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This week I spent time in my home town of Charlotte. I switched it up a bit and did some Barry’s Bootcamp sessions and played basketball — while he was not giving me specific workouts my trainer stayed up to date and was able to adjust my schedule and stayed engaged while I was traveling all through the Future app. Working out while traveling can sometimes be tricky but the accountability, flexibility, and tracking is helpful as long as I have my Apple Watch all my workouts are synched up and my trainer to see everything.
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Happy Sunday (better late than never),
This week I spent time in Charlotte, I started the week pitching at the Venture 135 event with about 40 other founders as well as investors and operators at financial institutions. My pitch was early in the first round and it felt a bit weird being on the stage as it was the first time I had done something like that formally since 2019.
This event was sponsored by a financial services companies with footprints in Charlotte like Wells Fargo, Barings, Bank of America, and more. The host was a local Charlotte accelerator called RevTech Labs.
Beyond the event and work-related things on Monday and Tuesday, I spent the rest of the week catching up with friends in Charlotte, working out at Barry’s, checking out Black Panther with my mom, and working remotely from a WeWork. I went to see my Hornets lose another heartbreaker and I also got to check out my alma mater take on the number one ranked North Carolina Tar Heels.
This week I want to highlight:
My NBA takes for the week: The Warriors and the Hornets Edition
Why emerging technology cities still have decades to to go.
AfroTech and why tech parties are still going strong?
Black Panther: Wakanda Forever Recap
Let’s dive in.
Quote of the Week:
“We are not in the lab, we are in the field.” - Okoye to Shuri in Black Panther: Wakanda Forever
Chart of the Week:
Tweet of the Week:
This lesson remains true no matter what market or fundraising climate we are in. As founders its best to double down on the product over any other investment times.
The State of My Charlotte Hornets
This week I attended my first NBA game of the season while in Charlotte. I watch nearly every Hornets game I can on League Pass, but it was good to be inside the Spectrum Center for a change and feel the energy. One of my good friends is a first year season ticket holder, he gave me first hand recap of how things are going and what the process was like for season tickets which provides good insight on how how the underlying business is going.
Lamelo Ball has definitely taken the energy level up on both the court with his performance and by creating an environment where people want to purchase tickets, my friend said most of all the good season tickets were gone when he went on his tour and court-side has a growing waitlist, and that is highly correlated to the type of year Lamelo had. Miles Bridges was a big part of that as well, but unfortunately he is not on the team and there has not been much development regarding his current situation.
The team continues to struggle this year, and even in this game Lamelo ended the game with a freak accident by stepping on someone sitting court-side’s foot and left the game with help from teammates.
My overall observation is we need to tank and as a few teams that were expected to be approaching 2023 with the same mindset, including the Pacers who beat us the night I went to the game, have gotten off to surprisingly good starts that is not the case for the Hornets. This is the Year of Vic, and as a Hornets fan we should give us as many ping pong balls as possible to win the coved number one pick in this year’s draft.
The Warriors
I also caught the Warriors game against Phoenix and there are lots of grumbling around this current Warriors team so I wanted to share my thoughts. Prior to the season theWarriors were riding high off a championship and then Draymond Green’s punch seen around the world happened. This alone I think is enough reason for such a weird start to the season, but this year there are three young players that the team was expecting to make big jumps and become real contributors and that has not transpired yet. This team does not have the same pedigree as the championship team from last year and are missing key veterans.
The Warriors owner is outspoken about his “two-timeline” approach and so far is not working. The team has already sent the 2022 number two pick James Wiseman down to the G-league for a stint, and they play the 2021 first round picks Jonathan Kuminga and Moses Moody sparingly. Neither of the three young players have been able to add much value so far and make the jump to become regular contributors.
The most unfortunate thing is that Steph, at age 34, is at the peak of his powers. He seems to be getting better each year, but he alone cannot carry this team back to the title.
If I were a betting man, I would assume the Warriors make a move before the trade deadline.
Emerging tech hubs
I spent the early part of the week at a two day tech and startup event in Charlotte. Flying home just for this event was never in consideration until I got the invite to pitch my startup ModernTax. This was my first pitch in person since we started or shall I say pivoted in early 2021. My pitch was a bit rusty, but what was clear too me is that startups and venture-backed startups specifically have a long way to go in markets outside of the bay area and New York.
While COVID-19 led to a lot of new cities becoming more a part of the conversation around technology and innovation. As thing normalize, these “secondary cities” have limits of how effective you can be. The main issues with cities like Charlotte, is the sheer lack of institutional venture capitalists who have their feet on the ground and are investing in companies.
While the leaders in these cities are aggressively trying to attract talent and companies it skews more to established companies. Like in the area of fintech companies like LendingTree, CreditKarma, and Avid Exchange have a strong presence in Charlotte but there are very few companies that built something from the ground up in Charlotte, had an exit, and now have former team members who are investing and starting their own funds.
While there is a lot to be desired from the Charlotte investing community and others there is great opportunity. In addition to my own, I witnessed another 15 or so pitches, there were a total of 45 companies presenting across the two days and founders came from as far away as Tel Aviv Israel. I think the biggest value for startups in underserved markets in the current economy is these companies are almost default alive by sheer necessity. Companies built in these markets will be more focused on revenue and profitability while they may lack the emphasis on growth and having venture fundable tropes and anecdotes. I think this is an emerging opportunity to invest in these companies and provide founders with the insights that in my opinion you can only glean from being on the ground in places like the Bay area and other major technology centers.
AfroTech was the place to be this week
There was a time America wouldn't let us ball
Those times are now back, just now called Afro-tech
Generational wealth, that's the key - Jay-z on “Legacy”
While I was in Charlotte, AfroTech was taking place in Austin. In its sixth year as the largest technology conference specifically built for black people it seemed to be the largest one of all. The ecosystem for black technology workers and founders is at an interesting place right now. While celebratory events like AfroTech are big energy producers, big money drivers for the event planners like Morgan Debaun’s Blavity, and recruiting grounds for companies we are also witnessing mass layoffs at big technology companies. Additionally there’s been a pull back of venture funding, and the migration back to technology hubs like San Francisco being the primary place company building, formation, and funding is happening.
This will disproportionately affect black people where there is a high concentration of employees at these big technology companies. We already have seen a digression of funding to black founders and I think this will continue as the wider market of venture capital is slowing down. My learnings from these events are to stay focused, winter is coming and as a black founder myself it has always been difficult navigating the startup ecosystem but it may get even more difficult before it gets easier.
Black Panther: Wakanda Forever
I had the opportunity to catch the new Black Panther movie with my mom while I was in Charlotte. The movie has been a success and has now done over $250 million in box office sales through two weeks.
I enjoyed the movie, albeit the two hour and 41 minute run time is a bit much, I enjoyed the storyline, the integration of technology, and the overall acting. I think this series has a great impact and while losing Chadwick Boseman still hurts both literally and figuratively in the movie the directors did a great job of incorporating him.
What’s Next
I am finished out my trip to the Carolinas by attending my alma mater’s game at UNC Chapel Hill (and made a TV appearance ; )).
Now I am heading back home to the wifey and the little one late Sunday night.
I always enjoy coming home but it is always good to get back especially now with my eight month old son who since I have left has began to crawl, lift himself up, and made even more developmental jumps in less than a week.
As always if you have feedback on the newsletter shoot me a note at matt@stretchfour.co.
Back to the trenches.
Best, Matt