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Every day, we at Hutchison PLLC work with founders and entrepreneurs as they fight and grind and stress and push to bring their visions to reality. We are inspired by their incredible stories of success, of failure, of reworking and trying again.
Trevor Schmidt: [00:00:00] All right. Welcome to a special edition of the Founder Shares podcast. We're here at the 2025 GR Beat Startups to Watch event. Come on inside and see what's going on.
So we are here at the start to watch event and we are here with one of the esteemed judges. Emel ran. Emel. Tell us what you were looking for with these startups. What, what was it that caught your eye?
Joshua Miller: Well, I think one of the key things that we were looking for was the upside of these companies. The reality is it was a tremendously competitive process.
That's one of the great things about being in North Carolina, is you have this rich diversity of outstanding companies across the state that are leaning in doing great things. So it was a really competitive process, but we were looking at. What that upside trajectory down the road happened to be.
Trevor Schmidt: Heather Mc Whitter, another judge here at the startup to watch event tonight. Heather, what were you looking for with these startups?
Heather McWhorter: I am looking for Passion Scale. Who's going to be the next big company in [00:01:00] North Carolina and there are so many to pick from. We have an incredible, uh, entrepreneurial ecosystem in Entrepreneur Pipeline in North Carolina is definitely the place to start a business in North Carolina.
Trevor Schmidt: So were you seeing a lot of the same types of companies, or was there a lot of variety this year? No,
Heather McWhorter: there's a lot of variety actually. It's lovely. Uh, there's a whole wide berth. I can't wait until they're unveiled
Trevor Schmidt: tonight. Oh, it's so exciting. Thanks so much, Heather. We got another one of our judges here tonight.
Juan, tell us what you were looking for when you were looking at these startups. How did you evaluate? How'd you think about it?
Juan Garzón: Yeah, it's always tricky when you're talking about, you know, which startups. Uh, to watch, right? Which ones have promise? Because, you know, when you're around so many of these companies, they're all amazing.
They all have awesome ideas, right? And so you have to look for, uh, what kind of traction are they getting? Are they getting interest from the market, right? That's always gonna be key. Um, are they working on exciting technology? Like, is this something that we're all should be getting excited about? And, and then there's always sort of that like, founder special sauce, right?
There's something about this one that's gonna be successful. So I try to see what I can find in all three of those areas. Yeah. It's an [00:02:00] important balance to find. It is. It is. Yeah. So is there somebody you're especially excited to see tonight or, uh, I mean, you know, there's, look, we looked at lots of different applications.
There's a good diversity of companies, right? Different, uh, stages, different industries, different parts of the state. Yeah. Uh, I'm always excited about having some Charlotte companies sort of represented, but, but we've got some great companies all across the board and I think it's, it's the overall, the big picture, it gets me excited about it.
So I'm really, really, you know, thrilled to be here. That's awesome. Thanks Juan. There's a lot of excitement in the room. We're
Trevor Schmidt: here with pre one of our judges, Pret. What were you looking for when you were thinking about these startups? How did you evaluate them and, and what were you most excited to see?
Preet Mankad: Yeah, I mean, I think it goes down to, um, innovation of the idea, right? How, um, far along is a company, the stage is always important. Have we seen sort of, um, sustained growth throughout, uh, a decent number of years, but ultimately, what's the idea? Like what's the team and, um, what impact are they having?
Trevor Schmidt: Okay, so impact was a big part for you?
Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. What is, uh, what kind of technology or, or. Impact were you specifically looking for? What excites you the most?
Preet Mankad: Um, social impact is always great, right? Anyone that, um, is benefiting sort of a, a [00:03:00] different group of population or, um, enriching someone's life, whether that's through technology, through a product, right?
Whatever that looks like. But social impact, anything that furthers another group of people.
Trevor Schmidt: Great. Well, I can't see who you, I can't wait to see who you picked and, and see how it comes out tonight. It'll be a fun time. Thanks for having
Preet Mankad: me.
