YOU HAVE TO PAY, OFTEN A LOT, TO GO TO COLLEGE OR university. But now that can pay off from the get-go if you’re a student at Florida Gulf Coast University. And you have a good idea.

FGCU, together with Florida State University, became the first public university in the state last week to kick off a new degree program for student entrepreneurs that will add mentors, practical experience, wide knowledge and even angel-fund grant money to their concepts-turned-business plans — no matter what their academic backgrounds or majors.
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In theory, students can now study Shakespeare, engineering, marine biology or anything else and make money at the same time by starting with one good idea then learning how to design it, patent it, produce it, market it, and distribute it. A diploma from FGCU comes with it.
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The new approach springs from the notion that creativity can come from any direction at the university. But it requires practical shaping of sorts before it can be of value to anybody.
It may also require angel investors — deep-pocket fueling agents of the future who bet on good ideas.
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“This is a business-of-arts degree in entrepreneurship. Not a business degree,” explains Professor Sandra Kauanui, director and program chair at FGCU’s Institute for Entrepreneurship.

“Lots of colleges that have an entrepreneurship degree just wrap it into just business school. But for a different, higher level of innovation, you want to connect with engineers, scientists, or many of our arts students: they’ve done things with digital media, created software applications, but they’re outside engineering or even business. They’re in the College of Arts and Sciences.
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“I blame Tim Cartwright,” she adds. “He came up here from Naples a few years ago and challenged us to do something like this.”

Mr. Cartwright, partner in Fifth Avenue Advisors and chairman of two of Florida’s biggest Angel Funds — the Tamiami Angel Funds I and II (now beginning a third iteration) — is chairperson of the investment committee that judges FGCU student projects on the runway.

A business incubator and important part of the of the program, students refine and then pitch their ideas in (or on) the runway. Like any other angel fund investors, the committee then backstops worthy ones with grants from the FGCU Foundation.

“We tell him how much we, the foundation, have and he and his committee decide how to distribute it,” says Dr. Kauanui.

To appear before the investment committee, students must have completed a semester in the runway program. They can and sometimes do become profit-making entrepreneurs even before they graduate, or just after.

“We saw 18 presentations about three weeks ago, and we invested $88,000 in 14 companies,” says Mr. Cartwright.

“The grants range from $1,000 up to about $12,500. It’s not a lot of money but it is money. They’re awarded to help students do some patent work, or do market research, or purchase a logo — to get a brand name and website services to launch their business — that kind of thing.”

Mr. Cartwright, who plans to teach a venture capital class at FGCU next year, knows whereof he speaks: the Tamiami Angel Fund II, for example, has invested a third — roughly $1 million — in a Naples-based medical technology invented by Dr. Steven Goldberg, chief of the Division of Orthopedic Surgery at Physicians Regional Healthcare System in Naples.

“He developed a new way to do a total shoulder replacement,” explains Mr. Cartwright, citing Dr. Goldberg’s company, Catalyst OrthoScience, and the device itself, the Catalyst CSR Shoulder System. “It’s patented, and he’s been issued his 510K clearance from the FDA. That means you’re approved to put your device into human beings.” There’s joy in such work, not just profit.

“This is the exciting thing, with ours being a (deep pocket) company: it’s really fun when you get to see that kind of development.”

And it’s also exciting to watch students emerge not just as thinkers, but as thinkers and doers.
Students with great ideas for products will not only put their minds together, but they’ll learn how to run the gauntlet of fiscal, legal, production and marketing challenges required to turn creativity into productivity.

“We spend at least 30 minutes each week with each student,” says Scott Kelly, assistant director of the Institute of Entrepreneurship, which includes the runway.

“From my perspective, going K through 12 and then the first year of college sort of (blunts) your creativity. So they get to feel out the ideation phase by coming up with a solution — it sort of beats the creativity back into them.”

Mr. Kelly, who graduated from FGCU with a degree in bio-engineering in 2014, had his own experience in FGCU’s Entrepreneurial program when he was a student there.

“I developed my first business in Dr. Kauanui’s classes — we developed the Aquaramp to help people with disabilities get in and out of swimming pools,” he says. “We got through the patent process and decided that the market wasn’t conducive to getting it to market.”
Getting it to market is one thing, but getting it to a stage that might work in the first place, is another thing, he acknowledges.

