NC Tweener Talks

Brian Handly, founder and CEO of Reveal Mobile, joins me for a story-driven look at more than 25 years of building advertising technology in the Triangle.Brian started as a level one support engineer at Accipiter in 1997, became VP of operations within two years, and sold his stock just before the dot-com crash. When the company was about to be shut down, he bought it back, and the parent company paid him half a million dollars to take it. He rebuilt it, sold it to aQuantive, and spent three years at Microsoft after its $6 billion acquisition.From there, Brian spun StepLeader out of Capital Broadcasting, watched the TV broadcast industry consolidate out from under it, and pivoted to location data and attribution. That became Reveal Mobile, which now focuses entirely on measuring out-of-home advertising like billboards and digital screens. Brian explains how a billboard actually gets measured and shares the company's revenue, profitability, and fundraising numbers candidly.The conversation closes with why AI and zero-click search may be a tailwind for out-of-home, plus Brian's advice on honest investor updates, building a culture of autonomy, and being present when opportunity shows up.Timestamps00:00 Welcome & sponsors01:34 Scot's intro: meet Brian Handly03:47 From Missouri to Raleigh and NC State04:55 Accipiter: level one support to VP of Ops05:49 CMGI, Engage and the dot-com rocket ship07:16 Overheard in Wilmington: selling at the top08:57 Getting paid to buy back Accipiter10:16 aQuantive, Microsoft and the double dip12:45 The sweating servers story14:21 Three years at Microsoft17:26 Retirement lasts six weeks: CED mentoring18:25 Capital Broadcasting and the StepLeader spinout21:03 Broadcast consolidation and "give me 6 months"21:26 Beacons, location data and the birth of Reveal24:08 The churn problem and the move to out-of-home25:19 Acquiring Mira27:43 Reveal today: revenue, profitability and a Q1 punch30:17 Why agencies make sticky customers33:48 How out-of-home attribution works36:54 AI, the SaaSpocalypse and zero-click40:15 Autonomous cars and the future of out-of-home43:31 Investor updates: be candid45:16 Culture, EOS and letting go47:58 Final advice and credits-----Where to Find Brian Handly:LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/bhandly/Reveal Mobile: https://revealmobile.comWhere to Find Scot Wingo: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/thescotwingo/ Tweener Times: https://www.tweenertimes.com/ X: https://x.com/scotwingo--- This episode of Triangle Tweener Talks is hosted by Scot Wingo, presented and produced by NC Tweener Fund, with creative assets and design support from Walk West. We couldn’t share posts like this without our amazing sponsors: Platinum: NC IDEA: https://ncidea.orgGold Sponsors: - Balentine: https://www.balentine.com/triangle-entrepreneurs - EisnerAmpner: https://www.eisneramper.com - Robinson Bradshaw: https://www.robinsonbradshaw.com  Silver Sponsors: - Automated Consulting Group: https://automated.co - Bank of America: https://business.bofa.com/en-us/content/technology-industry-group.html  ------Triangle Tweener Talks is sponsored by:Atomic Object: https://atomicobject.com/

Robin Cowie, CEO and founder of Skillmaker, went from co-creating The Blair Witch Project to building AI and extended reality tools for auto repair technicians, and he did it from Carolina Beach.Robin tells me how his father's "point of view learning," first developed to train South African gold miners, shaped his films, his work on Madden, and now Skillmaker. We talk about how NAPA paid him to spend two months listening to repair shops before he built anything. That research turned into a platform that assesses technicians, cuts entry-level training from two years to a few months, and uses smart glasses to put verified repair data in front of techs mid-job.Robin also shares hard-won founder lessons. He explains why distribution is the hardest part of any startup and how partnerships with NAPA and Solera solved it early. He walks through how more than 460 shops paid for a beta product and generated about a million dollars in revenue before launch. And he explains why his goal is for Skillmaker to become boring.Timestamps00:00 Welcome to NC Tweener Talks00:23 Thanks to our sponsors01:32 Scot's intro: from Blair Witch to auto AR/VR03:08 Meet Robin Cowie, CEO & founder of Skillmaker03:42 Gold mines and "point of view learning"04:58 Film school and The Blair Witch Project06:25 Selling at Sundance and crashing the van09:25 Madden Longshot10:35 George Lucas, Skywalker Ranch, and Star Wars on