Silicon Harbor Hot Take Launch

The energy in Charleston’s tech scene isn’t hype—it’s momentum you can feel. We kick off Silicon Harbor Hot Take with Dig South founder Stanfield Gray to map the forces turning a coastal city into a serious launchpad for scalable startups. From the origin of “Silicon Harbor” to the nuts and bolts of building a summit that founders actually use, we unpack what makes this ecosystem work: practical access, operator‑led insights, and an abundance mindset that rewards collaboration without dulling competitive edge.

We go deep on the strategy behind Dig South’s curation. Instead of celebrity flybys, we bring the people shipping products and signing deals—engineers from OpenAI, Microsoft, Nordstrom AI, and Amazon Prime Video, plus investors like 11 Tribes and long‑time partners from CRDA. You’ll hear how growth‑stage companies find customers and capital, how early founders get hands‑on with platforms, and why legal, cloud, and go‑to‑market lounges matter when you’re moving fast. We also talk timing: LLMs, agentic AI, and world models are exciting, but only some tools move the bottom line today. Learn how to test, adopt, and sequence new tech without derailing your roadmap.

Underneath it all is a simple playbook: “Who Not How.” Swap solo heroics for the right collaborators, advisors, and partners. Leverage year‑round membership, rise‑and‑grind meetups, and a community demo stage to turn introductions into pilots and pilots into revenue. With Dig South anchoring Charleston Tech Week (June 8–12) and the summit set for June 11–12 at the College of Charleston, this is your chance to plug into a network designed for real outcomes, not vanity metrics.

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King & Columbus is a full-service marketing and advertising agency based in South Carolina that helps brands grow through a mix of creative storytelling and data-driven strategy. They offer everything from branding and content creation to media planning, digital advertising, and PR—focused on delivering measurable results across digital, social, and traditional channels. https://kingandcolumbus.com

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:43

Welcome to the Charleston Marketing Podcast, brought to you by the Charleston AMA and broadcasting from our friends at Charleston Media Solidity Studios. Thanks to our awesome sponsors at DMS. We get to chat with a couple of folks, making way to Charleston. From business and art to hospitality attack. So what's their story? Let's find out together.

SPEAKER_02 1:12

Welcome to the Charleston Marketing Podcast. We've got a very exciting segment. We're starting the segment called Silicon Harbor Hot Days. Uh with Stanfield Gray. And hey, guess what? We've got Stanfield Gray here. Say hello, Stanfield.

SPEAKER_01 1:27

Hello, Mike Thompson. Glad to be here.

SPEAKER_02 1:29

Glad to have you. Stanfield is the founder of Dig South, a tech summit and also Charleston Tech Week. Founder, huh? Of a whole week?

SPEAKER_01 1:38

I'm always foundering around something. You are. You're very, very not successfully found founding. Yeah, so Dig South Tech Summit, you know, we launched it 14 years ago on actually July 4th, 2012. Okay. That was the weekend we said, let's go all in. So Sonny and I dreamed that up. Um Sonny Gray, his wife.

SPEAKER_02 1:58

Sonny Gray, by the way.

SPEAKER_01 1:59

Sonny Gray, my wife. And that was an outgrowth of um a lot of things, really. I was running the first mobile app project for the College of Charleston, went to the Ad Age Digital Conference, very familiar with South by Southwest, interactive. I thought, why doesn't the Southeast have its own super cool interactive, which they called it back then, slash digital conference? And Dig South was born.

Silicon Harbor Origin Story

SPEAKER_02 2:24

Crazy. Dig South was born. That's a heavy lift, though, because we went and if you recall our segments uh live at Dig South, which was a ton of fun. Opened my eyes way open to to the whole tech scene here. So thanks for the invite. And it was a ton of fun. Um what what are we gonna do here with this segment, though? Like, why are we doing the Silicon Harbor hot take?