Trevor Schmidt: Alright, Laura, so you were also one of the judges here for the startup to watch event.
It is true. What were you thinking about when you were looking at these companies? How'd you evaluate them? What most excited you?
Laura Zabinski: Um, I was amazed at how many made the list and how much growth has happened in the triangle over the last couple years. And, um, it was honestly really hard to judge. I would say big list makes it difficult, right?
Yeah. And you get to see the ones that you know, and you get really. Excited about it, but once you start going through the rubric that Gruby put together, it was like, okay, now I'm gonna just go based off unbiased. Like what are, what's the data points that we need to look at? How are they scaling? How are they growing and how long have they been around and doing it?
Trevor Schmidt: Yeah. So I mean, it's exciting 'cause you, like you said, you see some growth in these companies and now they're just gonna launch even [00:04:00] further. And I know it just adds to the ecosystem.
Laura Zabinski: Yeah. Yeah. It's really exciting because it, the founders here are invested in the ecosystem here, and so. It means hiring here.
It means finding talent here to support what they're working on. And, um, I, that trickle effect is really lovely.
Trevor Schmidt: Alright, I'm here with Josh with cn Seamless, fresh off the announcement, the start up to watch. Congratulations. Thank you very
Josh Cooper: much. So what does this mean to you? I mean, uh, how's it feel? It feels good.
Uh, we've, uh, we started out in 2022 and it, we were here last year at startups to watch and significantly have grown the business in the last year. So it's cool to come back. Great venue, uh, love the startup community and you know, it means a lot. So, so what has been the key to kind of growth in this past year for you guys?
Honestly, social media. Really. Okay. We sell portable CNC robots that cut steel in the field, and surprisingly enough welders and fabricators all. Also scroll on TikTok and Instagram and Facebook. So really posting on, you know, those platforms and getting people to follow us. Look at the [00:05:00] videos.
Entertaining content has been the thing that has driven pretty much 90% of our sales. That's
Trevor Schmidt: amazing. I would never have guessed it, but that's fantastic.
Josh Cooper: Neither. So how did you get into this line of business? What you guys. Sam and I, we were actually, uh, at NC State, we were in a senior design class that we were basically doing engineering, creating a new product, and Sam had happened to work in the, A steel mill.
Okay. Petersburg saw a lot of the torch cutting and fabricating that was going on, and that was the original inspiration for less design, a robot that does steel cutting. And then from there it was just show it off to the customers nearby and see what they thought, and then just kind of grow from there.
So easy as that, just
Trevor Schmidt: design a robot to do some steel cutting. That was pretty much it. Yep. So, so what's next for the company?
Josh Cooper: Next? We are expanding, we have one major product right now, the Mach one, portable CNC machine, and that does oxy fuel and plasma cutting. The future for that product is expanding to different attachments that do bevel cutting, uh, welding, laser cutting, things like that.
And then we have a whole nother, you know, idea set for different products that are for portable field fabrication, where essentially we [00:06:00] apply our same principles. Design products that can be used easily in the field by welders and fabricators, and then just keep on growing the manufacturing here in North Carolina.
That's fantastic. So like is there something that's,
Trevor Schmidt: that you need to kind of fuel that growth or is there something that people can provide to you or connect with you on?
Josh Cooper: Honestly, just. Follow us on social media. That's kind of been the ticket so far. You know, like repos comment, what you think? Uh, and what's that?
Social media. It's CN Dash Seamless. So CEN Seamless. Okay. That's it. Well,
Trevor Schmidt: congratulations. Okay. Decided to see what the next steps are for the company. Right on. Thank you very much. Great. Okay, so we
Joshua Miller: provide data to companies that are building medical ai. Okay. So there's this. Complex area where you need de-identified data.
Trevor Schmidt: I'm actually very familiar with those require really? Okay, cool. So like a number of the companies that
Joshua Miller: represent kind of work in that same space in the safe harbor. Yes. Experts, determinations, kind working on that. So super cool. We should talk more. So we make, we make our data available to companies that are building AI Uhhuh.
