eMYRge

Myrtle Beach was represented at DIG South last week. They belonged there.

DIG South is one of the Southeast's biggest tech and entrepreneurship conferences. The kind of event where the hallway conversations hit harder than the keynotes and you leave with three new contacts and six new ideas.

eMYRge members made the trip to Charleston and were right in the middle of it. That's what this community is built for.

Jon Stell came to eMYRge in 2021 without a college degree and with a with a clear goal: to earn a living doing work he was actually good at

He is a photographer, producer, and QA tester for TransPerfect Legal, a company that builds software used in major litigation and arbitration cases across the country. He shoots employee spotlights, covers sales conferences, produces process videos, and works alongside front-end developers identifying bugs before they reach clients. The work is real, the clients are large, and none of it requires a Manhattan address.

Five years in, he has hit that income goal. He credits eMYRge for surfacing job opportunities that never would have shown up on Indeed. "I've taken every opportunity that's been thrown at me," he said. Executive Director of eMYRge, Jenny Halstead says "From my perspective, he's the epitome of a community champion. More than a welcoming cheerleader, leaning in with his unique set of skills where needed, and continuing to share his love for Myrtle Beach. He believes in what this region can become."

He also said something worth repeating about this place specifically: in a city like Austin, the talent is spread across the whole metro. Here, the highest-caliber local people are concentrated in one room. "There's only one place for us to go. It's right here."

That is not a small thing.

Something shifted in Myrtle Beach in May 2026, and last week the community showed up to the City Council meeting to make sure people knew it.

Jenny Halstead presented the details of the eMYRge expansion to the Myrtle Beach City Government, City Council, backed by a room full of founders, builders, and community members who came out to support it. That kind of turnout does not happen by accident. It happens when people have skin in the game and believe something real is being built here.

The expansion means more workspace, a dedicated common space, and a physical footprint that matches what this community has already become. For the people who have been showing up every week to work, learn, and connect, it is a long time coming.

This is what momentum looks like in Myrtle Beach!

Next week at eMYRge is worth clearing your calendar for.

Tech Talk Tuesday | June 16, 12-1PM
No slides, no pitch decks. Daniel O'Sullivan leads a working conversation built for developers, product managers, and technical operators navigating real career and product decisions right now. Candid and peer-driven. https://luma.com/pkbip0yz

1 Million Cups Myrtle Beach | June 17, 9-10AM
Frank DeMartino of Shaftek Golf shares the operational realities behind bringing an augmented equipment design to market, covering product and patent development. Free to attend. https://luma.com/8w4886se

Present & Pitch Workshop | June 18, 11-12PM
A hands-on session where the focus is sharpening your narrative and learning to own the room. https://luma.com/igus62dv

If this is your kind of week, come find us!

Tech Talk Tuesday is back on June 16 and this one is worth showing up for.

The topic is career paths in tech. Not the highlight reel version. Daniel O'Sullivan is running the room and the whole point is to get into the honest stuff: how people actually got where they are, what is working right now, and what feels hard about the next step.

No slides. No fluff. Lunch is provided and seats are limited. If you are a product manager, engineer, designer, or anyone actively building something in this area, this is the room for you.

Request to join via the link in comments. Noon on June 16 at eMYRge.

Most people running short-term rentals in Myrtle Beach treat properties like interchangeable units. Clean, flip, repeat.

Roca Williams built Well & Good Myrtle Beach around the opposite idea. Ten years in this market taught him that the Grand Strand does not behave like other markets, and that a plug-and-play operations model shows fast when something breaks. His staff trains for months before touching a property. Each unit gets dedicated people, not whoever is available. Owners get documentation on cleans, inspections, and maintenance, not just a text that says it is done.

That kind of operational depth is not common in this space, and it is exactly the kind of thinking that makes the eMYRge community sharper. We are glad Roca is in the room!

This week at eMYRge is packed and every session is built for people who are done with theory and ready to actually build.

1 Million Cups Myrtle Beach | Wed June 10, 9AM
Founder Dylan DeAtley breaks down exactly how he grew Fresh Air Solutions, LLC from a solo venture into a trusted regional team. 6-minute blueprint. 20 minutes of real Q&A. Come ready to take notes and ask questions! https://luma.com/symerfm4

StoryBrand Messaging Workshop | Thu June 11, 11AM
If your business struggles to explain what you do without losing people, this one's for you. Brandyn Miller leads a hands-on session to sharpen your core message before you spend another dollar on marketing. https://luma.com/89qqt2il

AI for Operations | Fri June 12, 9AM
Learn to use Claude and NotebookLM to turn operational chaos into board-ready reports in minutes. Walk away with repeatable AI templates you can use immediately. https://luma.com/qz0kdxqj

Myrtle Beach is absolutely buzzing this week. Between the Carolina Country Music Fest (CCMF) kicking off and major golf tournaments in town, the energy is huge. But even when you are in town for a music festival or hitting the green, the day job doesn't always pause.

Yesterday, we welcomed a few drop-ins who grabbed Day Passes to knock out some work. They were traveling professionals visiting the area to attend CCMF and a golf tournament, using our space to handle their regular remote workloads before heading out to enjoy the events!

Yesterday at 1 Million Cups Myrtle Beach , we got an inside look at what it takes to challenge giant national travel marketplaces right here in our own backyard.

Lenore Landrum, founder of VRMB Owner Direct and a dedicated member of the eMYRge community, shared her journey of building a hyper-local vacation rental platform designed specifically for the Grand Strand. Instead of letting excessive platform fees leak out of our economy, VRMB connects property owners directly with guests. It is an operational model built entirely on transparency, direct communication, and keeping tourism dollars inside the local community.

With thousands of customers already served, Lenore’s presentation is a prime example of how the founders inside our eMYRge network are carving out a sustainable footprint by staying deeply committed to local business owners.

Launchpad just held its first cohort kickoff right here at eMYRge.

It's a program built to take early-stage ideas and give them real structure, real accountability, and real momentum. Yesterday that work started in Myrtle Beach, with a room full of founders and a facilitator who drove four hours to make sure the first session landed right. That kind of commitment to this community is worth paying attention to.

The talent has always been here. What is growing is the infrastructure around it. Programs like Launchpad, running out of a space like this, in a market growing as fast as this one, change what is possible for the people in that room.

We're glad they're here!