Back in February, we had the pleasure of hosting Jesse Lipson, founder of Real Magic and its contact-based app Levitate, for our monthly lunch and learn program.

According to the brand’s LinkedIn page:

“Real Magic builds SaaS products to help make the world a more creative and entrepreneurial place. Our first product, Levitate, helps small and medium-sized businesses manage their professional relationships to take their business to the next level. You can learn more at www.levitate.ai. Real Magic was founded by Jesse Lipson and some early team members from ShareFile (now part of Citrix), an award-winning business file sharing and document workflow tool that is used by millions of business people around that world.”

A Snippet from Lipson’s Presentation

At the lunch, Lipson shared with us some of his learnings from his earlier career successes at Sharefile (now part of Citrix) and how he took his observations to heart in building Levitate, a tool that helps professionals overcome the hassle of “keeping in touch consistently with your network [as it] is way too much to manage in your head or on a spreadsheet.”

Hot Topic ? @RPRS attendees ask @jesselipson which subject lines make for the best response when keeping in touch… “Checking in” and “Quick question” and black belt version… Personalized based on sports team faves! #RaleighPR pic.twitter.com/lYevDWwJNl

— Raleighwood Media (@rmg_reg) February 26, 2019

“Levitate helps you build and maintain authentic relationships, which drive more organic referral and word of mouth business,” is the selling point listed on the brand’s website. I implemented the free version for low-volume users just a few days after Lipson’s presentation at my company, Raleighwood Media Group + Raleighwood Event Group. It’s easy to use and doesn’t require much effort to make part of your regular workflow.

More Than Ideas, “Real Magic” Offers “Real Action”

Just a few weeks after activating Levitate, I reached out to an industry peer and past client that I had lost touch with in recent years just to say “Hello!” and ask about how work was going for him lately. We met up for coffee after a few email exchanges and he shared with me lots of new (to him) commercial ventures he had become involved with over the last year and that his bandwidth for in-housing marketing efforts had become taxed from the additional commitments. As the primary marketing decision-maker for these businesses, he asked me to put together two separate proposals for new lines of work for our boutique agency. One came to fruition and we onboarded within 30 days. The other is still open, but very much alive and well.

A Major Milestone for Real Magic

In mid-June, it was announced that Lipson netted a major round of funding from various investors to continue to grow the Real Magic offerings.

That came as no surprise to me given my very brief but valuable interaction with one of their product offerings.

My Takeaways

• Attending that one-hour RPRS lunch at my $20 member rate introduced me to a new way of working and new-to-me software. (Renews RPRS membership. ✔️)
• Levitate facilitated real sales impact for my business almost instantly. (Justifies $6M in funding secured. ?)
• Begs the question… if you’re reading this and you’re not a member of RPRS… what are you waiting for? (Sign up today! ?)

My goal in writing this blog wasn’t to publish a several-months-late recap of the lunch but instead, to praise Lipson’s recent success in securing funding to grow his latest venture, “Raleigh startup exec Jesse Lipson lands $6M for Real Magic app startup“, and to share the impact adding this to my toolbox at Raleighwood has had on my business.

Whatever your reason for considering membership in the Raleigh Public Relations Society, I am proof that our group delivers many opportunities to grow as a professional and for business as a whole. Our lunch events through the remainder of 2019 are all posted online – I hope to see you at another impactful lunch soon!

Cheers,
Lisa Jeffries
RPRS Vice President 2019