Um. All the way from the hyperscalers down to like little tiny startups that are building ai. There's about 25, [00:07:00] uh, FDA approved medical devices. Software is a medical device that we're built entirely on our data. Wow, that's exciting. So about 30 people in downtown Durham raised about $9 million to date.
Wow. Okay. Um, it's. Third startup. Okay. Good for you. Yeah. How's it feel to be recognized tonight at the start to watch event? Uh, it feels good. I wish my wife was here. Yeah, no, she, she's visiting Florida That I, uh, I don't know. It, it's made me really proud of how far this community has come. Yeah. 'cause I've been here 10 years starting companies.
What? The
Trevor Schmidt: original startup's
Joshua Miller: kind here in the triangles. I don't know if 10 years counts as original man. I mean, people have been doing startups here for like 30 years. We're gonna count
Trevor Schmidt: it as long as it can. Right. Okay.
Joshua Miller: It feels like that was kind of this. Step change. Yeah. Um, and now we're starting to bring in people, like we're starting to bring in series A, series B level financing around to this region, which makes me really proud to
Trevor Schmidt: be part of it.
That's awesome. Yeah. Well, I mean, it's good to see it grow and it's good to see people be able to come back, have to other startups and be able to reinvest in the community, so That's great. Yeah. So what's next for Gradient?
Joshua Miller: [00:08:00] Um, we want to have, uh, the world be, I think startup. The best way to think about startups is a way in which you want the world to be, that it isn't yet.
Okay? And that's what you're trying to create. And we want the world to operate in a way where it's, if you're building an AI that's gonna help patients, either by diagnosing disease, whatever it might be, we want you to have access to the data you need for a reasonable price in 24
Trevor Schmidt: hours. Okay? I like the timeframe.
Yeah. That's great. So what's gonna, what's the barrier to that happening or what, what do you need next as far for the company? It's getting
Joshua Miller: more data. Okay. Um, into the company. It's also just like growth as normal. Right. Um, I've loved startups. My whole career. Right. Um, I don't think I'll ever find myself doing something different.
That's good. Yeah. So like, are you looking to hire, are you looking to other, other
Trevor Schmidt: partners
Joshua Miller: or
Trevor Schmidt: Always, yeah, always.
Joshua Miller: Yeah. I mean, you know, to wax like a little poetic about it, it's like, this is my third startup, but it's the biggest one. Okay. Right. [00:09:00] Um, and I always kind of wondered like, why do I go back and do it again and do it again and do it again?
'cause it's hard work. It's hard work, but it's also just like, I don't know. I try to live my life in a way where you have the least amount of regrets. Okay. And the easiest way to do that is just like anytime you face a situation like a. Deci, hopefully I'm not talking too much. Oh, this is fantastic.
Hopefully when you're, when you're facing a decision point, rather than looking forward at it, like, do I start a company? Do I take this leap? It's always better to actually put yourself in the future and look back at it. So when you're 90 years old and you're in the nursing home and you're looking back on like.
Did I do that? Did I start a startup? Right. Or do I wish I had done that? Do I or do I wish I had done that? I spent five years as a lawyer. Exactly. No, I don't mean it like that. Just first of all, everyone in my family is a lawyer. Right. I'm the only like weird black sheep. I, I'd say that as like I have tremendous respect for founders and startups.
Yeah. Yeah. No, but I have tremendous respect for lawyers. Um. My wife jokes that every, like family dinner's arguing and she's like, why is everyone mad at them? Like they're not mad just how they interact, [00:10:00] but, but the best way to make decisions about like risky things like startups is to imagine yourself as 90 years old and then you're looking back on your life and you reach this clarity of like the scary things you have to do them.
I like
Trevor Schmidt: that. So we're here with Graham Stasio, one of the most, uh, recent recognized startups to watch here at the GR event. Congratulations.