“What we teach here is the lean startup. The idea is to go to market with the minimum viable product. You have something you can take to market, to a very specific market, so you can test it, generate traction, and that can lead to expansion of your business or project.”

One student, for example, wanted to create an application that would help people working in or seeking real estate to find what they needed. But that was too broad, says Mr. Kelly.

“With him it was a matter of trying to get him to think more specifically. What is a major problem in the industry? What can you focus on that won’t cost a million to make happen — what can you start with tomorrow that will get people to buy into your idea?
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“So, he spent the next few months working on getting down to that specific target market. He ended up creating an app called RoomDig. They’re in the process of (establishing) the IP, the Intellectual Property rights, now. It’s specific to student needs in housing.”

Helping students find what they need and want. Since roughly 20.5 million students enrolled in colleges and universities in the U.S. last fall, that housing app might be a very good idea.
“When you put people together from across the disciplines, the level of creativity is so much better,” says Dr. Kauanui.
And a promising truth emerges: You don’t have to be a business student to be an entrepreneur. 
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Financial success and social welfare are not mutually exclusive. One innovative company in Immokalee shows us the way.

The small agricultural town in eastern Collier County may be an unlikely place for the newest trend in venture-capital circles, but one company there is at the vanguard of social investing.

Tamiami Angel Funds, a group of Naples investors who invest in promising young companies, recently formed a unique partnership with the Community Foundation of Collier County to raise capital for Taste of Immokalee.

But Taste of Immokalee is unlike any company you’ve seen before in Southwest Florida. It’s not a nonprofit charity and it’s not a for-profit company. It’s a hybrid called a benefit corporation, or “B Corp.," a structure that only recently has been permitted to form in Florida.

Started by enterprising students from Immokalee High School in 2014, Taste of Immokalee sells hot sauces, spices, salsa and barbecue sauces in stores such as Publix and Winn-Dixie. Under the mentorship of experienced Naples business leaders, the students from the socio-economically underserved area learn valuable hands-on business lessons such as marketing and distribution.
Anyone can invest in Taste of Immokalee just like any for-profit company and become a shareholder. Or you can make a charitable contribution to 1 by 1 Foundation, the nonprofit that helped launch Taste of Immokalee with grants from insurance giant State Farm.

But investing through the Tamiami Angels Impact Investing initiative at the Community Foundation of Collier County (CFCC) could mean a windfall for the greater benefit of the community. Here’s how: By ceding their shares in Taste of Immokalee to the CFCC, investors get a tax deduction because of the foundation’s nonprofit status. If Taste of Immokalee becomes a successful company, as investors believe it can, the Community Foundation can earn a windfall and reinvest the proceeds for the benefit of the community.

This is an important development because it’s another tool in the economic development arsenal to diversify the region’s economy.

What’s more, it’s a way to boost the economic well-being of communities that haven’t benefited from the economic recovery.

There is a well-known precedent for this kind of social benefit to financial success. Food and beverage company Newman’s Own has distributed $475 million to charity thanks to actor Paul Newman, who founded the company in 1982.

Tamiami Angel Funds and other investors are confident that Taste of Immokalee can be financially successful and boost economic opportunity. But like any startup enterprise, Taste of Immokalee needs capital to grow.

Tamiami Angel Funds is the lead investor and its members are contributing $12,000 to seed a $250,000 capital raise. That’s money Taste of Immokalee can use to bring manufacturing to Collier County and provide more opportunity and jobs to the region.
Taste of Immokalee will show the state that profits and social welfare aren’t mutually exclusive. Now’s the time for investors to prove us right by visiting Tamiami Angel Funds' website -- www.tamiamiangels.com -- for more information.

Tamiami Angel Funds are member-managed funds that allow high-net-worth individuals and families to invest in promising early stage and expansion-stage companies located in the U.S., with a preference for those in Florida.
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Keith Grant left the recent Venture Pitch SWFL forum in Punta Gorda having made a case that old-school tool manufacturing and 21st century technology go together like a firefighter and fire hose.
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Grant, a former firefighter who founded North Port’s Frontline Equipment Technologies LLC four years ago, also left with $30,000. He will use the venture capital to help him consolidate shops he has in Murdock Village, Charlotte County and in south Sarasota County in Venice.

