Heivly) of Raleigh-Durham Startup Week. RDSW returns for Year Three next week as a four-d

Startup School In Session w/ DiffyQ’s Susan Mahlburg

Mar 29 2024 34 mins  
Welcome to the Good Friday edition of the Friday Nooner—though in truth, any Friday with a new Nooner episode is a good one. This week, Primordial’s Jenn Summe sat in Joe’s chair (literally) because the GrepBeat Godfather is on a Spring Break trip with his kids to the nation’s capital. Our guest was Susan Mahlburg, the Founder and CEO of Durham-based DiffyQ, an edtech platf

MuukTest’s Ivan Barajas Vargas Helps Us Recap Venture Connect

Mar 22 2024 38 mins  
With this past week’s Venture Connect 2024 now in the books, it’s no surprise that we discussed it plenty on this episode of The Friday Nooner sponsored by Whitley Recruiting. That included with our guest Ivan Barajas Vargas, the CEO and Co-Founder of Raleigh-based MuukTest, which automates software testing for B2B customers; we first profiled them in August, 2019. Vargas was o

The Pipes, The Pipes Are Calling From MyMatR’s John Starke

Mar 15 2024 37 mins  
In a Friday Nooner first, this week’s episode featured a live concert. Sort of. MyMatR Founder and CEO John Starke (briefly) played the bagpipes, which he does as part of two groups. This is their busiest season with St. Patrick’s Day celebrations and then various Highland Games. John also talked plenty about MyMatR, of course. The Raleigh-based startup (we first profiled them

Nate Branscomb On How BCombs’ CRM Helps Nonprofits

Mar 08 2024 35 mins  
Warning: Alexa owners might want to be careful watching this week’s episode, especially around 13-15 minutes into the show, when GrepBeat Godfather Joe Colopy may or may not instruct your Alexa device to play a specific song. Fortunately, guest Nate Branscomb popped in shortly after that to get this episode of The Friday Nooner—sponsored by Whitley Recruiting—back on track.

New Sponsor Lee Whitley Talks Talent Recruiting For Startups

Mar 01 2024 34 mins  
Pete and Joe welcomed guest Lee Whitley, the Founder of Raleigh-based Whitley Recruiting. Not coincidentally, Whitley Recruiting is the sponsor for the next 10 Friday Nooner episodes. Lee talked about how he first got into recruiting, then out of it, then back into it for good, as well as how his firm specializes in recruiting sales professionals for SaaS and technology companies i

Andrea Inokon On Cadence Cash Being A Family Affair

Feb 23 2024 36 mins  
After talking Nvidia’s rocket-ship rise, Techstars changes and the newly redesigned Toyota Prius that the GrepBeat Godfather drove to the office today, Joe and Pete welcomed this week’s guest. She is Andrea Inokon, the COO of Raleigh-based startup Cadence Cash. The fintech helps small businesses—especially those owned by minorities and women—access capital quickly. The star

Peoplelogic’s Matt Schmidt On Using AI To Help Companies Scale

Feb 16 2024 36 mins  
The GrepBeat Godfather is out of town so Pete is joined by guest co-host Melissa Crosby! On this week's episode, they spoke with Matt Schmidt, the Founder and CEO of Durham-based Peoplelogic. Typically selling into the HR departments of organizations with between 100-1,000 employees, the startup bills itself as the AI for more effective scaling. Matt was also a Co-Founder of Triang