South Florida Tech HubSouth Florida Tech Hub
07
Dec, 2020

By Nancy Dahlberg

Member Spotlight | 2TON & Ryan Boylston

Read Time 4 Minutes

Business: 2TON is a full-service creative agency

HQ: West Palm Beach

Year founded: 2011 (formerly called Woo Creative)

Founder and CEO: Ryan Boylston (also Vice Mayor of Delray Beach)

No. on team: 21

Website: 2ton.com

 

It’s not easy for a small business to find a good creative partner for web development and marketing. So about a decade ago, Ryan Boylston began bringing those services in house as part of his consulting firm and kept adding new services as the team grew. Soon his company was a full-service creative agency.

In 2017 the company (then called Woo Creative) acquired the marketing department of a larger technology firm and rebranded as 2TON. “A lot of agencies say they have a ton of talent — we have 2 tons,” said Boylston, the agency’s founder and CEO.

Today 2TON is a team of 21. It services small to medium businesses as well as large companies. Its main office is in West Palm Beach’s warehouse district and there is a satellite office in Delray Beach. In addition to all the usual creative services – branding, package design, web design, print design, etc. – the company also offers strategy consulting. In fact, more than half its team is on the strategy side of the business.

“A lot of our clients come to us and they’re not looking for just pretty things … At the end of the day no matter how great it looks, if it’s not driving sales, then it doesn’t matter.”

 

FOUNDING THE ANTI-AGENCY

Before founding the agency, Boylston had an eclectic career in the auto industry and then publishing. Since 2018, he’s been serving on the Delray Beach City Commission, where he is Vice Mayor He was a founding board member of Palm Beach Tech Association and a past chairman of Delray Beach Downtown Development Authority, among other roles.

Boylston founded 2TON to be the anti-agency. You won’t find account reps at 2TON. Clients work directly with project managers and project consultants. Also, he said, “we’re not a turn and burn shop, we’re not a one-time project shop. We look for relationships with our clients.”

Customer service sets 2TON apart. “We don’t believe in outsourcing. Period. Everything is done in house — you’re working with our team,” he said.

The key to happy longtime clients is happy employees. 2TON doesn’t pigeon hole team members to one industry, as some agencies do. “My team is constantly dropping in and out of different industries and bringing best practices from one industry to another. It really keeps my team sharp.”

As for hiring, he said, culture fit is key and good people know good people. “So when we go to hire for a new position, we’ll put it out our own network and we’ll post it out to the world, and nine out of 10 times, someone on the team knows someone that is dying to work at 2ton who they will vouch for… and it turns out to be great fit.”

 

KEEPING EVERYONE HAPPY

Chief of Happiness is Lily Myers. “She used to be chief of client happiness but we found out Lily makes everybody’s life better.”

She keeps the office running, takes care of birthdays and fun team activities, and she is also the first touch for new clients and potential clients. “We do not have salespeople so if you call in to 2ton, you’re going to be on a meeting or on a call with the CEO and founder of the company within 48 hours,” Boylston said.

Early on during the pandemic crisis, 2TON’s team made the strategic decision to stick together and be as flexible as possible with its clients,

“It was a tough summer. But it was really our team deciding that rather than lose clients or lose one or two people we’re all going to get through it together and we are starting to see that was the right decision.”

The company did not have to lay off anyone and its clients that had to pause their marketing are all returning now.

 

LEARNINGS FROM COVID

The office is open for team members who want to use it, but some are still working remotely and that has been a challenge. “Being together brainstorming bouncing ideas off of each other, there’s just a magic that happens when we’re all together in our office.” Indeed, by design, 2TON’s West Palm office is one big room – there are no cubicles or private offices, not even for Boylston.

Knowing the struggles of clients in particularly hard-hit industries during COVID has been particularly difficult, but a silver lining is that the crisis pushed some to make digital moves they had been putting off for years, whether it was a more powerful website, e-commerce capabilities or a home delivery model. “These are going to be tools for their business forever.”

Boylston was pushed, too. Boylston has always been a meet-in-person kind of guy, but COVID pushed the agency to embrace the video conferencing and it has seen incredible efficiency. “It’s been a game changer,” he said. “I’m usually the type that would rather get on the road and drive to 30 or 40 minutes to meet you in person than to  jump on video but I have seen the fruits of embracing video conferencing.”