Gray King: Thank you. So how does it feel? It's great. It's great. I mean, uh, you know, somebody said earlier you're building these businesses kind of anonymously sometimes, so it's always nice to be recognized since certainly Gree does a great job of, of doing that.
Well do success a little bit about the company. So we do inventory optimization for enterprise brands and retailers. So, um, big fashion brands and retail and, um, footwear businesses and help them determine what sizes go to what locations. Okay. Um, using ai.
Trevor Schmidt: Yeah. So has this
Gray King: been a problem that's been kinda longstanding that hasn't had a good solution or, yeah, we talk about it as an old retail problem, right?
So you walk in the store, you need a blue shirt, and guess what? Your size isn't there, right? Right. [00:11:00] So what do you do? You walk out. So for the brand that's. A miss sale, maybe they had a triple extra large, which was there that they shouldn't have bought, which is a markdown. So yeah, this is kind of an old retail problem with a new solution.
Okay. So how'd you come to it? Uh, so I have a big background in enterprise retail. I spent a number of years with TJ Maxx and Marshalls, and then, uh, worked as a solution provider for Amazon and a number of companies. Two in reverse logistics. And so, uh, started with size OA couple years ago to kind of help scale the business.
Okay.
Trevor Schmidt: So what's next for the company?
Gray King: Yeah, just grow. Um, you know, uh, we're in this era of kind of tariffs and, and uncertainty, but the thing we are sure about is that every dollar of inventory is really important to these fashion retail businesses and. So a little bit more certainty around that goes a long way to their, to their bottom line.
It's increased revenue, it's increased margins, it's less working capital, kind of more inventory efficiency, and it improves the customer experience. Right? Right. You walk in and you find your blue shirt. So, um, yeah, we're really kind of in growth mode, scale up mode at this point.
Trevor Schmidt: Okay. And like what kind of a size of a, a.
Partner, are you looking for like who best uses?
Gray King: Yeah. Our, our best [00:12:00] customer. We have customers like DSW and Abercrombie and Fitch. And so it's billion dollar plus businesses with kind of, we think about it as a hundred plus stores, although we've been doing some stuff on the product side to go after smaller businesses.
So $200 million kind of digitally native brands, uh, is a big part of our growth strategy going forward. That's
Trevor Schmidt: great. And how can people learn more about size O? Yes.
Gray King: daio.ai is our website. Um, you can follow me on LinkedIn and kinda learn about what we're doing. Okay, great.
Trevor Schmidt: Thanks so much for taking the time.
Yeah. And
Gray King: enjoy the rest of the evening. Thanks a lot. Appreciate it.
Trevor Schmidt: So now we're with the first person I met tonight at the, uh, GR Beef Startups to Watch event. Little did I know that Kevin was gonna be one of the actually recognized startups. So Kevin, congratulations. Thank you very much. Joe. Tell us a little bit about your startup.
Kevin Gehsmann: Uh, protected was started by two of my Duke football teammates back in 2019 when we were curious undergraduates. 3D printing stuff for our teammates to get back on the field after injury. Working with our athletic training staff, making custom bracing products that are anatomically precise, um, to the, uh, specific locations where [00:13:00] that injury might be, or to help people perform at higher levels.
Trevor Schmidt: Yeah. So, uh, how's it feel to have been recognized
Kevin Gehsmann: tonight? It's an extreme honor. We've really been blessed to grow our business in the Durham community and be surrounded by such a great ecosystem of entrepreneurs and supporters of entrepreneurs. I, I say ecosystem as, uh, Tom Rule did earlier, the NC Idea group.
We we're a two time NCI idea wordy, and I just have loved following our peers, grow their business. Is and, um, continue growing the business in the state of North Carolina. Yeah.
Trevor Schmidt: Tell me a little bit about that. How, how important it's to have that kind of ecosystem support and the encouragement of like, I guess, your peers.