a bedsheet12:00 From London to Carolina Beach13:50 Finding the problem: healthcare, then NAPA18:40 Cutting training from 2 years to 30 days20:20 Smart glasses and shop productivity22:50 Assess, accelerate, assist23:35 Quest 3, Unreal, and "teach 5, test 5"25:50 148 hours of VR content and the pipeline behind it29:05 Expanding into transportation30:20 Smart safety glasses and the Pareto principle33:05 Verified data: NAPA, Identifix, AutoVitals, ASE35:45 Robin's prior companies and his leadership team39:05 An agentic company and why distribution is key40:45 Fundraising: $4.5M on a SAFE41:20 The paid beta and the Champions Circle45:00 Becoming "just another tool in the kit"45:55 Scot's founder takeaways47:20 Robin on the NC ecosystem49:15 Wrap and credits-----Where to Find Robin Cowie:LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/robincowie/Skillmaker: https://skillmaker.ai/Where to Find Scot Wingo: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/thescotwingo/ Tweener Times: https://www.tweenertimes.com/ X: https://x.com/scotwingo--- This episode of Triangle Tweener Talks is hosted by Scot Wingo, presented and produced by NC Tweener Fund, with creative assets and design support from Walk West. We couldn’t share posts like this without our amazing sponsors: Platinum: NC IDEA: https://ncidea.orgGold Sponsors: - Balentine: https://www.balentine.com/triangle-entrepreneurs - EisnerAmpner: https://www.eisneramper.com - Robinson Bradshaw: https://www.robinsonbradshaw.com  Silver Sponsors: - Automated Consulting Group: https://automated.co - Bank of America: https://business.bofa.com/en-us/content/technology-industry-group.html  ------Triangle Tweener Talks is sponsored by:Atomic Object: https://atomicobject.com/

Josh Miller, CEO and co-founder of Gradient Health, joins me to share how a Durham-area startup became the go-to source of medical data for AI developers around the world.Josh traces the path from his first company, FarmShots, a satellite imaging startup acquired by Syngenta, to Gradient, which began as an attempt to build cancer-detection AI and turned into something bigger once the team saw how hard it was to get the data. The conversation covers why de-identifying medical data is so much harder than removing a name, how foundation models changed the value of labeled data, and why expert-curated datasets are becoming the next frontier.Gradient's numbers are remarkable: roughly 40 million dollars in revenue this year with about 40 people, on only about 9 million dollars raised. Josh credits a culture that is willing to talk openly about what isn't working, along with AI-native engineering that has made his best engineers dramatically more productive. He also talks about go-to-market when customers are racing a 20 million dollar training run, his company's moat, and a personal reminder for founders to take care of themselves on the long road.Timestamps00:00 Welcome to NC Tweener Talks00:25 Thanks to our sponsors01:35 Scot's intro: portfolio wins you can't talk about02:30 Why Tweener invested in Gradient Health04:55 Welcome Josh Miller05:55 FarmShots: satellite imagery for farms07:45 A lever through time08:30 The Syngenta exit and Duke roots09:25 Never again… then startup #210:40 Founding Gradient before ChatGPT11:30 From building cancer AI to supplying the data13:30 De-identification and the 87% problem14:30 Paying hospitals back15:20 Weak labels vs. strong labels16:55 First contract and the revenue curve19:20 Fundraising: $9M raised in total20:35 Getting pulled by the market21:55 Atlas 2 and multimodal data23:00 Picks and shovels vs. building the model23:55 40 people, $1M per head25:30 Post-training and expert-curated data27:35 Culture: talking about problems28:55 AI-native engineering and the 100x engineer30:15 Go-to-market in the AI data space32:10 Gradient's competitive moat33:10 Founder lesson: take care of yourself34:15 Wrap and credits---Where to Find Josh Miller:LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/joshmichaelmiller/Gradient Health: https://gradienthealth.io/Where to Find Scot Wingo: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/thescotwingo/ Tweener Times: https://www.tweenertimes.com/ X: https://x.com/scotwingo--- This episode of Triangle Tweener Talks is hosted by Scot Wingo, presented and produced by NC Tweener Fund, with creative assets and design support from Walk West. We couldn’t share posts like this without our amazing sponsors: Platinum: NC IDEA: https://ncidea.orgGold Sponsors: - Balentine: https://www.balentine.com/triangle-entrepreneurs - EisnerAmpner: https://www.eisneramper.com - Robinson Bradshaw: https://www.robinsonbradshaw.com  Silver Sponsors: - Automated Consulting Group: https://automated.co - Bank of America: https://business.bofa.com/en-us/content/technology-industry-group.html  ------Triangle Tweener Talks is sponsored by:Atomic Object: https://atomicobject.com/