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16
Nov, 2020

By Nancy Dahlberg

Two Palm Beach Tech Members Named Florida Companies to Watch

Read Time 4 Minutes

Congratulations to Palm Beach Tech Members Salesmsg and The SilverLogic, who were selected from more than 400 nominations as premier Florida companies expected to see significant growth over the next several years.

The two companies were among 50 named to Florida Companies to Watch, a statewide competition to honor excellent small businesses organized by GrowFL. Their management teams, competitive market positions and strong community involvement were among factors that sealed the wins for them. 

 

In all, 13 companies from South Florida were awarded. 

Companies to Watch was developed by the Edward Lowe Foundation to recognize and honor second-stage companies that demonstrate high performance in the marketplace with innovative strategies and processes, making them “worth watching.” 

“These stand-out companies are all led by entrepreneurs, and have demonstrated not only their willingness to grow, but their capacity to do it successfully,” said Dr. Tom O’Neal, GrowFL’s founder.  “They are all positioned to make a significant impact on Florida’s economy with their products, services, critical intellectual property or a niche position that gives them a competitive edge in their markets. These business owners demonstrate strong leadership, philanthropic involvement, perseverance and all it means to be an entrepreneur.” 

 

Let’s look at Salesmsg, The SilverLogic, and some of the other tech winners from South Florida:

Salesmsg, based in Delray Beach and founded in 2017 by CEO Chris Brisson, enables simple, scalable, two-way business texting, allowing professionals to easily send, receive, and manage text message conversations online. Salesmsg also makes it easy to have instant real-time conversations over SMS.

The SilverLogic, based in Boca Raton and founded in 2012 by CEO David Hartmann , is a software consulting and development company, The innovative company’s motto “we make ideas happen”, whether they require sophisticated apps, websites, business automation, artificial intelligence (AI) or augmented reality (AR), basically any technology. 

4ocean PBC, based in Boca Raton, is a mission-driven for-profit business dedicated to removing trash from oceans and coastlines while inspiring individuals to work together for cleaner oceans. It was founded in 2017 by Andrew Cooper and Alex Schulze, a pair of surfers-turned-entrepreneurs disgusted by filthy beaches on a trip to Bali. Made from recycled materials, 4ocean bracelets purchased so far have funded the cleanup of more than  7 million pounds of trash.

Aventusoft, based in Boca Raton, is the inventor of the “HEMOTAG CPAS” cardiac diagnostic system. Aventusoft developed the diagnostic system at the Research Park at Florida Atlantic University, worked on clinical trial testing at local healthcare facilities, and intends to manufacture the product in Palm Beach Gardens. The company was recently awarded $3 million to expand the technology through a SBIR FastTrack grant.

Xendoo, based in Fort Lauderdale and founded by Lil Roberts in 2016, simplifies bookkeeping and accounting for small businesses by providing three simple monthly rates that include bookkeeping, sales tax, tax planning, corporate tax return filing, and unlimited access to a dedicated CPA team. 

To see a list of all 50 winning companies, go here.

 

Second-stage companies are defined as those with 6 to 150 full-time employees and between $750,000 and $100 million in annual revenue. Companies were judged on a number of criteria including:

  • growth in number of employees
  • impact of the business in the job market
  • increase in sales and/or unit volume
  • current and past financial reports
  • innovativeness of the product or service; response to adversity
  • and contributions to aid community-oriented projects.

With this year’s honorees, GrowFL has now recognized 500 companies throughout Florida.  From 2016 through 2019, these companies have during the 4 years period:

  • Generated $813 million in revenue
  • Added 668 total employees
  • Had 103% increase in revenue growth (27% avg annual)
  • Had 113% increase in job growth (20% avg annual)

Even through the pandemic, these companies projected continued growth in 2020, with a 15% revenue increase and 17% growth in employees compared to 2019. If their projections hold, these companies will have generated $1.14 billion in revenue and added 887 employees over the last five years — a 133% increase in revenue and 150% increase in jobs since 2016.

Companies named to the list will be officially recognized at the 10th Annual GrowFL Florida Companies to Watch Celebration on February 18, 2021 at the Hammock Beach Resort and Spa in Palm Coast, FL, and the event will also be broadcast live.

For more information: https://www.growfl.com/flctw20/about-flctw/ 

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09
Nov, 2020

By Nancy Dahlberg

Member Spotlight | I.T. Solutions of South Florida & Deana Pizzo

Read Time 4 Minutes

Business: A managed service provider specializing in solving IT and business challenges for small to medium size businesses.