Production under a single roof will help Grant boost production and increase marketing of his two main tool categories – HydraSpear Equipment Systems water-jetting nozzles and GatorFloss stainless steel-wire cutting saws. The investment will also help Grant do more of his own machining.

“We’re just going into a different level,” says Grant, who expects to add more private investment to the $30,000 from Venture Pitch.

Frontline is a departure of sorts from the software, internet and e-commerce companies that usually inhabit the world of early-stage ventures, says Timothy Cartwright, chairman of Naples-based Tamiami Angel Funds, a co-sponsor of Venture Pitch SWFL. “Frontline is maybe more old school in that they actually make a product that you can touch and feel,” Cartwright says.
And Grant made sure the judges could do that. He helped Frontline distinguish itself in the Venture Pitch competition by assembling one of his products as he made his pitch to a panel of judges.

The night before the event, Grant assembled a prototype of one of his HydraSpear products, carried its parts in a bag onto the forum stage and proceeded to put the parts together. When done, he presented the 7-foot SaberSpear.

The firefighting tool has fireproof extenders and a penetrating nozzle that applies a high-pressure water flow inside a fire without the firefighter having to get too close. The SaberSpear, headed to market this spring, can also be equipped with a cap that allows a striking tool to drive underground to saturate subsurface fires.

“Showing that product made a great impact with the judges,” Cartwright says.
Grant, who left a career as a Providence, R.I., firefighter for medical reasons in 2003, launched his company to make tools for fighting fires and for cutting drivers out of crashed cars. He discovered that with slight modifications, the products could have multiple uses.

For instance, the HydraSpear tools can be modified for piercing tools in marine work, among other uses. “They picked up the HydroSpear and ran with it,” Grant says of the marine industry. “It helps them with setting pilings and building seawalls.”

Utilities companies, he says, like HydroSpear tools for their precision boring, and drainage contractors like them for clearing drainage paths.
The GatorFloss saws use stainless steel wire cables to cut through aluminum, brass, copper composites, wood and other nonferrous materials. They are useful for disaster rescue teams, Grant says.

Grant has spent thousands of dollars developing and testing steel nozzles for the HydroSphere tools. He recently partnered with Englewood-based 3-D printing company LiteWorld LLC, which helps him save on costs.

Frontline employs two engineers. One is a specialist in fluid dynamics and the other software development. And a new executive addition is Bill McCabe, a retired CFO and CEO of a manufacturing company who worked with Frontline during a 13-year stint as a SCORE volunteer. McCabe retired from SCORE to serve as Frontline’s CFO.

McCabe says he falls into the category of retired executives not easily impressed. But Frontline impressed him enough to go to work for it, he says.

“I have seen a lot of different kinds of businesses and have a pretty good feel for their potential,” McCabe says. “I am impressed by their products and the market potential.”

An enterprising group of high school students in rural northern Collier County covet a taste of the business big-time.
The students, at Immokalee High School, are behind Taste of Immokalee, run under the support of several seasoned Naples area business leaders who mentor the students. Taste of Immokalee sells salsa, hot sauces, spices and barbecue sauces, and its products are in Publix, Winn Dixie and several Naples area independent retailers, including Wynn’s Market. It also has an e-commerce website, http://www.tasteofimmokalee.com.
  
“People compare us to Junior Achievement,” says Taste of Immokalee Executive Director Marie Capita, an attorney and former Collier County official. “But we are Junior Achievement on steroids. We give the kids a real-life experience.”

Taste of Immokalee has some other unique features. For one, it’s a benefit corporation, which, under a 2014 Florida law, allows it to pursue both profits and community benefits. Also, the company’s board of adult leaders includes former college basketball star Ralph Sampson.
And Taste of Immokalee recently worked out an unusual capital-raise agreement with Naples-based Tamiami Angel Funds and the Community Foundation of Collier County. Led by Tamiami Angel Funds, Taste of Immokalee seeks to raise $250,000.