SPEAKER_01 2:49

Great question. So I thought it was a fun time to bring that back. In year one of Dig South, we hosted Shane Snow, a reporter from Fast Company magazine. Okay. He came down, did a great piece, interviewed people with the CRDA and SCRA, Nate DePore and Ernest Andrade had a big debate about who coined Silicon Harbor, but claimed it. So that was fun. And uh after Shane published the article, uh, you know, it went kind of viral, um, not just locally, but nationally, as people were looking at other emerging ecosystems around the country beyond Silicon Harbor, excuse me, Silicon Valley, New York, Boston, etc. So they were taking a look at Charleston. And uh we did this pop-up banner that year, spring of twenty thirteen, that said see the future on Silicon Harbor.

SPEAKER_02 3:36

Okay.

Why Charleston’s Ecosystem Works

SPEAKER_01 3:37

And then um, you know, Rich Conte did a Silicon Harbor Radio thing which evolved into his Tech Life podcast. He's done a great job with that. And it's it's been you know incredible to see emerging technology kind of rise in the southeast. Some of it around advanced manufacturing, around companies like Blackbaud that moved here in the early 90s to Charleston Benefit Focus that emerged in the early 2000s, and um companies like Red Hat out of Raleigh Durham. Okay. And then and then Atlanta has a strong technology scene there as well that Georgia Tech has you know supported, and and they have TechSquare there now, they have Venture Atlanta and multiple tech stars is basically there, but multiple accelerator programs. So, you know, Charleston has this unique quality about it where it's a gorgeous place where people want to be. There is some industry here, um, and then it's kind of at the this interesting intersection between Jacksonville, Atlanta, Raleigh Durham, Knoxville, Greenville. And I I see Charleston is kind of the epicenter on the coast there. Um Sam Staley one time called it the playground of tech. That's how he referred to Dig South. Really fun. That is cool. And that that applies to Charleston, you know. It's like, yes, we want to start companies and and scale them, and we also want to have fun, great quality of life. That's it. What does Dig South stand for? Originally it stood for digital south. Um at that time, 15 years ago, di the digital economy was kind of a common phrase. And and I saw it as a double entendre of also digging into the South, digging where you live, staying here. I grew up in South Carolina, I was born in Spartanburg, I went to the University of South Carolina. At that time in the 90s, you had to move to Silicon Valley, New York, Boston, elsewhere if you wanted to work for a globally scalable startup. It's very difficult to do that out of the Southeast. So fast forward to the time I launched Dig South, Sunday and I had a couple of young kids. I thought, wouldn't it be cool if we could contribute in a small way to making this the kind of place where when our kids come out of college and they're in college now, that's fascinating. Congrats. When they graduate, could they launch and scale a company here? And the and the answer is, you know, absolutely yes. People are already doing it, it's happening. And so that's a really exciting to me to see like Dig South contribute to that in a small way to where this is now coming to fruition, and you're not forced to leave to scale a company.

SPEAKER_02 6:05

I love that. I've got 10 year olds, and I'm using that speak as well when I talk about why we're building community, is for the kids.

SPEAKER_01 6:12

That's it. That's it. 100%.

SPEAKER_02 6:14

You know who said that too? Ernest. Yes, exactly. He said that in our episode as well.

SPEAKER_01 6:17

Right. Ernest Andrade has been a huge contributor to this in you know, very visible way with the digital corridor and the Charleston Tech Center. You know, he and John Hann collaborated and developed that amazing project. And it's it's just been cool to see everybody, you know, pitch in and lift all boats, so to speak, on Silicon Harbor.

SPEAKER_02 6:37

That's it. Lift all boats, right? Like like building community, uh, collaborating, not competition isn't there, it is there, but kind of like a friendly competition, right? Like cooperation is a new phrase that's going out there.

Abundance Mindset And Coopetition

SPEAKER_01 6:50

I like it. I like it. Yeah, I mean it it kind of goes back to having an abundance mentality. Yeah, it's really easy when you're down in the trenches, myself included, to think, oh, I'm competing for that and this, and we want to win. But the idea is that not that you beat your opponent, but that you both win. And maybe you want to do it a little bit better than they did. Of course, that's just the nature of wanting to do something well in a capitalist society. You want it to be great. And so, you know, I'm in there too, but with an abundance mentality and a mindset, I think we can all find enough pie to make it work.

SPEAKER_02 7:23

You introduced me to Who Not How. I remember that. That's right. And I've been saying Who Not How probably every episode. Uh, if we go into the transcription, which I'm doing all the transcriptions and putting it into an LLM to, you know, get alert, you know, get get some ideas of what other questions I can do or how I can better myself as a podcaster. Um and I bet that uh who not how comes up a lot.