HQ: Lake Worth

Year founded: 2004

Founders: Deana Pizzo (CEO) and Jason Pizzo (CIO)

No. of employees: 16

Website: www.itsolutions247.com

 

 

I.T. Solutions of South Florida  has racked up a lot of industry and community awards. But the one CEO Deana Pizzo is most proud of is being honored as a Best Place to Work by the South Florida Business Journal last year.

“That was a really big deal to me. Best Places to Work means that you have the right people in the right seat on the bus. They like what they’re doing,” Pizzo said about her Lake Worth-based company. And it’s her people, she says, that drive her business forward while keeping the businesses of her customers running smoothly.

Pizzo started I.T. Solutions of South Florida with her husband, Jason, in 2004 in their living room, and they evolved the company over the years into a Managed Service Provider overseeing the networks of dozens of small and mid-sized companies. Services of the certified woman-owned small business include managing everything from cloud services to local servers to phones to copiers and more. “We do a lot of 24-month technology road mapping with our clients” so there are no surprises, she said, along with ongoing consulting and educational training.

Clients include SunFest, Roger Dean Chevrolet Stadium, United States Polo Association and United States Polo Global Licensing, among others. I.T. Solutions of South Florida manages networks in some unusual places, too.  “We are part of the Porsche North America racing team,” Pizzo said. “One single race car has seven servers, which is surprising to a lot of people.”

Feeding South Florida in Fort Lauderdale, the third-largest food bank in the country, is also an I.T. Solutions of South Florida client. For Nonprofits First, I.T. Solutions of South Florida not only supports its network but also teaches classes for the nonprofit’s clients on everything from cybersecurity education to how to use Microsoft Teams – big requests during the pandemic.

 

IT’S ALL ABOUT THE PEOPLE

What sets her company apart from the competition, Pizzo says, is a people-first mission and approach.

“When you grow your team with great people, the client’s come,” she said.  “We hire for personality and sharpen the tech. You can teach tech but you can’t teach personality,”

To find the best people skills, I.T. Solutions of South Florida doesn’t even talk about the tech with job applicants until the end of the second interview. “The very first interaction with us is a video submission. Can they talk to people and make eye contact? … And then we test the tech,” Pizzo said.

It’s working. I.T. Solutions of South Florida has had very low turnover, Pizzo said. “I can count my turnover in 17 years on one hand. I have people that been with me 10 years.”

‘NO GEEK SPEAK’

I.T. Solutions of South Florida’ 16-person team is nearly half are women, very unusual in tech. The ways the team goes about treating customers differently starts with no geek speak, Pizzo said.

“We do not do that. We want plain old conversation. Nobody wants to be talked down to, which my industry is full of.”

Once new team members are on board, they get an education plan. “We get them certifications and they’re part of their onboarding as part of their first year. They are doing ongoing technical training — sharpening the sword is very important.”

Since 2016, I.T. Solutions of South Florida has been on South Florida Business Journal’s fastest growing companies list. With COVID-19 in the picture, growth is down a bit this year, but growth will still be in the double digits, thanks to getting an early start following its disaster recovery plan, Pizzo said. “We actually are getting ready to hire two more people by the end of the year.”

I.T. Solutions of South Florida went 100% virtual early in the crisis and then worked quickly to get its customers — about 1,700 people — virtual in a period of two weeks. “We were prepared and had a plan. And that’s something that we do with our clients. Every year we sit and we revisit their disaster recovery plan. I don’t think anybody could have planned for this but having those plans in place was a huge help in helping all of our clients get all of their employees remote.”

 

COMMUNITY FOCUS

Pizzo is active in the community. She was selected for the Palm Beach Tech Association’s Board of Directors this year, a position she is very excited to hold. “I love the mission of creating a tech hub in the South Florida region — it is very needed. I’m excited for what they’re doing and I want to help them be better at what they do.”

Pizzo also serves on the Board of Governors for Leadership Palm Beach County, is a member of the Board of Directors for Nonprofits First and is a corporate member of the BDB and a Corporate Trustee in the Palm Beach North Chamber of Commerce.

In her new role on Palm Beach Tech’s board, Pizzo says she is looking forward to listening to the community, finding out what the demands are and helping Palm Beach Tech meet those needs. She also has some of her own ideas.