The company, says Tamiami Angel Funds Chairman Timothy Cartwright, is “at the vanguard of the trend of social investing, which considers both financial success and community benefits to create social change.”

Taste of Immokalee was founded in 2014, with support from the 1 By 1 Leadership Foundation and grants from insurance giant State Farm. Its mission is to work with students in socio-economically underserved Immokalee, where the population is mostly migrant and immigrant workers in tomato fields.

Taste of Immokalee did about $14,000 in sales in 2015, says Capita. That figure jumped to $55,000 last year. The students, a changing roster that averages about 20 teenagers a semester, have worked on social-media campaigns and merchandising activities at local festivals, schools and retail outlets, among other business tasks.

If Taste of Immokalee reaches its full goal, the $250,000 capital raise could be a tipping point. It intends to use the money to move its production and packaging from a Sarasota plant to Immokalee, where it can make more goods, faster, Capita says. The funds will also boost the company’s marketing and branding efforts. And a portion of the proceeds goes back to the Immokalee community.

Taste of Immokalee students pitched their company in front of Tamiami Angel Funds’ investors late last year. While the group was impressed, Cartwright says they were hesitant to invest because the young leadership changes often, when students graduate.
That’s where the community foundation helps. It set up a special account for the benefit of Taste of Immokalee that allows investors to claim a tax deduction because they donated the shares in the company to the nonprofit foundation.

Tamiami Angel Funds raised an initial $12,000 from their members for Taste of Immokalee. The organization plans to work alongside Capita and the adult-based senior leaders on Taste of Immokalee’s board to help raise more funds. Says Cartwright: “Our view is that there is plenty of room in the world for more entrepreneurs.”

Be Good
The Florida Legislature passed a law in 2014 that created a new method of incorporating an entity: a B Corporation, also known as a benefit corp. The hybrid between a for-profit and nonprofit gives the company’s directors the ability to pursue both community benefits and profits.
Florida joined about 25 other states that now have a B Corp prevision. B Lab, a B Corp industry advocacy group, estimates there are some 1,600 certified B Corps worldwide, in at least 120 business sectors.
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The Florida B Corp legislation, according to a Florida Bar Association analysis, has three guiding principles: the entity has a statutory purpose to engage in public benefit activities; a mandate to directors and officers to consider the effect of any corporate action or inaction on the corporation’s public benefit goals; and a mandatory annual report to shareholders describing the efforts of the corporation to achieve the statutory and any specifically adopted public benefit goals.

Timothy Cartwright wears many hats in his professional life.
He is a partner and co-founder of Fifth Avenue Advisors, a wealth management, mergers/acquisitions and angel investing management firm. He’s also managing director of the FAA subsidiary he founded in 2003, Compass Advisory Group, a consultancy that completes business transactions and corporate restructurings for mid-market companies.
Add to that his chairmanship of Tamiami Angel Funds, which are member managed investments in promising young companies, and his service as president of the Gulf Coast Venture Forum, a Southwest Florida-focused, nonprofit, angel investment network.
These professional pursuits, as with his life, are infused with the teachings of his Christian faith, something he has in common with his partners in FAA, Craig Lyon and Gary Price. He says they share philosophies, ethics and an appreciation for serving customers.

“It really emanates from our core value of using our Judeo-Christian beliefs and implementing them in our business: respect for every individual, a servant-leadership mentality that we take into our business every day, recognizing the talents we have been given and determining to use those talents to their highest and best use in serving others,” Mr. Cartwright says.
“I think it’s equally important that you recognize that everyone has talents and gifts, so no one person has all the skill sets required. That’s why we’ve come together in a partnership; we’ve found that a team approach to serving clients is much better than an individual approach.”
He and Mr. Lyon formed FAA in 2006, bringing their individual businesses, Compass Advisory Group and Magnus Capital, together in a one-stop shop.
“He was a regular investment advisor who managed family wealth and I had a merger and acquisition advisory firm that helped people sell their companies and become liquid,” Mr. Cartwright says.