SPEAKER_01 7:44

Yeah, I mean who not how is like a concept I picked up from Dan Sullivan.

SPEAKER_02 7:48

Sure.

SPEAKER_01 7:48

And uh did you meet Dan Sullivan? I did not meet him, you know, and I'm not sure if he originated that. But he is he has coined it and made it popularized it. And you know, to me, the the essence of Who Not How is real very relevant to any entrepreneur because we're always thinking we can do it all. We've got to wear 10 hats, we can't afford to hire all these people. But that's a a you know, fast track to making it almost impossible to scale. You can't do it. You can't do it yourself. You know, you can do it all. So when you start thinking, okay, every time, all right, this is a cool idea, great. Don't think about how you're gonna do it. Think about who's gonna help you. Who else would be on the team? Who do you want to bring on your board? Who do you need to partner with and collaborate with? I mean, Amanda's here right now, we you know collaborate with her on social media. Yep. And because I can't do it, I just you know can't do all of that and dive in. And so you you make it work, but I think the more you can ask who not how and as opposed to how many more things and jobs can I do, right? And just get out of the way, the more you're likely to scale.

SPEAKER_02 8:52

Speaking of who not how and and building your team, how big is your team for Dick South? And let's let's talk about who what it takes, you know, the size of the team, the planning, and and then let's give some teasing on on who's going to be here uh for it. And when is it again?

SPEAKER_01 9:07

It will be June 11th and 12th at the College of Charleston Simmons Center for the Arts.

SPEAKER_02 9:12

And what's our dot com, just in case the listeners can digsummit.com.

The Power Of Who Not How

SPEAKER_01 9:16

That's dig Summit.com. DigSouth will be the anchor event for Charleston Tech Week, which will run June 8th through 12th. Charleston Tech Week is a big decentralized festival. Think of it that way. So anybody who meets the basic criteria of an event that largely supports, you know, technology, entrepreneurship, and that's a big umbrella. It's welcome to apply. Host an event at CharlestonTechweek.com.

SPEAKER_02 9:40

Mm-hmm. Steffi and I did it. We did a uh podcasting one-on-one out of the uh Mount Pleasant Chamber headquarters.

SPEAKER_01 9:47

That's right. Year one we had 23 events, and you were a big part of that. So this year our the goal is to approach 50 events. We'll see if we can get there 50 events. Double the 23. Why not?

SPEAKER_02 9:57

So to my question of like, what's your team look like and and how what does it take to build this monster?

Team, Partners, And Production Muscle

SPEAKER_01 10:02

Yeah, so the team scales up the closer we get to the event. So we have a lot of independent contractors. I mentioned Amanda on social media. Um, my wife Sunny supports the team and runs her own business, essentially Charleston, but she's still involved in the you know financial side and the accounting part of it. Mel Trong is our partnership director. Mel is a powerhouse, incredible human. I'm very honored to collaborate with her. And then Carrie Glasscock is our producer. She's been with us at least six or seven years at this point, which is amazing. Yeah, um, and then we have a you know a whole host of other people that that get involved on our A V side, our tech team. Um, then we have a lot of collaborators, and many of our partnerships actually, the sponsorships themselves are people that also contribute to the program through Wild Pitch, through the investor VIP meetup, um, through our startup rodeo, which is a speed dating event. Cool. Yeah, yeah. So it just depends on the need and the use of the hours of rodeo a speed dating event. Right? Yeah, I mean, because who whoever stays on the horse the longest gets the investment. There you go. There you go. Did you just make that up on the spot? I did. I just completely made that up. Well, and then the College of Charleston, I gotta give them an incredible shout out. They they are uh not only a partner, but very much a collaborator. I mean, not only a host, I should say, but they're in the trenches with us. They have a great team there that that gets involved in helping us produce those events in Randolph Hall, Cistern Yard. You know, their their team in the Simmons Center for the Arts is incredibly helpful. They make they make things happen. So, you know, we we build the team every year. Winds up being about, I would guess, somewhere between 10 to 15 people, depending on the need.