“We need our college graduates to stay here. We need to lure college graduates to this area. We need to become that tech hub. Joe [Russo] has definitely made some waves, and we are moving towards that.”

 

Shown at top of post: I.T. Solutions of South Florida’ co-founders, Deana (CEO) and Jason Pizzo (CIO), at a Leadership Palm Beach County event. Photos provided by I.T. Solutions of South Florida.

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02
Nov, 2020

By Nancy Dahlberg

Code for Good Hackathon | GetSpeedBack creates Winning Solution

Read Time 4 Minutes

To create a winning solution in Palm Beach Tech’s Code for Good Hackathon, team GetSpeedBack attacked a big problem that food banks and other social impact agencies are having delivering to their home-bound clients.

These agencies often rely on volunteers to help make deliveries, and that becomes tougher during a pandemic when a large portion of their volunteers are seniors as well as others that need to stay home. For hunger-relief nonprofits like Feeding South Florida, it could become an administrative headache when a deliverer can’t work and the volunteer’s address list had to be divvied up.

 “So there’s a shortage of volunteers and an increasing number of meals that need to be delivered… We figured there’s got to be a better way to do it,” said Matthew Meadows, who won the hackathon with team member Mihai Oprescu.

Team GetSpeedBack came up with a solution that “optimizes routes for each driver, and all they have to do is click on a link in a text message and follow the directions, minimizing the administrative problem and saving volunteer hours on the road so they can more efficiently help more people,” said Meadows, who Co-Founded the Boca Raton HR-tech startup GetSpeedBack.

You can see Team GetSpeedBack’s web-app work from the hackathon here.

In all, 19 teams competed in the Palm Beach Tech Hackathon presented by Office Depot on October 23-25. “While Team GetSpeedBack emerged the big winner, it was really the greater South Florida community that won,” said Palm Beach Tech President & CEO Joe Russo

“Amidst the pandemic, we were able to bring positivity to our community by supporting two local nonprofits, Feeding South Florida, attacking hunger relief, and Gift of Life, a bone marrow registry,” said Palm Beach Tech Vice President Nikki Cabus. “With Palm Beach Tech’s recent expansion to support the entire region, we were excited to see that over 40% of our hackers were from Broward and Miami-Dade counties. The top three cities represented were Delray Beach, Miami, and Pompano respectively, and 1 on every 4 being a woman in tech.”

 

1st Place, $2,500 prize: GetSpeedBack

  • Solution: Route optimizer for delivery drivers, minimizing administration and saving volunteer hours
  • Team Members: Matthew Meadows, Mihai Oprescu
  • See Presentation | See Github

2nd Place, $1,500 prize: Sunny Six

  • Solution: Application that aims to connect people in need with healthy food, simply and securely
  • Team Members: Fernanda Rodriguez, Joy Bushnell, Dan Mathison, Hanadi Alotaibi, Nic Maltais, Earl Cameron
  • See Presentation | See Github

3rd place, $1,000 prize: Forij

  • Solution: Eco-system for food donors, volunteer drivers, and Feeding South Florida, accelerated by rewards program
  • Team Members: Kavin Kannan, Camila Alfonso, Douglas Rodriguez
  • See Presentation | See Github

Click Here to View All Teams

 

Mark Volchek, a venture capitalist with Las Olas Venture Capital, said: “As a first-time judge, I was really impressed by the quality of work put forth by all the teams.  It was exciting to see how much the teams were able to accomplish in such a short time – a great testament to the emergence of the South Florida Tech ecosystem!”

Michelle Bakels, a coach from NextEra Energy, agrees. “This year’s hackathon participants raised the bar! Overall, our teams showed the most complete and well-designed solutions of any hackathon to date. I was really impressed by how uniquely each team approached their problems in order to focus on this year’s theme, Code for Good.”

Bakels and over a dozen coaches worked closely with the teams during the 24-hours to help them build the very best versions of their projects. “Coaches are there to support teams and make sure everyone leaves with something they’re proud of, so it’s a great role and definitely something I love doing,” Bakels said.

This was the 5th annual Palm Beach Tech Hackathon, and organizers had to take the annual event virtual for the first time. But Meadows said the virtual experience was flawless and moving around the virtual rooms to collaborate was easy. Oprescu, who was part of the Office Depot team that won the Palm Beach Tech hackathon two years ago, also said the set up worked well but “nothing beats the in-person experience of a hackathon.”