Mr. Price, a former vice-mayor of Naples, added his wealth management skills to the mix in 2008.
A native of suburban Chicago, Mr. Cartwright has a bachelor’s degree in economics from the University of Wisconsin and a master’s of management in finance and accounting from Northwestern University. College was followed by two years with Arthur Andersen, a holding company and former Big Five accounting firm, in Chicago.
Next, Mr. Cartwright dove into entrepreneurship by starting a supply chain consulting company, Benchmark Solutions, which grew to have locations in four Midwest cities. After leaving that company in 1999, he started Byproducts Interactive, an internet marketplace for food and agricultural byproducts, which was victimized by the economic downturn that occurred after 9/11.
He and his wife, Amy, visited Naples in 2002, as he considered his next move. A beachfront lunch at Lowdermilk Park helped prompt their decision to move their family, which included three young children, from suburban Chicago to Collier County.
After the move, Mr. Cartwright became involved in organizing and educating angel investors and facilitating the funding of small businesses to diversify the region’s economic development through investment in innovative industries. This led to the creation of Tamiami Angel Funds in 2008.
He describes the impact of the Tamiami Angel Funds as one of his major sources of pride, citing the company Taste of Immokalee as a prime example behind that feeling.
Taste of Immokalee was launched in 2014 by Immokalee High School students. The company sells hot sauces, spices, salsa and barbecue sauces the students create in stores such as Publix and Winn-Dixie. With mentoring provided by Naples-area business leaders, students from the economically challenged community gain hands-on experience in various aspects of running a business.
Tamiami Angel Funds has raised $12,000 from its members for the company, in a partnership with the nonprofit Community Foundation of Collier County. Investors are working to raise a total of $250,000 to enable Taste of Immokalee to bring manufacturing and distribution of its products to Immokalee from Sarasota.
“The greatest satisfaction comes out of serving people and helping them achieve their dreams and their goals,” Mr. Cartwright says. “That goes across the board, whether it is serving high net worth families and helping them accomplish their goals of charitable giving or paying grandchildren’s tuitions, whether it’s working with entrepreneurs and angel investors, all the way to the public service and volunteer roles that we play in various organizations.” ¦
Interview with Tim Cartwright
Business mentors: My partners.
First jobs: Delivering the newspaper and detasseling corn.
Business words of wisdom: Operate at the intersection of professional drive and personal humility.
Favorite business book: Donald Trump’s “The Art of the Deal.”
Two things you look for when hiring: People who are confident but coachable.
Any job openings? No.
Last time you had to fire someone, and reason? Sorry, that’s confidential.

Investors are raising $250,000 in capital for Taste of Immokalee, a Florida corporation that is breaking new ground in socially responsible investing.
In a unique partnership between Naples-based Tamiami Angel Funds and the Community Foundation of Collier County, investors in Taste of Immokalee know their investment will benefit underprivileged children in eastern Collier County who are learning to become entrepreneurs.
Launched three years ago by Immokalee High School students, Taste of Immokalee sells hot sauces, spices, salsa and barbecue sauces in stores such as Publix and Winn Dixie. Under the mentorship of Naples business leaders, the students from the socio-economically underserved area learn valuable hands-on business lessons in developing social-media campaigns and merchandising activities at local festivals, schools and retail outlets.

Taste of Immokalee is a benefit corporation, a newly permitted Florida corporate structure that lets companies pursue both profits and community benefits. Traditionally, companies either had to register as for-profit or not-for- profit, but the state approved this new hybrid structure in 2014. It gives the company’s directors the ability to pursue both the community benefits and the profits as their mission.
“Taste of Immokalee students pitched their company to our investors, and we were won over by their entrepreneurial drive to succeed,” says Timothy Cartwright, chairman of Tamiami Angel Funds, member-managed funds that invest in promising young companies. “They are at the vanguard of the trend of social investing, which considers both financial success and community benefits to create social change.”
Mr. Cartwright believes this new initiative with the Community Foundation of Collier County, called the Tamiami Angels Impact Investing Initiative, will create similar socially responsible investment opportunities in the future.
Tamiami Angel Funds raised an initial $12,000 from their members, which will be deposited in a special account set up by the community foundation for the benefit of Taste of Immokalee. This allows investors to claim a tax deduction because they donated the shares in the company to the nonprofit foundation.
“This is the kind of groundbreaking endeavor the community foundation was designed to facilitate, and we hope this is the first of many such corporate efforts to benefit other causes, such as restoring the environment and improving human health,” says Eileen Connolly-Keesler, president and CEO of the Community Foundation of Collier County.