Craig Brown, a field engineer at Quantexa and the solo builder behind Blind Oracle, joins us as Redacted's first inbound guest.Blind Oracle is a trust and audit layer for AI agents doing business with other agents. It issues agent passports and records delegated work to public ledgers, so anyone can verify what an agent did without having to trust the people who run it. Craig screen-shares the software factory he built to develop it over the past two years. Signals from email, voice notes, social media, and research papers feed planning models, and a governance layer scores the system on alignment, autonomy, durability, and more.We dig into the questions every serious builder eventually hits. How do you evaluate a system once you've stopped reading its code? How do you build real trust in agents when the underlying models keep changing? And what should true north be when the product is early, and revenue hasn't arrived yet?Craig is candid about all of it, including his bet that agent-to-agent commerce is coming and that the agents themselves will decide who they trust.Timestamps: 00:00 Cold open: selling to the robots00:44 Welcome to Redacted01:00 Our first inbound guest02:40 Craig's background: Quantexa and decision intelligence04:05 From Lockheed Martin to Mantas05:30 Solution engineering vs. forward deployed engineering06:15 Building on the side: "the baby" turns one07:40 Three ways to demo11:10 What Blind Oracle does: agent counterparty risk12:15 Agent passports and inter-agent commerce12:55 Proof on-chain: Nostr and Base14:40 Inside the software factory: signals, plans, builds17:05 Feeding an article into the harness23:35 How do you eval the factory?24:15 Multi-agent deliberation25:50 The governance scorecard29:00 The honest failure: no revenue yet29:50 Go-to-market for agents31:00 How "decision confidence" gets measured33:40 Building trust in an agent system37:20 True north: the factory or the product?39:50 The bet on agent-to-agent commerce42:35 Research papers as signals44:15 Model benchmarks and routing46:30 Where to find Craig---Show notes from the episode: https://github.com/instanttaylor/redacted-podcastWhere to Find David:LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/davidshaner/Where to Find Taylor:LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/taylorcotner/More about Offline: https://www.linkedin.com/company/offline-media-inc-/--- This episode of Redacted is hosted by David Shaner and Taylor Cotner, and presented and produced by NC Tweener Fund.We couldn’t share posts like this without our amazing sponsors: Platinum: NC IDEA: https://ncidea.orgGold Sponsors: - Balentine: https://www.balentine.com/triangle-entrepreneurs - EisnerAmpner: https://www.eisneramper.com - Robinson Bradshaw: https://www.robinsonbradshaw.com  Silver Sponsors: - Automated Consulting Group: https://automated.co - Bank of America: https://business.bofa.com/en-us/content/technology-industry-group.html  ------Triangle Tweener Talks is sponsored by:Atomic Object: https://atomicobject.com/

Michael Boyarsky, CEO and co-founder of Extellis, joins me to talk about turning more than a decade of Duke metamaterials research into a satellite imaging company.Michael explains what metamaterials are and why heat, not cold, is the real challenge for satellites in orbit. He also describes the conference moment when a competitor bragged about 2 percent uptime, and he thought the industry could do far better. He walks through the path from a DARPA-funded ground prototype to a spreadsheet that made the business case clear, and from there to spinning out of Duke with help from Duke New Ventures.The conversation also covers how Extellis is getting to orbit without building its own satellites. The company is partnering with Astro Digital and riding on the ecosystem SpaceX made possible. Michael shares the details of its oversubscribed 6.8 million dollar seed round led by Oval Park Capital and the upcoming Pathfinder satellite. He closes with advice for researchers who are thinking about starting a company: begin with a real market need, not a technology looking for a home.This is the Tweener Fund's first space investment, and it's a great listen for anyone curious about deep tech, university spinouts, or the new space economy.Timestamps00:00 Welcome to NC