Uh,
Kevin Gehsmann: from when we, our time as an American underground startup, just scrapping alongside other entrepreneurs and going through the challenges of fundraising and getting to that next milestone, it's nice to have people in the trenches with you. As a former college athlete. I can, uh. Certainly, um, relate to some of that and other [00:14:00] entrepreneurs can too.
And we've now hired an amazing team ourselves, a lot of whom are from the athlete, uh, community and like former college athletes. So we know they can work hard. We know what it means for them to be good teammates for one another, and. Now it's, um, just an awesome opportunity to lead a group like that who is all driven by the same mission of our company, which is making tangible products that help other athletes.
Every product that we make is custom fitted to a person, so everybody we make has a, makes a meaningful difference in the life of somebody else. So it's. It's so, it's so core to who we are and like everybody that is a part of our company and investors too. And nice to be able to have that impact as well.
Exactly. Right. So what, what's
Trevor Schmidt: next for the company?
Kevin Gehsmann: Well, we operate in, in a cool intersection of musculoskeletal injury. So these products are used at the highest level of sport, NFL, they've been. Using the Super Bowl and the [00:15:00] NBA finals and now really growing the business and proving that we really can scale this technology.
Right. So that's in the general orthopedic clinic community where the products are now insurance reimbursable, and we're really at the beginning of growing a sales team to pursue the commercial growth that we think is right around the corner for us.
Trevor Schmidt: Wow. I can't wait to see what happens next for the company and continue to watch you guys grow.
We're here with Run, been to Scale, social Run. Been a friend of the podcast. He was on here a while back ago. Congratulations on the recognition. Tonight. Well Deserve. Thank you so much.
Runbin Dong: So what's it mean to you? Yeah, so we are finishing up with a pre-seed round. Um, this route is led by Jason K and the Syndicate group.
Um, we'll probably close around $1.5 million. Um, so nothing's announced yet publicly, but, uh, this will be. Super exciting for us.
Trevor Schmidt: Well, and you were telling me some of the things that you wanna do with that, that capital, like what, what's next for the company?
Runbin Dong: Yeah, so we're gonna go down and, uh, really focus in our, um, ICP segment.
Um, so that's gonna be franchise food and beverages brands. So 50 to 500 locations. We're looking forward to partner [00:16:00] with more and more brands as we scale. And at the same time, about 20% of our capacity will be setting up experiments. With lifestyle experiential brands. And uh, on top of that, we also have gotten a lot of really interesting ideas being pitched to us because of Jason.
Trevor Schmidt: So what's some of those ideas
Runbin Dong: though? I mean, what's something you're most excited about right now? Yeah, so, uh, a publicly traded file tech company in pet Health actually reached out recently and they're like, Hey. There's something really incredible that we could do with your platform. Why don't we talk about it?
That's so we can't share too much more. But yeah, there's definitely a lot more interesting ideas that's coming up. Well, that's
Trevor Schmidt: exciting. Like more things to come. Yes. How has the founder, like, do you think about that as all these ideas come in and all these fun things that you can do are exciting things that you can do?
How do you stay focused to your vision? It's hard.
Runbin Dong: So we actually had a team meeting around r and d and where we invest, uh, in our technology. And one thing that we don't want to happen is to get distracted by all of these new opportunities. And so we're staying focused in terms of product development in [00:17:00] our ICP segment, but we will be experimenting and building some, like custom software, if you will, to handle the the action stuff.
Trevor Schmidt: Yeah. So, so is this. Special tonight to be here at the startup to the watch event and has
Runbin Dong: incredible since I was here last year. And it was just so good to see the community coming in together. Um, we get to meet everyone and then we get to celebrate other startups. Yes.
Trevor Schmidt: Well, it's great to be surrounded by that community too and be able to encourage other people as well.
Absolutely. Because who knows who, who's the other startup is who's here this year. That'll be recognized next year, the year to come. Right. That's exactly
Runbin Dong: it. See a few
Trevor Schmidt: potentials.
