New Business of the Year— Cabarrus Regional Chamber of Commerce, February 2026
Strategy and production, under one roof in Concord.
Bayo Fodeke
President & Co-founder
Former tech lead with more than a decade across digital marketing, web development, and project management, including enterprise work in multiple industries. Leads FocalGroove's strategic consulting, web development, and automation practice, and runs the Concord AI Lab.
Strategy & ConsultingAI & AutomationWeb & Digital
Mark Shropshire
CEO & Co-founder
Visual storyteller with a background in brand architecture and creative direction, and more than twenty years of digital work behind him. Leads The Groove Studio and all creative production — from brand photography to podcast episodes. Believes great creative work starts with listening, not pitching.
Content & MediaBrand IdentityThe Groove Studio
How we work: discover, strategize, build, measure.
01DiscoverWe start by understanding your business — how it actually works, not how the brochure says it works. Audits, interviews, data analysis, and honest conversations.
02StrategizeWe map your positioning, audience, channels, and competitive landscape. The strategy becomes the blueprint everything else is built from.
03Create / BuildDesign, development, content production, and automation implementation. You see progress weekly, give feedback in real time, and nothing ships until you're confident.
04MeasureWe track what matters — not vanity metrics. Regular check-ins, performance reviews, and adjustments based on what the data actually says.
How we think about the work.
Quality over volume
We'd rather do four things well than twenty things adequately.
Integrity over convenience
If the honest answer is "you don't need this," we'll say so.
Community over transactions
The meetups, the AI Lab, the Chamber work — that's not marketing. That's who we are.
Practical over trendy
We use AI, automation, and modern tools where they measurably help — and skip them where they don't.
The meetups we host in Cabarrus County.
FocalGroove is embedded in the Cabarrus County community — not as a sponsor writing checks, but as an organizer, collaborator, and neighbor.
Concord AI Lab
Practical AI for the people running local businesses
3rd Tuesday · 11:30am · Learn more →
Concord Software Developers
Local developers talking shop over real code
2nd Thursday · 6:30pm · Learn more →
Concord Photography & Videography Group
Cameras, light, and the people behind both
1st Saturday · Learn more →
Mic Drop
Podcasters, audio storytellers, and the people who love them
Quarterly · Learn more →
You'll find us at Flywheel Coworking in downtown Concord.
FocalGroove operates from Flywheel Coworking in downtown Concord — and our business was shaped in part by the Rowan-Cabarrus Small Business Center, whose counseling and support helped us build something real.
Mark Shropshire serves as an Ambassador for the Cabarrus Regional Chamber of Commerce — attending ribbon cuttings, connecting new businesses, and showing up for the community that showed up for us.
