From Free Pizza to a Million-Dollar Exit: A UNC Grad's Agency Sale

Brice Connors sold his digital marketing agency, BluePrint Business Communications, to Atlanta-based Infinitee Communications in January 2026 — roughly six years after he founded it as a UNC undergraduate with a single three-month hot dog restaurant contract.

By 2025, BluePrint was generating $1.2 million in annual revenue and employed seven people, according to Connors, who graduated from UNC-Chapel Hill in 2020 with a media and journalism degree and an entrepreneurship minor from the Shuford Program. Employees kept their jobs after the acquisition, and Connors stayed on for seven months to ease the transition.

The sale capped a decade that began with a slice of pizza.

How did a free-pizza info session start a company?

Connors entered Carolina planning to earn a degree for a "nine-to-five" job. His mother was a schoolteacher; his father, a sports broadcaster, died when Connors was 17.

"Growing up in Johnston County, I heard a lot about farming and agriculture, but not as much about commercial real estate, investment portfolios or business ownership," he said. "When I got to Carolina, I didn't even know entrepreneurship was something that you could study."

During his first year, he attended an information session about the then-new Shuford Program in Entrepreneurship. He went for the food.

"I tell people I wasn't looking for a minor, I was looking for dinner. But that evening changed the trajectory of my life," he said.

The faculty talked about solving problems and creating businesses rather than landing jobs. Connors enrolled on the spot. "For the first time, I realized there was another path," he said.

The lesson that stuck first, though, came from Chapel Hill's main drag.

What did 20 rejections on Franklin Street teach him?

Still studying at the Hussman School of Journalism and Media, Connors approached 20 Franklin Street businesses, offering social media management. Nineteen said no. Trolly Stop, a small hot dog restaurant, signed him to a three-month contract.

"That one yes hooked me," he said.

The walk taught him one of entrepreneurship's core lessons: managing rejection. Connors kept building, and by graduation he had added website development and digital marketing to the agency's services. He incorporated BluePrint in Raleigh.

A class visit accelerated his conviction. Steve Malik, owner of the NC Courage soccer team and husband of Shuford Advisory Board member Kathleen Malik '90, spoke about his Eastern North Carolina upbringing and losing his father as a teenager — experiences that mirrored Connors' own.

"Hearing a successful entrepreneur talk about life experiences similar to mine made me think I could be one, too," he said.

Where did the growth come from?

Entrepreneurship faculty pushed students to find underserved markets with limited competition. Connors found one east of the Triangle.

"I realized in 2019 and 2020 that Eastern North Carolina was poised for a lot of growth, while few Raleigh-based marketing firms were focused on serving the region. I saw an opportunity to build BluePrint around that gap," he said.

The turning point came in 2020, when BluePrint landed its first multiyear, million-dollar government contract. The campaign produced back-to-back record occupancy tax collections, and Connors said the agency began earning a new level of credibility in the region.

That credibility converted into work with economic development groups, airport authorities and tourism organizations — the client base that carried BluePrint to seven figures.

What's the takeaway?

Connors frames the whole arc — the pizza, the 20 rejections, the exit — as proof of a simple habit.

"There's something to be said for just showing up. You never know where it might lead," he said.

For would-be founders in overlooked markets, BluePrint's numbers make the point more sharply: a three-month social media contract signed in college became a $1.2 million agency with a seven-figure exit in under a decade.