SPEAKER_02 11:45

Um, who's coming? Let's start there. Who who do you think uh what do you have speakers already? I'm sure.

Speakers, Investors, And Big Brands

SPEAKER_01 11:52

Uh yeah, yeah, exactly. So this year we're very fortunate. We're more than six months out. We already have engineers from OpenAI, from Microsoft, from Nordstrom AI. Nordstrom has its own division. We have a couple people from Amazon, one from Amazon Prime Video, works on AI algorithms there. And uh then 11 Tribes Ventures just came on board. The CRDA is a great partner as always, and um, you know, on and on. So we just build that lineup between now and that time. Anybody's welcome to apply to be a speaker at digsummit.com. The forum is live. And um, you know, beyond that, it's it's really interesting. So from the beginning, let me back up Mike. Yeah, our goal has always been how do we connect the South's most scalable startups with leading global brands? And we've had that this notion that, you know, by thinking broadly, nationally, regionally, externally, beyond Charleston, that we can do the most to help people locally. Meaning that, you know, we have fantastic organizations that are very focused on the local ecosystem. And they're great partners and they're in the trenches. You know, we feel like we differentiate ourselves from from that in some ways by bringing in these speakers from around the country to bring expertise, connect with the companies here who may need to do business with them. Yeah, you know, and or be acquired at some point. You know, that's how we've seen that happen many times as well. So that's you know, Dig South is a year-round endeavor. We have our Dignation member platform, and then we have this goal of connecting people to thought leadership at big brands, big tech companies like I just named, and then to investors, you know, money is the the largely the fuel sometimes of of a startup as it scales, whether they're bootstrapping or raising an angel round or venture round or all the way up to private equity.

SPEAKER_02 13:45

So it doesn't really matter what round they're in right now, they can come to Dig South and find an investor that's a good fit.

SPEAKER_01 13:50

Yes, we have something for every stage of startup. I I mean we we do largely focus on that kind of growth stage company with about 20 to 400 employees. That's our sweet spot. Okay. But we have a lot of programming for the early stage founder, for the entrepreneur who just wants to learn more about digital marketing, more about supply chain, e-commerce, you know, anything under the sun involved with emerging technology. What are the what's the latest and greatest new way to do it? And uh and then we have things, you know, with a lot of companies like Oracle, who's been a sponsor for many years. Obviously, they're you know a globally dominant player. Big time technology. And they but you know, companies like that like to keep an eye on what's happening happening in emerging markets, and they like to sell cloud credits to startups. Oh well they are yeah.

SPEAKER_02 14:38

It's a win-win for everybody, I feel like. And that's kind of what what you set out to build, isn't it? It's just like a big win for Charleston.

SPEAKER_01 14:44

Yeah, it's I mean, we do carefully curate the the speaker lineup and and think about who's really gonna add value. And but then beyond that, we don't we don't go after the big celebrity name. Somebody's just gonna parachute in. Yes, that's neat, but you're probably not gonna do business with them. You may never meet them again.

SPEAKER_02 15:02

Great point.

SPEAKER_01 15:02

We focus on founders and executives who are in the trenches today, growing, scaling their company, who want to meet you and will then take your call next week. You know, you reach back out via LinkedIn, you're like, hey, it was so good to meet you. I really like to learn more about your business. And by the way, maybe we could do business together. That's a sweet spot for us. When that happens, that's the win.

SPEAKER_02 15:23

Um, who how can we go? And you have a you have more of a membership base uh plan than just an event. Right.

Year‑Round Membership And Access

SPEAKER_01 15:32

So if you buy a badge or ticket to Dig South Tech Summit, then you become a year-round member. So that's automatic. And that's bundled in there, and then you can attend our monthly events. We do rise and ground meetups, we do a lot of happy hours in partnership with Harbor Entrepreneur Center and other groups, AMA, of course, Charleston AMA. And then um, you know, beyond that, we have things at every price point. So we'll have a community demo stage on June 11th that'll be free. You know, attend that event. We'll have you know happy hours meetups with a very affordable ticket price, all the way up to exhibitor booths, um, what we call lounges, or which is more like a larger, sexier exhibitor space. Sweet. Um last year we had a gaming lounge, it was a lot of fun. You know, we had a Nelson Mullins kind of startup lounge where you could get advice from their legal team. And then uh, you know, beyond that, it just then you can buy the of course the the whole enchalada, the two-day big South Texas badge.