Matthew Cotter: That's fantastic. Tell the folks at least what you're doing. Uh, so we are, uh, building a platform called your case plan to help, uh, foster communication in the child welfare space.
Okay. Um, my, uh, business partner, uh, Ryan was a foster parent and, uh, saw firsthand. What, you know, happens when those t's don't get crossed, those i's don't get dotted. And what it ends up happening is kids get stuck in care for six months [00:18:00] at a time over and over and over again just for simple things for communication drops, right?
So what we're trying to do is, uh, bring, uh, communication and accountability to the child welfare space, to, to help these families kind of reunite and, and get back together. That's
Trevor Schmidt: great. 'cause like, that's why I said I wanted to come talk to you 'cause our personal family has experience in the foster care space.
And so to, to hear that there is a startup kind of intersecting in that space is just very exciting. Yeah. So how, how'd you come to it?
Matthew Cotter: Uh, Ryan and I have been, uh, uh, co-founders in the, uh, past venture. Um, and so Ryan, as I said, uh, uh, kind of had that firsthand experience and then came to me. I'm, I'm more of his builder on the, on behind the scenes and then.
Uh, for the wa longest time we were, uh, he had his foster son's, uh, father, uh, who was trying to navigate this system, uh, for it, and that's a, a whole longer story before that. But, uh, for basic things like, you know, tech literacy and, and things like that could not handle, uh, like, you know, responding to [00:19:00] emails and, and all, all these different things.
So we're trying to build little tools to help him, uh, you know, respond better, build a better case. Show himself in the, the, the true light that he is. Right. Um, and, and not, uh, and, and allow him to, uh, present the best case that he, he could. Well, that's
Trevor Schmidt: amazing. 'cause it's, the goal is reunification. So to have that opportunity to provide technical solutions for that and to be able to help these families out, it's amazing.
One 1000%. Yeah. So, so how's it feel to be recogniz? Tonight by a peer group and
Matthew Cotter: Oh, fantastic. Especially fantastic, you know, being, being Raleigh based, we're carry based. Uh, it's, it is been great to come back out to Durham, uh, see Joe again and, and all, all that. So that's great. It, it is been definitely great to, to have.
So, so what's next for the company or what do you guys have on the horizon? Um, so, you know, we're looking at obviously child welfare, communication, uh, really doubling down on that. And not only really trying to help the family, but like everybody kind of uplifting the whole, all the equations, right? Like everybody is kind of orphaned in their own little area.
Uh, so we're trying to make it [00:20:00] so everybody kind of comes to the table and can, you know, do what's best for these children. Um, and so that, whether that's. The, the parent and the, you know, public defender, whether that's the foster parents that are helping, you know, coordinate visitation, right? Whether that's the, um, uh, DHS social worker that is, you know, uh, trying to, you know, uh, help these kids and help these families get back together and, and, uh, and with a high turnover and things like that, like it's help that, you know, the ball not get dropped as it gets, keeps getting passed to the next person.
Right. Well, because
Trevor Schmidt: somebody. So far underwater too. Whether it's the families or the social workers or, you know, I mean, everybody's got so many balls in the air that it's just important to be able to 1000 have everybody out. 7000%.
Luis Perez: Yeah. So tell us a little bit about the company. What, what is it you do?
Yeah, so Remove is a unique service that essentially we help people resell, donate, and recycle. Okay. And our technology revolves around how do you know what something is? How do we automate and to know what something is and what value it has in the secondhand goods [00:21:00] market? Okay.
Trevor Schmidt: And how did you come to this, this, this problem?
Luis Perez: Oh. Um, originally started when, uh, my, my wife was finishing grad school and a lot of her classmates needed to get rid of stuff. They didn't know what to do, and I figured I wasn't graduating. Okay. Uh, and I picked up a U-Haul and picked up all their stuff and started, and then, um, decided to sell it to incoming students in the fall.
