Charlotte Angel Connection Episode 075: Angel Rutledge, SignUp Genius

SignUp Genius was born out of the frustrations of a couple, Dan and Angel Rutledge, who were struggling with the same tasks we labor through every week as parents and volunteers – coordinating who does what and when.  It was born in 2008 – the worst economic period we’ve had in at least 30 years – in a growing southern city not known for its entrepreneurial grit, Charlotte. Dan had been recruited to Charlotte to work with an entrepreneur (Michael Vadini) to build an entertainment company and a website design/implementation company.  Angel is a former middle school English teacher and a mother of four who stepped in to help Dan in 2011. At that time, Dan just needed help with hiring and extra help on marketing.  A little more than a year later, SignUp Genius was growing by over 40% per week during October 2012. Coming out of that period of strong growth, they realized they had something important to the world and valuable as a company.  It wasn’t until 2016, however, when Dan and Angel, and Michael Vadini (Dan’s co-founder) realized it was important for them to raise capital.  Given their rapid growth over the previous 8 years, they had plenty of firms lining up to make the investment.  They had choices about what they were going to do and how they were going to do it.  Great choices at the right time. Over the years, through all the challenges (and we discuss a few of them) and successes (we talk about those too), they have never deviated from their core mission – to empower people to change the world by making it simple to organize groups. Listen to this local success story with Angel.  They had no accelerator program, no outside capital until nearly 10 years old, they were NOT in San Francisco and yet they’ve carved out a very nice niche for themselves. Learn when Angel finally told Dan, “you have to fire me from doing something.”  Find out her favorite role, their view of the responsibilities of having investors? Listen to what she tells her daughters about their own lives and much more in this interview with Angel. Then come find Angel in the growing entrepreneur and investor scene here in Charlotte.  You’ll come away impressed and thankful we have more and more people like Angel coming out to grow and share on a regular basis.   Local notes and thoughts: Congratulations to SignUp Genius for celebrating their 10-Year Anniversary this week (October 2008 - October 2018). Thank you to Dan Roselli and his team at Packard Place for our first sponsorship. They have hosted more than 2 dozen of our interviews over the last couple of months and have offered one of their used Yeti’s for us to use with guests when we go offsite. They are a great community supporter for all things startup in Charlotte. Please register to attend and/or support the Charlotte High School Startup Weekend - http://communities.techstars.com/usa/charlotte/startup-weekend/12714 - November 2 - 4, 2018 at Johnson C. Smith University. Seth Twery and I host a quarterly event to help educate people on the ins and outs of being an early stage investor. Our next event is Tuesday October 23 at the new Junior Achievement facility at Camp North End.  Please email me if you’d like to attend.  We are going to have Greg Brown of the Charlotte Angel Fund and Mac Lackey of VentureSouth there to discuss common terms and phrases you’ll hear when talking to startups and investors. Register now for the Southeast Fintech Venture Conference on Wednesday November 14, 2018.  This is also the Demo Day for the QC Fintech Class 9 Cohort.  You can find out more details and register here (https://www.sefintechvc.com/).   William Bissett is an Investment Advisor Representative with Secrest Blakey & Associates, a Registered Investment Adviser.  Opinions expressed on this program do not necessarily reflect those of Secrest Blakey & Associates. The topics discussed and opinions given are not intended to address the specific needs of any l...