Charlotte Startup Dispatch
The Charlotte Ledger, DebtBook, and job opportunities
In this month’s Dispatch we cover two early stage Charlotte companies, both founded in different sectors in 2019.
The Charlotte Ledger, a bootstrapped local news publication.
DebtBook, a growing FinTech company that recently closed its seed round.
THE CHARLOTTE LEDGER (website, linkedin, twitter)
Tagline: “A new approach to journalism in a growing city”
What they do: Publish business, development, and other local stories packed into a multiple-times-per-week newsletter. They also publish a transit newsletter in collaboration with UNCC, a unique “Ways of Life” obituary newsletter, and recently launched newsletter about Charlotte FC.
My favorite stories of the year: “How Charlotte helped build Amazon’s Alexa”, the June 7th newsletter written by and AI program, and the article “Catching up with the Father of South End”.
Year Founded: 2019
Location: Charlotte, NC
Founders: Tony Mecia (former Charlotte Observer writer and editor)
Founding Story: The rise of click-bait journalism and advertising-heavy business models frustrated Tony Mecia because quality journalism got buried in the noise. He wanted to fill that void in Charlotte with the Ledger. Read the full founding story from the source here.
Employees: <5 employees + freelance
Sales/ARR: On pace for $175,000 of revenue as of mid-2021. The Ledger has most likely eclipsed 2,000 paid subscribers by now assuming growth in subscriptions has continued since then. For a more detailed breakdown of what the business model looks like, check out this Axios article.
Innovation & awards:
The Charlotte Ledger serves as a proof-of-concept for subscription-driven local journalism as opposed to a more advertising heavy model. This business model allows the team at the Ledger to experiment with new approaches compared to what you can find elsewhere in local journalism — and they’re clearly having fun while doing it.
Some of those experiments include locally themed crossword puzzles, drone video content, and audio versions of newsletters. All of this experimentation seems to be catching on — The Ledger is the 3rd largest paid newsletter in the “News” category on Substack. They have earned some national recognition from their industry association.
Funding: Bootstrapped. Free subscription model the first year or so of operations, at which point they turned on a paid subscriptions option.
If you are interested in learning more about Tony’s approach at the Ledger, here is a podcast interview from October 2021 where he is pretty open about what they are trying to accomplish, plus what they aren’t trying to be.
DEBTBOOK (website, linkedin, twitter)
Tagline: “Help finance teams in local government, higher education, and healthcare easily manage their debt and lease portfolio in the cloud.”
What they do: Take a corner of finance that is typically managed in massive spreadsheets or antiquated systems into a cloud-based finance & accounting software system. Their software helps government and public sector finance teams better manage financial instruments like bonds to build large public projects like new schools and infrastructure. DebtBook’s platform makes it easier to keep up with new accounting standards, maintain compliance, and communicate across different teams. Still not making much sense? Check out this case study with the city of Durham.
Year Founded: 2019
Location: Charlotte, NC
Founders: Tyler Traudt & Eric Pelletier
Founding Story: Tyler Traudt was working with government and non-profit clients in the finance sector when he discovered the opportunity to streamline and consolidate all of that financial & accounting information in a single platform. Check out the full founding story over at the DualBoot Partners website.
Employees: ~40 employees with plans to hire more this year.
Customers: 300 clients in 44 states according to Charlotte Inno
Funding: $4-5 million total funding raised to date depending on the source. Closed a $2 million seed round in December 2021. Look out for a Series A Fundraise on the horizon!
Job Opportunities in the Charlotte Area
Innovation Portfolio Manager, Davidson University, Jay Hurt Hub for Innovation.
Thanks for reading this month’s Dispatch. We’re excited to kick off our new Q&A series next month!
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