Tweener Talks00:25 Thanks to our sponsors01:35 Scot's intro: the Tweener Fund's first space investment03:30 Welcome Michael Boyarsky04:00 From Boston College physics to Duke's metamaterials lab06:35 What is a metamaterial?08:05 Negative refraction and the invisibility cloak10:45 From lab demos to satellite imaging11:45 Why heat is a problem in space13:45 The 2% uptime moment15:35 DARPA prototype: could we hit 20-25%?17:00 How you build a metamaterial20:10 "The company started in a spreadsheet"21:55 Duke New Ventures and learning to run a company24:00 Customer discovery in deep tech26:45 Target markets beyond defense29:30 Why Extellis needs its own satellite, but not its own factory32:25 SpaceX and the space ecosystem36:40 Fundraising: Oval Park Capital and Shell Ventures38:55 The pathfinder: Astro Digital and a ride on a Falcon41:05 Pathfinder goals, size, and orbit46:00 Advice for deep tech founders and wrap-----Where to Find Michael Boyarsky:LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/michaelboyarsky/Extellis: https://www.extellis.com/Where to Find Scot Wingo: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/thescotwingo/ Tweener Times: https://www.tweenertimes.com/ X: https://x.com/scotwingo--- This episode of Triangle Tweener Talks is hosted by Scot Wingo, presented and produced by NC Tweener Fund, with creative assets and design support from Walk West. We couldn’t share posts like this without our amazing sponsors: Platinum: NC IDEA: https://ncidea.orgGold Sponsors: - Balentine: https://www.balentine.com/triangle-entrepreneurs - EisnerAmpner: https://www.eisneramper.com - Robinson Bradshaw: https://www.robinsonbradshaw.com  Silver Sponsors: - Automated Consulting Group: https://automated.co - Bank of America: https://business.bofa.com/en-us/content/technology-industry-group.html  ------Triangle Tweener Talks is sponsored by:Atomic Object: https://atomicobject.com/

On this episode of Redacted, we skip the guests and get back to the heart of the show: what it really looks like to build and run Offline with AI in 2026.David walks through the Hot List, a prototype feed of restaurants opening around Raleigh. An AI monitors Instagram and local news the way a person would, and David built the front end by having Claude recreate Offline's existing app with the new data. Taylor then shows the other half of the loop: a homegrown survey tool that embeds the live prototype, plays an intro video, and asks AI-generated follow-up questions based on each person's answers.From there, the conversation turns to strategy. We cover Offline's North Star metric, the inactive members they most want to reach, and the evidence-guided approach that starts with the most basic question of all: are people even going out to eat?The episode closes with a bonus segment on rebuilding the company website in roughly an hour of human time, and what that says about how small teams can multiply their output with agents.Timestamps00:00 Cold open00:45 Welcome back: just the two of us01:55 Showing how it came together, not just what we built02:40 The old prototype → interview → meeting loop03:50 Introducing the Hot List05:40 The Updates tab and opening-day reels07:20 Back end: hiring an AI to watch the city09:10 RapidAPI and monitoring Instagram11:50 Borrowing the Offline app's skeleton13:20 How do we put this in front of users?14:15 Taylor's AI-powered survey tool16:45 Survey requirements off-the-shelf tools can't hit19:45 AI follow-up questions on Cloudflare21:20 Checking Typeform's AI forms23:50 North Star metric and the inactive cohort26:35 An agent to watch the numbers27:25 If you hired a head of product30:45 Evidence Guided, RICE and ICE32:05 Are they even going out to eat?34:15 Packaging the show into chapters & wrap35:55 Bonus: rebuilding the website in an hour41:30 SEO, AI search, and Webflow's MCP---Show notes from the episode: https://github.com/instanttaylor/redacted-podcastWhere to Find David:LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/davidshaner/Where to Find Taylor:LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/taylorcotner/More about Offline: https://www.linkedin.com/company/offline-media-inc-/--- This episode of Redacted is hosted by David Shaner and Taylor Cotner, and presented and produced by NC Tweener Fund.We couldn’t share posts like this without our amazing sponsors: Platinum: NC IDEA: https://ncidea.orgGold Sponsors: - Balentine: https://www.balentine.com/triangle-entrepreneurs - EisnerAmpner: https://www.eisneramper.com - Robinson Bradshaw: https://www.robinsonbradshaw.com  Silver Sponsors: - Automated Consulting Group: https://automated.co - Bank of America: https://business.bofa.com/en-us/content/technology-industry-group.html  ------Triangle Tweener Talks is sponsored by:Atomic Object: https://atomicobject.com/