SPEAKER_02 16:31

Yeah, yeah, and and all the energy that was at the I mean it was just it was vibrating with just positive and and new ideas. And I wasn't able to s hear the the the you know the speakers because I was producing the podcast and hosting, I was able to speak to most of them, which was great, but I next year I kind of want to go to you know see some of them do their thing, you know, and be be in the audience a little bit more. Um and there's a lot of uh you know where you can get in front of the new technology. So let's say that you're new to the tech scene here in Charleston, or you're you know, you've been here for a while and you just want to get into the tech scene, you can test some of these platforms out right then and there. Like I you had the thing with levelup.org, right? Matt Grayson and those guys. I mean, top line was there. You know, so you get to meet the founders, you get to potentially become a user of their technology, right? And then, you know, uh leave a smarter person.

Getting Hands‑On With Emerging Tech

SPEAKER_01 17:28

That's absolutely yeah, and it's um I mean it's important to keep an eye on things as we you know progress in our careers, everybody understands that we started you know with the internet and then social media rolled out, and that became so complicated you needed to hire a team to run that for you. And and then you know, just a few years ago, everybody was familiar with machine learning, and uh, but they weren't with LLMs. And then 2023 hits and LLMs are everywhere and exploding, and now we're then the next year, last year, where everybody's very focused on agentic AI and where can I get an agent? Yeah, that sort of thing. And now people are looking at world models and they're thinking through their automated workflow and their whole stack, and what does this mean? Can I use it to code? You know, can I use it to answer my you know, super boring spam? Sure. Or incoming calls incoming calls or yeah, yeah. How what in other words, what can it do for me now? Right, right. And so at Dick South, that's kind of a lot of what we do is we introduce people to those concepts and ideas, and then we have speakers who say, you know, this is a nice to have, it's a cool toy, but it's really not gonna move the needle on your bottom line. Maybe you should think about this. Or, yeah, this is this is emerging, it's cool, go play with it, but we may be two years away from it really making impact on your business.

SPEAKER_02 18:51

And to get in front of something, uh two years ahead of it, I mean, that's huge. It's a great opportunity. Yeah, I love it. So, what we're also doing now, the reason for this show is to bring uh some founders to our listeners.

SPEAKER_01 19:06

That's right. Yeah, we're gonna tee up some people that are already on board for it, you know. Uh, we've got Carter Kennedy at Solo Insight, and Jeff Baxter at 11 Tribes, and probably bring you know some friends from the CRDA on at some point, and we'll just uh have a fun discussion about what the latest hot take on Silicon Harbor might be.

Monthly Hot Takes And What’s Next

SPEAKER_02 19:24

Awesome. So we're gonna drop these once a month. Yeah. For their uh starting uh in January. Yes. So you you're you're lucky, listeners. You you get the Charleston Marketing Podcast, you get the uh the live Dig South podcast episodes that are still we still have some that we haven't launched yet, so you get some of that, and then now you're gonna get some of the Silicon Harbor hot takes coming at you too. So we're just trying to build values, we're trying to build a community here, and Stanfield's been doing it for a while, so we're gonna ride his coat wake his his what do you call it? How do you say that? Ride his coat tails? The coat tails, or ride the wake, you know, in Silicon Harbor. How about that?

SPEAKER_01 20:03

This guy gotta come up with the you know the the metaphor that suits the hot take.

SPEAKER_02 20:09

That's it. That's it. So we're super excited to be doing this. Thank you, Stanfield, for getting us uh the opportunity to help out. Thank you, Mike. And um and and bringing in the the heavy hitters here to teach our uh listeners a little something every every month.

SPEAKER_01 20:22

Yeah, let's have fun.

SPEAKER_02 20:23

That's what it's all about. All right, listeners, thanks for uh popping in. Uh this is this is kind of like our overview uh episode of what Silicon Harbor Hot Takes is going to be. And I wanted to introduce Stanfield as a host. You're gonna hear his voice every every episode. And uh and uh shout out to SCRA for being a