If Taste of Immokalee is as successful as investors believe it can be, the benefit to the community could be significant. For example, food and beverage company Newman’s Own has distributed $475 million to charity thanks to the actor Paul Newman, who founded the company in 1982.
The capital that Taste of Immokalee raises will be used to bring the manufacturing and distribution to Collier County and to boost sales to achieve profitability, says Steve Stolz, board member of Taste of Immokalee. Currently, the company has contracted with a Sarasota based firm to produce and package the sauces and salsa, but long-range plans include production in Immokalee.
The nonprofit 1 By 1 Leadership Foundation of SWFL helped the students launch Taste of Immokalee in 2014 with the help of grants from insurance giant State Farm. “This is all about the kids,” says John Lawson, executive director of the foundation. “They can build it to sustainability.”
For more information, visit www.tasteofimmokalee.com, www.tamiamiangels.com and www.cfcollier.org. ¦

Financial success and social welfare are not mutually exclusive. One innovative company in Immokalee shows us the way.
The small agricultural town of Immokalee in eastern Collier County may be an unlikely place for the newest trend in venture-capital circles, but one company there is at the vanguard of social investing.
Tamiami Angel Funds, a group of Naples investors who invest in promising young companies, recently formed a unique partnership with the Collier County Community Foundation to raise capital for Taste of Immokalee.
But Taste of Immokalee is unlike any company you’ve seen before in Southwest Florida. It’s not a nonprofit charity and it’s not a for-profit company.  It’s a hybrid called a benefit corporation, or “B Corp.”, a structure that only recently has been permitted to form in Florida.
Started by enterprising students from Immokalee High School in 2014, Taste of Immokalee sells hot sauces, spices, salsa and barbecue sauces in stores such as Publix and Winn Dixie. Under the mentorship of experienced Naples business leaders, the students from the socio-economically underserved area learn valuable hands-on business lessons such as marketing and distribution.
Anyone can invest in Taste of Immokalee just like any for-profit company and become a shareholder. Or you can make a charitable contribution to 1 by 1 Foundation, the nonprofit that helped launch Taste of Immokalee with grants from insurance giant State Farm.
But investing through the Tamiami Angels Impact Investing initiative at Community Foundation of Collier County (CFCC) could mean a windfall for the greater benefit of the community. Here’s how: By ceding their shares in Taste of Immokalee to the CFCC, investors get a tax deduction because of the foundation’s nonprofit status.  If Taste of Immokalee becomes a successful company as investors believe it can, the Community Foundation can earn a windfall and reinvest the proceeds for the benefit of the community.
This is an important development because it’s another tool in the economic-development arsenal to diversify the region’s economy. What’s more, it’s a way to boost the economic well-being of communities that haven’t benefited from the economic recovery.
There is a well-known precedent for this kind of social benefit to financial success. Food and beverage company Newman’s Own has distributed $475 million to charity thanks to the actor Paul Newman who founded the company in 1982.
Tamiami Angel Funds and other investors are confident that Taste of Immokalee can be financially successful and boost economic opportunity. But like any startup enterprise, Taste of Immokalee needs capital to grow.
Tamiami Angel Funds is the lead investor and its members are contributing $12,000 to seed a $250,000 capital raise. That’s money Taste of Immokalee can use to bring manufacturing to Collier County and provide more opportunity and jobs to the region.
Taste of Immokalee will show the state that profits and social welfare aren’t mutually exclusive. Now’s the time for investors to prove us right by contacting Tamiami Angel Funds for more information (www.tamiamiangels.com).
Timothy Cartwright is chairman of Tamiami Angel Funds, member-managed funds that allow high-net-worth individuals and families to invest in promising early stage and expansion-stage companies located in the U.S., with a preference for those in Florida.

