Start Something, the CED Blog: Start Something with CED

Last Thursday, CED hosted a “Start Something” party to celebrate its move to the American Underground on the American Tobacco Campus. Over the course of 3 hours, more than 500 guests strolled through the front doors of Bay 7 to join in fun of the Halloween-themed party.

The party offered guests an opportunity to check out CED’s cool new office space in the American Underground. “Trick-or-treat” tours of the space were provided by Synergy Commercial Advisors, CED members since 2008. Along the way guests voted for the “Best Pumpkin”. Pumpkins were carved and decorated by CED member companies and American Tobacco tenants including: Bronto Software, Capitol Broadcasting Company, Dixon Hughes, Hughes Pittman & Gupton, Intersouth Partners, Launchbox Digital, Preation, Square 1 Bank, Themis Group, and Urban Planet Mobile.

For the party, CED partnered with StartUpWithMe.com a match making site for entrepreneurs, founded by: Aaron Houghton, Preation; Neil Bagchi, Bagchi Law; Sumit Vohra of LoneRider Brewery, and Rachit Shukla, Two Toasters. Aaron, Neil, and Sumit have been active CED members since 2005, 2010, and 2007 respectively.

To promote the event and highlight its commitment to social media, CED launched a 140 character Twitter Pitch contest. The winner, Trianglefoodtour.com, was announced during the party. The following tweet won them a brand new ThinkPad laptop, generously donated by Lenovo: “Walk, talk, taste, sip- A fun, casual way to sample the sights, sounds & flavors of the triangle-www.trianglefoodtour.com.”

Raffle tickets were sold throughout the event and 6 lucky winners left with entrepreneurial prize pacts that consisted of valuable time and services donated by local firms. Congrats to the winners (listed below):

Robbie Allen of StatSheet - Joined CED in 2010 (winner of the Entrepreneur’s Over Achiever Prize Pack)
Stephen Fraser of Spoonflower, Inc- CED member since 2008
Robert Petrusz of Academic Data Services, LLC – Joined CED in 2010
Chuck Pell of Physcient, Inc – Joined CED in 2007
Rodney Mood of Crispin Corporation – Joined CED in 2004
Joel Bush of Shoeboxed Inc. – Joined CED in 2008

As always, big thanks to our sponsors and the (G)HOST committee for making it all possible!

York Properties, Wyrick Robbins Yates & Ponton LLP, Wachovia, Vaco, v4 Productions, Triangle Game Initiative, Triangle Business Journal, Tim Guptom, Synergy Commercial Advisors, SciQuest, Ryan Allis, Robinson, Bradshaw & Hinson, Rob Orr, Research Triangle Regional Partnership, RBC Bank, Raymond Mac Mahon, Moore & Van Allen PLLC, Moise Khayrallah, Miriam Wilson, Michael F. Elliott, Lee Hargrove, Laura Hoke, Larry Robbins, Keshav Consulting, K&L Gates, Joseph DeSimone, John Stewart, Fennebresque & Co., Joan Siefert Rose, Jack Sheffield, Intersouth Partners, Hatteras Venture Partners, Harbert Venture Partners, GlaxoSmithKline, Fred Hutchison, Forma Life Science Marketing, Ed McCarthy, Channel Advisor, Brooks Malone, Arbovax, Inc., Affinergy, Inc., Adrian Wilson

Thank you to our Sponsors:

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