This week on Redacted, we bring on our fourth guest: Ben Eckerson, founder of Agentcy, an AI-enabled consultancy helping small-to-mid-market companies close the gaps between the software they already pay for. Ben spent roughly 20 years in client services, including time at the ad agency McKinney, running Viget's Durham office, and co-founding Savas Labs, before launching Agentcy in early 2026 alongside business partner Eric out of the 24 and Up venture studio in downtown Raleigh.Most of the episode is a live demo: Ben walks through the internal tool he built from scratch, which turns a raw meeting transcript into extracted pain points, pricing and staffing estimates, and a styled, client-ready proposal deck. From there, the conversation turns into a real debate about whether it's worth building your own AI-native tools instead of buying an off-the-shelf AI CRM, what gets lost when you strip away the UI and go headless, and how much of client work still comes down to a human reading the room.It's a practical, behind-the-scenes look at how one small agency is actually using AI to run its business day-to-day, ending on a genuinely optimistic note about what all that automation is supposed to free people up to do.Timestamps00:00 Cold open 00:43 What Redacted is about01:09 Meet guest #4: Ben Eckerson, founder of Agentcy01:44 Housekeeping + an Offline update02:52 Ben joins the show03:34 20 years in the agency trenches: McKinney, Viget, Savas Labs04:58 What Agentcy does and "humans doing the robot work"05:29 The real problem: tool sprawl at client companies07:59 From stealth to launch: Agentcy's first year, with partner Eric at 24 and Up08:33 Demo time: inside Agentcy's homegrown CRM10:01 Where the tool started: turning Fathom transcripts into next steps12:11 Building a new lead: the WellCare walkthrough14:27 Adding a call transcript and hitting "Analyze"18:58 The internal TLDR: stage, stakeholders, pricing22:15 One click to a client-ready proposal deck24:41 Exporting to Claude, Manus, or GPT for design polish26:32 What's next: living inside Claude Projects28:15 Why build your own AI CRM instead of buying one33:45 Going headless: is the UI just a commodity now?38:41 Meeting clients where their AI maturity actually is41:35 The future of human work and the last-mile problem44:27 Where to find Ben and AgentcyShow notes from the episode: https://github.com/instanttaylor/redacted-podcastWhere to Find David:LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/davidshaner/Where to Find Taylor:LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/taylorcotner/More about Offline: https://www.linkedin.com/company/offline-media-inc-/--- This episode of Redacted is hosted by David Shaner and Taylor Cotner, and presented and produced by NC Tweener Fund.We couldn’t share posts like this without our amazing sponsors: Platinum: NC IDEA: https://ncidea.orgGold Sponsors: - Balentine: https://www.balentine.com/triangle-entrepreneurs - EisnerAmpner: https://www.eisneramper.com - Robinson Bradshaw: https://www.robinsonbradshaw.com  Silver Sponsors: - Automated Consulting Group: https://automated.co - Bank of America: https://business.bofa.com/en-us/content/technology-industry-group.html  ------Triangle Tweener Talks is sponsored by:Atomic Object: https://atomicobject.com/

Will Duckett, co-founder and COO of Equity Shift, joins me to talk about building the infrastructure behind secondary liquidity in private markets. The conversation covers Will's path from a hedge fund back office in New York to co-founding a regulated broker-dealer in Raleigh, what it actually takes to get licensed with FINRA and the SEC, and why Equity Shift describes its platform as a digital operating system for private companies rather than just cap table software.Will and I dig into the mechanics that most founders never see up close: tender offers, the daisy-chained SPV structures that made SpaceX famous for not knowing all of its own shareholders, and how Equity Shift built a system meant to prevent that. We also trace the company's growth from small business customers up into some of the largest private equity firms in the world, and the underlying blockchain patent portfolio that powers it all.Will offers a candid look at what it's like building a capital-intensive fintech company in North Carolina, plus hard-won founder lessons from seven years and two economic shocks: expect