MEC consolidates entrepreneur groups
Charlotte Business Journal - by Jen Zoghby Staff Writer
Taking advantage of an uncertain economy, the Metrolina Entrepreneurial Council wants to gain strength by recruiting members from floundering competitors.
The MEC and Charlotte Convergence announced a merger this week. Simultaneously, the MEC is reaching out to members of FirstRound.org, whose founder moved to Asheville.
MEC President Geoff Peters says his nonprofit group realizes the value in expanding its programs and its membership base to appeal to sponsors.
"There aren't any kingdoms or turfs we're trying to protect," he says. "We don't get anything out of this other than trying to grow the entrepreneurial sector."
The 425-member MEC talked merger this summer with the Ben Craig Center, a small-business incubator affiliated with UNC Charlotte. Last month, Peters and Ben Craig Center President Mark Schaffner announced that idea was dead.
Since then, the MEC has made overtures to FirstRound and completed a merger with Charlotte Convergence. MEC board member Ashe Lockhart, an attorney at Womble Carlyle Sandridge & Rice, says the Ben Craig Center talks were a catalyst for the MEC to consider its position in Charlotte's entrepreneurial constellation. "It inspired us," he says.
The weakened economy didn't hurt either. "When the economy is not as robust, people start to appreciate the economies of scale," Lockhart says.
MEC Executive Director Lori Antoniak says the talks with the Ben Craig Center focused on creating a central platform for local entrepreneurs. "All along, what everyone's been looking for is something to spark the momentum," she says.
As part of the merger, Convergence founders Scott Mehler and Winn Maddrey will join the MEC board. And the MEC wants to continue the informal networking meetings that Convergence popularized.
On Nov. 12, it will hold a Convergence-style gathering at SouthEnd Brewery & Smokehouse.
While the MEC tries to attract new members, board members are considering programming changes and ways to keep all the different constituencies satisfied. Says MEC board member Lockhart: "We're at a crossroads. It's a good time to sit back and take stock of ourselves and figure out what's next."
Meanwhile at the Craig center, Schaffner and his newly hired director of investment-banking services, Mike Wachholz, are moving ahead with plans for a new angel-investor network. The Carolina Angel Forum will hold its first meeting next week and expects to have 100 angel investors signed on by the beginning of the year.
Schaffner says he's staying focused on the Craig center's own growth plans and its ability to work with the MEC whenever possible. Now is the time to hatch plans for an eventual upturn, he says. "You can't wait till we're three-quarters of the way through the business cycle and ask, 'Why are we not like these other communities?' "
FirstRound and Charlotte Convergence were products of the dot-com boom.
Jim Roberts founded FirstRound in February 2000. The group's dinner meetings were a quick success in a community where entrepreneurs were hungry for venture capital and venture capitalists could taste the next Amazon.com.
When Roberts turned the group into a for-profit venture that summer, another pack of business leaders started Charlotte Convergence. The come-as-you-are monthly networking events at SouthEnd Brewery epitomized the work-hard, party-hard spirit of the dot-com era. With flashy sports cars and bold business plans, young Charlotte entrepreneurs talked up their ideas over beers at the bustling brew house. The average monthly crowd numbered about 125.
Even as the downturn worsened, the groups remained a top source of networking among Charlotte's technology entrepreneurs and executives. The meetings changed from business-plan swaps to résumé swaps.
FirstRound.org expanded at one point to 2,000 members in five cities. Charlotte Convergence has a Charlotte e-mail list of 800.
This summer, things changed at both groups. Charlotte Convergence founder Scott Mehler moved out of the technology industry into financial planning for New York Life. Meanwhile, FirstRound.org founder Jim Roberts took a job as the executive director of the newly created Mountain Council for Entrepreneurial Development in Asheville.
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