Michael Boyarsky, CEO and co-founder of Extellis, joins me to talk about turning more than a decade of Duke metamaterials research into a satellite imaging company.

Michael explains what metamaterials are and why heat, not cold, is the real challenge for satellites in orbit. He also describes the conference moment when a competitor bragged about 2 percent uptime, and he thought the industry could do far better. He walks through the path from a DARPA-funded ground prototype to a spreadsheet that made the business case clear, and from there to spinning out of Duke with help from Duke New Ventures.

The conversation also covers how Extellis is getting to orbit without building its own satellites. The company is partnering with Astro Digital and riding on the ecosystem SpaceX made possible. Michael shares the details of its oversubscribed 6.8 million dollar seed round led by Oval Park Capital and the upcoming Pathfinder satellite. He closes with advice for researchers who are thinking about starting a company: begin with a real market need, not a technology looking for a home.

This is the Tweener Fund's first space investment, and it's a great listen for anyone curious about deep tech, university spinouts, or the new space economy.

Timestamps
00:00 Welcome to NC Tweener Talks
00:25 Thanks to our sponsors
01:35 Scot's intro: the Tweener Fund's first space investment
03:30 Welcome Michael Boyarsky
04:00 From Boston College physics to Duke's metamaterials lab
06:35 What is a metamaterial?
08:05 Negative refraction and the invisibility cloak
10:45 From lab demos to satellite imaging
11:45 Why heat is a problem in space
13:45 The 2% uptime moment
15:35 DARPA prototype: could we hit 20-25%?
17:00 How you build a metamaterial
20:10 "The company started in a spreadsheet"
21:55 Duke New Ventures and learning to run a company
24:00 Customer discovery in deep tech
26:45 Target markets beyond defense
29:30 Why Extellis needs its own satellite, but not its own factory
32:25 SpaceX and the space ecosystem
36:40 Fundraising: Oval Park Capital and Shell Ventures
38:55 The pathfinder: Astro Digital and a ride on a Falcon
41:05 Pathfinder goals, size, and orbit
46:00 Advice for deep tech founders and wrap
-----

Where to Find Michael Boyarsky:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/michaelboyarsky/
Extellis: https://www.extellis.com/

Where to Find Scot Wingo:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/thescotwingo/
Tweener Times: https://www.tweenertimes.com/
X: https://x.com/scotwingo

---

This episode of Triangle Tweener Talks is hosted by Scot Wingo, presented and produced by NC Tweener Fund, with creative assets and design support from Walk West.

We couldn’t share posts like this without our amazing sponsors:

Platinum:
NC IDEA: https://ncidea.org

Gold Sponsors:
- Balentine: https://www.balentine.com/triangle-entrepreneurs
- EisnerAmpner: https://www.eisneramper.com
- Robinson Bradshaw: https://www.robinsonbradshaw.com

Silver Sponsors:
- Automated Consulting Group: https://automated.co
- Bank of America: https://business.bofa.com/en-us/content/technology-industry-group.html

------
Triangle Tweener Talks is sponsored by:

• Atomic Object: https://atomicobject.com/

On this episode of Redacted, we skip the guests and get back to the heart of the show: what it really looks like to build and run Offline with AI in 2026.

David walks through the Hot List, a prototype feed of restaurants opening around Raleigh. An AI monitors Instagram and local news the way a person would, and David built the front end by having Claude recreate Offline's existing app with the new data. Taylor then shows the other half of the loop: a homegrown survey tool that embeds the live prototype, plays an intro video, and asks AI-generated follow-up questions based on each person's answers.

From there, the conversation turns to strategy. We cover Offline's North Star metric, the inactive members they most want to reach, and the evidence-guided approach that starts with the most basic question of all: are people even going out to eat?

The episode closes with a bonus segment on rebuilding the company website in roughly an hour of human time, and what that says about how small teams can multiply their output with agents.