And then that's how we started for a few years. And then, uh, little by little we started getting a lot of interest more from residential and commercial clients. People like. You know, I'm moving outta my house. I don't know what to do with my stuff. And that's how we figured out people have a lot of stuff and they don't want it.
Uh, except getting rid of it is hard.
Trevor Schmidt: Yes. Well, and knowing what to, what can get rid of and what has to be thrown away, all that stuff. Yeah. It makes a lot of sense though too. 'cause like college towns like this so much stuff gets thrown away at the end of each semester. So like, imagine it's like a tremendous amount of value that you can create for people.
Oh yeah. And
Luis Perez: that's just students. I mean, the reality now we do most residential and commercial. And I mean, just in the US alone, we throw away over 12 million tons of furniture every year. That's unbelievable. Uh, and that's just furniture. That's not [00:22:00] even talking about the electronics, appliances, gym, equipment, apparel, pretty much everything else.
Trevor Schmidt: Yeah. So like somebody starts a hobby and all of a sudden like kinski or that have an opportunity, one click
Luis Perez: buying, you know, and every time you want something you just click it in Amazon, it's over your house and then you end up, I mean, it's a reason why. You know why out of every eight adults nowadays, self storage unit Right, right.
Which I call your tax on space.
Trevor Schmidt: That makes a whole lot of sense. So what's next for the company? I mean, what, what do you, what do you guys gotta do to grow? And so right
Luis Perez: now we're finally, over the last six months, we've actually been profitable. Okay. Uh, which has been a lot of our focus over the past two years.
Um, we were growing pretty rapidly, and then real estate really took a slow down. So a lot of our customers are people who are usually moving. Okay. Because, you know, you ment, you know, you have all this clutter in your house and you kind of put it in a, in garage and you put it in a closet. And it's not until that moment where like something happens, right?
We're like, oh, I've gotta move, I gotta redecorate, or someone passed away. I'm not
Trevor Schmidt: moving that box. One more time. Exactly.
Luis Perez: And that's a moment, like there's a trigger function. And what's happened over the past few [00:23:00] years is that people have sold, essentially existing home sales have really declined to 45 year lows.
Um, so our focus went from like, okay, let's not focus so much on growth. Let's focus both on getting to profitability. Uh, which we've finally achieved. Okay. And now is, uh, I think we have a model. One of the big changes that happened is ai. Yep. Uh, we can now automate the whole appraisal and resell process.
So now for us now is how do we scale through more markets? Okay. So what was the key to reaching profitability, would you say? Oh, geez. Automating pretty much a lot, as much as we could in our operations. And uh, that's probably the biggest thing. Okay. Yeah. Well, Luis, thank you so much for taking the time.
Trevor Schmidt: We're excited
Luis Perez: to see you. Congratulations. Congratulations tonight. Thank you so much. I appreciate it. Thank you. Yeah.
Trevor Schmidt: So that's a wrap for the 2025 Rep Beat Startup to watch event. It's been an amazing time. We got to meet so many exciting founders tonight. We've heard about how they've been able to find that product market fit, how they've been able to connect with their customers, how about they've been able to find new solutions, find the partners that they needed to grow and build their companies.
[00:24:00] So much excitement around the ecosystem here in the triangle and what's coming next. Everybody's talking about how much we've grown and how much more potential there is for us coming forward. We at Hutchinson are excited to be a part of it. We're excited to be able to support these startups in their journeys, provide the legal needs that they need, but really it's about the community that we have here.
And it's a great place and it's a great place to do, do business. Thanks for listening to this episode of the Founder Shares podcast. If you are a founder or business owner and need legal advice, be sure to check out our team@hutchlaw.com. That's hutch law.com. We have the capacity to help you out with just about any legal need your company may be facing.
We're passionate about the innovation economy. We're ready to help you on your entrepreneurial journey. The show was edited and produced by Earfluence. I'm Trevor Schmidt and thanks for listening to the Founder Shares [00:25:00] podcast.