Every Wednesday at 9 a.m., entrepreneurs from across Wilmington’s business community gather at UNCW’s Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurship (CIE) for a cup of coffee.
 
The program is part of a national initiative created in 2012 by the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation called 1 Million Cups, intended to provide a supportive space for community members and entrepreneurs to connect and learn from each other.
 
1 Million Cups was originally not meant to be more than a weekly ritual at the Kauffman Foundation, said Thom Ruhe, president and CEO of NC IDEA and former vice president of entrepreneurship at the Kauffman Foundation.
 
“It was just meant to be this thing we did for colleagues to learn about the vibrancy of the entrepreneurship ecosystem in Kansas City,” he said. “It takes place on Wednesdays simply because that was the day, the one day of the week that the foundation provided breakfast for employees.”
 
The program has reached more than 100 cities nationwide. Wilmington’s chapter consistently draws a crowd, and its organizers say momentum has steadily grown since it kicked off in 2020.
 
“It really is the little engine that could,” said Heather McWhorter, CIE director and an organizer of 1 Million Cups Wilmington. “It really has not stopped since February 2020.”
 
The layout of a meeting is simple and rarely changes: Each week, one or two vetted entrepreneurs give a six-minute presentation about their business or business idea to a crowd of fellow entrepreneurs, mentors and students. Each presentation is followed by around 20 minutes of Q&A from attendees, who can offer helpful suggestions and connections or ask questions.
 
The Kauffman Foundation, which sets specific guidelines for how a 1 Million Cups meeting should operate, including that the meetings are free, weekly and start at 9 a.m., also makes it clear that a 1 Million Cups event is not a pitch presentation. The environment is relaxed and scaled back, offering a chance to spark conversation and build community connections, participants have said.
 
According to Ruhe, the meetings have helped founders make important connections, find test users for products or software, and, in one case, even helped secure warehouse space.
 
“Community engagement, it’s one of the most leveraged things that has such impact, but it’s so simple to do,” said Ruhe. “It’s an excuse for the community to come together and, at a regular cadence, that it starts building … collective community memory.”
 
Jack Fleming, a chapter organizer and founder of Socialry, a social media marketing company, said the event has continued to draw a crowd over the years.
 
In addition to Fleming and McWhorter, 1 Million Cups Wilmington organizers include Jerry Coleman, director of the Cape Fear Community College (CFCC) Small Business Center; Jon Barker, vice president of pricing at Strategic Growth Partners; Lydia Thomas, program manager at CIE; Carly Johnson, growth marketing manager at Long Run Marketing & Media; Jim Roberts, founder of the Network for Entrepreneurs in Wilmington; and Jenna O’Neal, coordinator at the CFCC Small Business Center.
 
“We used to have about honestly 15 to 20 people per week,” Fleming said. “But now we’re kind of routinely having 75-plus people in person and 15-plus on Zoom.”
 
For Fleming, that momentum is an indication that Wilmington’s startup and entrepreneurial communities are growing.
 
“Wilmington is so much more than just a sleepy beach town,” he said. “There’s a whole bunch of life sciences and deep tech and biotech going on right now. The marketing tech scene is booming.”
 
Regular attendance at 1 Million Cups Wilmington tends to include local founders and entrepreneurs, people new to the city, experienced founders offering mentoring advice and students. According to Fleming, the event is often an encouraging first step into Wilmington’s entrepreneurial community.
 
“There’s a lot of follow-up and suggestions, and a lot of times the speakers are here for at least an hour afterward, talking to people that come up to them,” said McWhorter.
 
Alison Baringer, who served as executive director of the N.C. Azalea Festival for over a decade, found her way to 1 Million Cups after leaving the Azalea Festival and was surprised to find new faces.
 
“I went there and maybe knew like one person out of the whole room,” she said, “and I was like, ‘Wow, there’s this whole other community,’ and it got me kind of inspired.”
 
Baringer later returned to 1 Million Cups as a presenter, sharing the basis of her own startup, Salt & Rally, a fractional chief operating officer consulting and execution services firm.
 
“I wanted something that I could have autonomy over and control over,” she said of her business. “Something that I had built.”
 
With Salt & Rally, Baringer consults with small- to medium-sized businesses and nonprofits on operational bottlenecks and growth opportunities. After founding the firm, Baringer wanted to present at 1 Million Cups for supportive feedback.
 
“I felt like it would be a good community of like-minded people for where I was in this journey of business building,” she said. “If you know you have a need and you’re genuinely a good person and are trying to do good, there are people in town that want to help you and want to help you succeed.”