Tuesday evening, before an international audience of successful entrepreneurs and venture capitalists, Wilmington-based startup Next Glass got major props.
The event was the Wall Street Journal’s inaugural WSJDLive Conference, taglined “where the digital world connects” and held in Laguna Beach, California Monday through Wednesday of this week. Featured speakers and discussion leaders included top officials from such companies as Alibaba, Apple, NASDAQ, MasterCard, Accenture and Microsoft, along with several prominent film industry individuals.
Next Glass, which is preparing to launch an app that will allow users to create personalized wine and beer preference profiles, was named one of the conference’s five startups to present, chosen from hundreds of applicant companies from around the globe.
"Heads of the biggest of the biggest global technology companies were speaking at the conference," said Jim Roberts, executive director of the Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurship at University of North Carolina Wilmington, who has encouraged Next Glass to seek opportunities to promote its concept. "When you can shake hands with the CEO of Apple and Alibaba, and with [entrepreneur and investor] Marc Andreessen, that's a unique opportunity."
The other startups in WSJ.D LIVE's five presenters included one from Israel and one from Singapore. Invitations from the conference were deliberately vague so word of their recognition wouldn't get out ahead of the event, Roberts said.
Representing Next Glass at the conference were the company’s co-founder and board member George Taylor and Trace Smith, COO. Smith made the company’s presentation, which was limited to six minutes and no more than five slides, according to co-founder Kurt Taylor.
“It was great recognition for us,” he said in an interview Wednesday. “There are very few opportunities for companies like ours to go to a conference at which pretty much every tech executive is there. We’re definitely a little fish.”
Kurt Taylor, who stayed in Wilmington to continue preparing for the launch of the Next Glass app - planned for later this fall - heard from his father and Smith that their presentation was very well received.
“Feedback was very positive and encouraging, with people offering to help in some way to ensure that Next Glass would be successful. There are very few places that offer networking opportunities of that status.”
"This was an unexpected opportunity for Wilmington; it's beneficial when the spotlight falls on a local company," Roberts said, explaining that one goal of the CIE is to help local startups find opportunities to showcase themselves, and that Next Glass and others have done well in several technology competitions in North Carolina.
"Next Glass has also hired a very strong New York PR firm to help [the company]," Roberts added.