everything to take twice as long as planned, and don't underestimate the value of a strong co-founder.Timestamps00:00 Cold open & sponsors01:36 Welcome & meet Will Duckett of Equity Shift02:16 From Chapel Hill (and ancient Roman history) to Wall Street02:40 Hedge fund back office to a Columbia MBA03:06 Moving home and meeting co-founder Tom at a blockchain meetup04:41 Why a blockchain meetup, in 201807:21 Founding Equity Shift with Tom Gordon08:24 First customer and becoming a broker-dealer09:53 Secondaries 101: SpaceX, Pendo, and tender offers10:41 What Equity Shift actually does13:17 The SpaceX SPV daisy-chain problem14:45 How Equity Shift compares to Carta16:19 Life as a regulated FINRA broker-dealer18:14 The taxi medallion analogy19:07 Splitting CEO/COO responsibilities22:39 Fundraising milestones and the NC Tweener Fund seed round25:07 Climbing from startups to private equity customers30:30 Finding the bigger market beyond Carta35:59 Go-to-market: enterprise sales, not self-serve39:17 Founder lessons: it's always harder than you think44:35 Coming home to North Carolina47:13 What's next for Equity Shift51:07 Wrap-up and credits-----Where to Find Will Duckett:LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/wduckett/Equity Shift: https://equityshift.com/Where to Find Scot Wingo: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/thescotwingo/ Tweener Times: https://www.tweenertimes.com/ X: https://x.com/scotwingo--- This episode of Triangle Tweener Talks is hosted by Scot Wingo, presented and produced by NC Tweener Fund, with creative assets and design support from Walk West. We couldn’t share posts like this without our amazing sponsors: Platinum: NC IDEA: https://ncidea.orgGold Sponsors: - Balentine: https://www.balentine.com/triangle-entrepreneurs - EisnerAmpner: https://www.eisneramper.com - Robinson Bradshaw: https://www.robinsonbradshaw.com  Silver Sponsors: - Automated Consulting Group: https://automated.co - Bank of America: https://business.bofa.com/en-us/content/technology-industry-group.html  ------Triangle Tweener Talks is sponsored by:Atomic Object: https://atomicobject.com/

Parker Mayes, founder of Signify, joins us on Redacted for a guest episode built around a live demo of his actual sales pipeline. Parker built Signify after spending four years running a go-to-market agency doing high-volume cold email, calls, and LinkedIn outreach for B2B clients, and getting frustrated with the low-trust, low-response nature of outbound at scale. Signify sits between a prospect database like Apollo or ZoomInfo and your CRM, scoring and enriching companies every day based on real buying signals like new hires, company news, and job postings, so reps know exactly who to reach out to and why. The conversation walks through the four daily automations running Parker's pipeline, the hard line he draws between automated cold outreach and human-run warm conversations, and how he's teaching an AI agent to write in his own voice. Parker also makes the case that a non-technical founder no longer needs a technical co-founder, as long as they have an AI sidekick that can write code. Along the way, David and Taylor pull in their own experience running Offline to compare notes on why the restaurant industry might be uniquely hard to sell into. Find Redacted wherever you listen to podcasts, or watch the full conversation on YouTube.Timestamps00:00 Cold open00:46 Welcome to Redacted01:17 What Offline is01:24 Meet this week's guest: Parker01:49 Taylor recaps speaking at Parker's meetup03:16 Bringing Parker into the conversation04:05 How David and Parker first met05:46 From go-to-market agency to building Signify08:12 What Signify actually does09:47 Getting leads in: imports and the "generate list" feature11:05 Under the hood: signals, scraping, and daily scans13:04 Why doesn't ZoomInfo already do this?15:16 Parker as sales rep #1: results, then scaling with branded reps17:06 The four daily automations in Parker's pipeline18:55 How Cowork connects into Signify20:04 Where should the AI live vs. the human in the loop?22:29 Point tools vs. platform: Signify's acquisition thesis23:36 Teaching the agent to document its own process29:00 Live demo: the daily LinkedIn scan and connection run30:51 Teaching the agent to write like Parker34:09 Templates, guardrails, and how the agent learns his voice38:00 Tangent: the tangled world of restaurant sales43:11 Enrichment, credits, and Signify's pricing44:27 The stack: Anthropic, Claude Sonnet, and building with Claude Code47:02 Curiosity about Anthropic's "watch and skillify" feature48:05 Keeping cold outreach