Charlotte Angel Connection

Walt Frye has been a friend of the startup community for the last several years.  A little more than 18 months ago, Walt took on a new challenge as the Executive Director of a somewhat stagnant entity – the Charlotte Regional Fund for Entrepreneurship (CRFE). As you heard last week, Innovate Charlotte has sprung out of CRFE and has a clear vision Walt helped to establish. Listen to Walt continue his thoughts on the Charlotte startup ecosystem - past, present and future - and his time as Executive Director of Innovate Charlotte. In what I consider to be bad news for the Charlotte ecosystem, Walt has stepped down as the Executive Director – as the news was officially announced Thursday August 16.  Few people have the unselfish motivation the ecosystem currently needs, Walt did. The opportunities are great within the ecosystem if it’s allowed to grow naturally (look no further than the recent successful exit of DealCloud).  Politics and egos can ruin those opportunities and the young ecosystem if allowed. For