SOUTHWEST FLORIDA — Budding entrepreneurs will have the opportunity to realize their dreams at a Shark Tankstyle event sponsored by local investors.
Three to five contestants will compete for $50,000 during a real-life tournament, based on the popular TV reality series. The event will culminate on March 30, when triumphant entries receive venture capital to transform their company concepts or nascent business models into life-changing, successful enterprises.
“Thanks to generous sponsors, VenturePitch SWFL will offer the winning startups $50,000 in equity investments,” said Timothy Cartwright, chairman of Naples-based Tamiami Angel Funds.
Entrepreneurs from Charlotte, DeSoto, Lee and Sarasota counties can submit their startup business plans to VenturePitch SWFL at www.tamiami-e.co. The deadline to submit a plan is Feb. 15 and the event is scheduled from 5:30 p.m. until 8:30 p.m. March 30, at Isles Yacht Club, 1780 W. Marion Ave., Punta Gorda.
The VenturePitch SWFL series is part of the Tamiami Angel Funds’ e.co initiative to build a strong entrepreneurial ecosystem from Sarasota to Naples. Modeled after the “Shark Tank” television show, entrepreneurs make a brief pitch to seasoned investors on stage in front of an audience.
Sponsors of the fast-paced event in March include SunNewspapers, The Hatchery at Babcock Ranch, North Port Economic Development Corporation, Punta Gorda Chamber of Commerce, SCORE, Tamiami Angel Funds and Adrenaline Venture Fund.
This will be the first time the event takes place in Charlotte County.
“The reason our newspaper decided to bring this event to our area of Florida is because we wanted our young people to hear the message that they don’t need to leave town to start their dream business,” said David Dunn-Rankin, CEO of the Sun Coast Media Group which owns Sun newspapers in Charlotte, DeSoto and Sarasota counties. “It’s time we support our homegrown entrepreneurs and our newspaper decided to put money where our mouth is.”
The Sun partnered with Babcock Ranch because they are building the most technologically advanced city in the nation, he said, including a Hatchery to house entrepreneurs with ideas. Babcock Ranch President Rick Severance said the winner will receive one year of free space in the Hatchery.
“We see the benefits of sponsoring this new business platform,” he said. “We want to keep that entrepreneurship here.”
And Severance hopes to host the event at Babcock Ranch next year, when the Hatchery is up and running.
“It will be a place to share ideas and passions in a collaborative environment,” he said.
SCORE volunteers will select the finalists to pitch their ideas on March 30. SCORE is a nonprofit association dedicated to helping small businesses get off the ground, grow and achieve their goals through education and mentorship.
“We’ve got a lot of business experience in our group,” saidSCORE’s Jim Getz, chair of the screening committee.
He said the Shark Tank-style competition shares the same goal.
“It’s an excellent idea. It will be a lot of fun and give entrepreneurs exposure to major capital,” Getz said.
Punta Gorda Chamber President John Wright also promotes a common purpose. “The Punta Gorda Chamber is delighted to be a part of this great, new initiative, especially as it focuses on entrepreneurial spirit that is so key to the chamber’s heart,” he said.
“We have operated several Entrepreneurial Academies in recent years, and this event just adds excitement tosearching out new entrepreneurs in our area.”
North Port is getting into the act as well. The private North Port Economic Development Corporation will raise $5,000 for the top company from the North Port area.
“The focus is not just on the award winners,” said Peter Bartolotta of the North Port EDC. “The important thing is we’re bringing people to the table who are willing to invest. Economic development is all about relationships.”
The North Port EDC supports business interests to diversify the local economyand build up the tax base for a city of more than 60,000 residents, and growing. A recent example was its advocacy role in bringing to North Port the Suncoast Technical College, now under construction. This facility will further the mission of providing a trained workforce far into the future.
“I think the timing for this event is perfect. There’s other ways to make a living today than to work for a company for the next 30 years. The world is changing,” Bartolotta said.
“North Port is a community that believes in a future filled with possibilities. A city whereyou can achieve anything.”
Also with the North Port EDC, David Dignam said the event promises to be mustsee reality, with the contest bringing out the best in the community.
“You don’t know what ideas are out in the community,” he said. “This event will stir folks, young and old, who have been sitting on an idea or an app.
They can say, ‘Now I have a venue to launch my program.’ I’m excited to see what comes out. We may just have the next widget of the world.”