human: screenshots and selfie videos52:34 Closing thoughts for builders52:40 Where to find Signify, Redacted, and OfflineShow notes from the episode: https://github.com/instanttaylor/redacted-podcastWhere to Find David:LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/davidshaner/Where to Find Taylor:LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/taylorcotner/More about Offline: https://www.linkedin.com/company/offline-media-inc-/--- This episode of Redacted is hosted by David Shaner and Taylor Cotner, and presented and produced by NC Tweener Fund.We couldn’t share posts like this without our amazing sponsors: Platinum: NC IDEA: https://ncidea.orgGold Sponsors: - Balentine: https://www.balentine.com/triangle-entrepreneurs - EisnerAmpner: https://www.eisneramper.com - Robinson Bradshaw: https://www.robinsonbradshaw.com  Silver Sponsors: - Automated Consulting Group: https://automated.co - Bank of America: https://business.bofa.com/en-us/content/technology-industry-group.html  ------Triangle Tweener Talks is sponsored by:Atomic Object: https://atomicobject.com/

Steven King, CEO and co-founder of Blue Sky Robotics, joins me to talk about building a computer vision company that has pivoted twice in three years, from metaverse avatars to warehouse robotics to hospital automation. Steven, a longtime UNC professor, explains how a side project meant to capture realistic 3D avatars for the metaverse turned into a vision system for robotic arms, and how a client's ambitious accuracy target forced his engineering team to rebuild the company's core technology from scratch. That rebuild became the foundation for Blue Sky's current focus: helping hospitals like UNC Health and Mayo Clinic catch operational errors, from mislabeled dining trays to missing surgical instruments, before they become patient safety issues.Along the way, we cover why the company built its early customer base on paying clients instead of venture capital, how real-world data has become Blue Sky's biggest competitive advantage over synthetic simulation, and why the team turned down deals that wouldn't scale even when it hurt short-term revenue. Steven also shares candid lessons on choosing a co-founder and staying flexible enough to let a company's direction change completely without losing its footing.It's a grounded, detail-rich conversation about building a hard-tech company in North Carolina, with real numbers on accuracy, team growth, and what's coming next.Timestamps00:02 Cold open and sponsor thanks01:34 Scot's preview: meet Steven King and Blue Sky Robotics03:34 Welcome Steven King to the show04:29 Life before Blue Sky Robotics05:41 15 years at UNC: from photojournalism to computer vision06:34 The Washington Post years and the trip to Liverpool08:15 The spark: from innovation lab to startup08:48 First idea: volumetric capture for the metaverse09:45 The pivot: turning the camera outward for robots10:25 Founding day and the first client12:04 Bootstrapping with paying clients instead of VC12:42 The 99.5% accuracy bet on fishing tackle16:01 Edge inference with NVIDIA Jetson18:18 Why fishing tackle data transfers to surgical tools21:03 Saying no to deals that won't scale23:07 Inside the use case: dining trays and dietary errors24:45 Solving the 20% of surgeries that start unprepared26:08 Building the "IoT toaster" for hospitals27:00 UNC Health and Mayo Clinic partnerships32:39 A 16-person team built on Triangle universities34:00 What's next: raising capital and scaling to more hospitals34:52 Founder lessons: pivots, pride, and picking a co-founder35:40 Credits and sign-off-----Where to Find Steven King:LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/steven-king-b93885b/Blue Sky Robotics: https://www.blueskyrobotics.ai/Where to Find Scot Wingo: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/thescotwingo/ Tweener Times: https://www.tweenertimes.com/ X: https://x.com/scotwingo--- This episode of Triangle Tweener Talks is hosted by Scot Wingo, presented and produced by NC Tweener Fund, with creative assets and design support from Walk West. We couldn’t share posts like this without our amazing sponsors: Platinum: NC IDEA: https://ncidea.orgGold Sponsors: - Balentine: https://www.balentine.com/triangle-entrepreneurs - EisnerAmpner: https://www.eisneramper.com - Robinson Bradshaw: https://www.robinsonbradshaw.com  Silver Sponsors: - Automated Consulting Group: https://automated.co - Bank of America: https://business.bofa.com/en-us/content/technology-industry-group.html  ------Triangle Tweener Talks is sponsored by:Atomic Object: https://atomicobject.com/