Timestamps
00:00 Cold open
00:45 Welcome back: just the two of us
01:55 Showing how it came together, not just what we built
02:40 The old prototype → interview → meeting loop
03:50 Introducing the Hot List
05:40 The Updates tab and opening-day reels
07:20 Back end: hiring an AI to watch the city
09:10 RapidAPI and monitoring Instagram
11:50 Borrowing the Offline app's skeleton
13:20 How do we put this in front of users?
14:15 Taylor's AI-powered survey tool
16:45 Survey requirements off-the-shelf tools can't hit
19:45 AI follow-up questions on Cloudflare
21:20 Checking Typeform's AI forms
23:50 North Star metric and the inactive cohort
26:35 An agent to watch the numbers
27:25 If you hired a head of product
30:45 Evidence Guided, RICE and ICE
32:05 Are they even going out to eat?
34:15 Packaging the show into chapters & wrap
35:55 Bonus: rebuilding the website in an hour
41:30 SEO, AI search, and Webflow's MCP

---
Show notes from the episode: https://github.com/instanttaylor/redacted-podcast

Where to Find David:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/davidshaner/

Where to Find Taylor:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/taylorcotner/

More about Offline: https://www.linkedin.com/company/offline-media-inc-/

---

This episode of Redacted is hosted by David Shaner and Taylor Cotner, and presented and produced by NC Tweener Fund.

We couldn’t share posts like this without our amazing sponsors:

Platinum:
NC IDEA: https://ncidea.org

Gold Sponsors:
- Balentine: https://www.balentine.com/triangle-entrepreneurs
- EisnerAmpner: https://www.eisneramper.com
- Robinson Bradshaw: https://www.robinsonbradshaw.com

Silver Sponsors:
- Automated Consulting Group: https://automated.co
- Bank of America: https://business.bofa.com/en-us/content/technology-industry-group.html

------
Triangle Tweener Talks is sponsored by:

• Atomic Object: https://atomicobject.com/

This week on Redacted, we bring on our fourth guest: Ben Eckerson, founder of Agentcy, an AI-enabled consultancy helping small-to-mid-market companies close the gaps between the software they already pay for. Ben spent roughly 20 years in client services, including time at the ad agency McKinney, running Viget's Durham office, and co-founding Savas Labs, before launching Agentcy in early 2026 alongside business partner Eric out of the 24 and Up venture studio in downtown Raleigh.

Most of the episode is a live demo: Ben walks through the internal tool he built from scratch, which turns a raw meeting transcript into extracted pain points, pricing and staffing estimates, and a styled, client-ready proposal deck. From there, the conversation turns into a real debate about whether it's worth building your own AI-native tools instead of buying an off-the-shelf AI CRM, what gets lost when you strip away the UI and go headless, and how much of client work still comes down to a human reading the room.

It's a practical, behind-the-scenes look at how one small agency is actually using AI to run its business day-to-day, ending on a genuinely optimistic note about what all that automation is supposed to free people up to do.

Timestamps
00:00 Cold open
00:43 What Redacted is about
01:09 Meet guest #4: Ben Eckerson, founder of Agentcy
01:44 Housekeeping + an Offline update
02:52 Ben joins the show
03:34 20 years in the agency trenches: McKinney, Viget, Savas Labs
04:58 What Agentcy does and "humans doing the robot work"
05:29 The real problem: tool sprawl at client companies
07:59 From stealth to launch: Agentcy's first year, with partner Eric at 24 and Up
08:33 Demo time: inside Agentcy's homegrown CRM
10:01 Where the tool started: turning Fathom transcripts into next steps
12:11 Building a new lead: the WellCare walkthrough
14:27 Adding a call transcript and hitting "Analyze"
18:58 The internal TLDR: stage, stakeholders, pricing
22:15 One click to a client-ready proposal deck
24:41 Exporting to Claude, Manus, or GPT for design polish
26:32 What's next: living inside Claude Projects
28:15 Why build your own AI CRM instead of buying one
33:45 Going headless: is the UI just a commodity now?
38:41 Meeting clients where their AI maturity actually is
41:35 The future of human work and the last-mile problem
44:27 Where to find Ben and Agentcy

Show notes from the episode: https://github.com/instanttaylor/redacted-podcast

Where to Find David:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/davidshaner/

Where to Find Taylor:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/taylorcotner/

More about Offline: https://www.linkedin.com/company/offline-media-inc-/

---

This episode of Redacted is hosted by David Shaner and Taylor Cotner, and presented and produced by NC Tweener Fund.

We couldn’t share posts like this without our amazing sponsors:

Platinum:
NC IDEA: https://ncidea.org

Gold Sponsors:
- Balentine: https://www.balentine.com/triangle-entrepreneurs
- EisnerAmpner: https://www.eisneramper.com
- Robinson Bradshaw: https://www.robinsonbradshaw.com

Silver Sponsors:
- Automated Consulting Group: https://automated.co
- Bank of America: https://business.bofa.com/en-us/content/technology-industry-group.html

------
Triangle Tweener Talks is sponsored by:

• Atomic Object: https://atomicobject.com/