© 2024 South Carolina Public Radio
Play Live Radio
Next Up:
0:00
0:00
0:00 0:00
Available On Air Stations

Charleston Start-Up Wins Big Money From National Celeb

  Our next guest's start-up company recently won two pitch competitions in less than a week.  The second one, though, left them reeling not only in money, but a lot of publicity.  They won $100,000 from AOL co-founder Steve Case during Case's “Rise of the Rest” tour when it stopped in Charleston.

Mike Switzer interviews Sam Staley, founder of Bidr, which helps nonprofits, schools and companies grow their fundraising event revenues through text messaging.

Stay Connected
After almost 20 years, Mike Switzer retired from Wells Fargo Securities in 2001 as Senior Vice President/Investment Officer and Certified Portfolio Manager. In 1999, he and his wife, Maggie, purchased and operated for eight years the Baskin Robbins ice cream store on Forest Drive in Columbia. They grew the store from a bottom-tier operation in the Baskin Robbins franchise system to one in the top 5% nationwide within three years, tripling sales along the way. While operating the ice cream store, Mike and Maggie received patents for a portable ice cream sink and fold-down sneezeguard they invented and in 2002 started Magnolia Carts, an ice cream cart manufacturing company, which they sold in 2013.