Palm Beach Tech hopes that new friendships were made and collaborations continue in the weeks and months to come. It’s always a hope that some teams will continue working on their ideas born during a hackathon – for the greater good.

As for Team GetSpeedBack, Meadows said:  “We’re hoping to get in touch with Feeding South Florida to see if we can actually help them with real world implementation. The whole point of the hackathon is to benefit them in some way, so we’d like to see it through, if we can.”

26
Oct, 2020

By Nancy Dahlberg

Member Spotlight | Exepron & John Thompson

Read Time 3 Minutes

Business: Exepron combines a powerful systems architecture and a simple user interface with embedded intelligence to deliver an advanced CCPM software solution capable of handling any size project.

Headquarters: Palm Beach Gardens

Co-founders: John Thompson (COO) and Daniel Walsh (CEO)

Employees: team of 7 plus contractors around the world

Website: www.exepron.com

 

In 2010, sitting in a pizza rodizio in Brazil, John Thompson and Daniel Walsh sketched out their plans – yes, on a napkin — for a cloud-based project management company.

“Planning is easy, execution is hard. We said we could provide sophisticated predictive project management capability,” recalled Thompson. “That’s what we set out to do.”

Fast forward to 2020 and their venture, Exepron (which comes from Execution Project Network), is one of Palm Beach County’s newest technology companies and offers a predictive project management and scheduling solution for enterprises. It relocated its headquarters to Palm Beach Gardens earlier this year.

THE BACKSTORY

Thompson explained what sets Exepron apart from competitors.

In project management environments, 60% on-time delivery rates seem to be accepted as the norm and on-budget rates are even lower that that. That just seemed wrong to Exepron’s co-founders. As a consultant, Thompson worked for many years with the Goldratt Institute, founded by one of the gurus of business management, Eli Goldratt. Goldratt, a physicist, also authored The Goal, required reading in many business schools. Walsh, a former Navy Captain, was also a project management consultant before founding Exepron and is a follower of Goldratt’s principals.

In developing Exepron (V1.0 launched in 2012), “we identified all the fault lines and addressed them and we did two things. We kept the complexity and the intelligence behind the curtain for the average user and we also simplified the interface,” Thompson said.

A project management interface that is easy to use and very intuitive leads to wide adoption throughout a company, he said.  “It’s like driving a sophisticated car. You just know how to turn it on, put it into gear and drive. You don’t know how the engine works, you don’t care, and that is the approach we took developing Exepron.”

And about that 60% on-time rate in the industry? Exepron clients experience a 90% or more on-time and on-budget operation, Thompson said. “Ship building, aircraft maintenance, repair maintenance environments, engineering, construction, large custom fabrication – those are the environments which Exepron thrives.”

A PREDICTIVE SOLUTION, TOO

In 2016, Exepron began moving into business intelligence, which helps guide and prioritize the decision-making processes. The tool is moving from a sophisticated multi-project management environment into a decision application, Thompson said.

Today, Exepron can handle over 100,000 tasks in one project and can also schedule over a thousand projects in one portfolio. It predicts the resource requirements well into the future. “As you add more work, it will tell you where your limitations are starting to emerge in the future in terms of resources,” Thompson said.

Tools that claim to be project management tools are often just cool-looking task lists with no governance rules or oversight capability, he said. “We provide the governance, the guidance and the critical intelligence that you really need to be successful.”

Exepron’s customers include BAE Systems, Thomas-Sea, Charles River Labs in healthcare, and  Danfoss, which has nine factories globally, and others in 15 countries. In 2018, Exepron won the President’s Export Award.

WHY PALM BEACH COUNTY?

To support its growth, Exepron couldn’t find the talent it needed in Louisiana and began to hire contractors around the world. But the company wanted to begin consolidating in one location where there was more access to talent and chose Palm Beach Gardens as its new HQ.

Since its relocation in February, the company has recruited four employees – full stack and front end developers – and plans more hiring locally. Exepron employs seven here and still has contractors around the world.

“Our perception is there are enough resources in the area to support our growth,” said Thompson. “Also, the environment is so desirable.”

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12
Oct, 2020

By Nancy Dahlberg

Member Spotlight | Wyncode Academy & The Mikkola’s

Read Time 3 Minutes

Business: A tech training bootcamp immersing students in a demanding and inspiring learning environment engineered to develop successful coders with business acumen. In-person & remote options available.

HQ: ‘Wynbase’ in Wynwood, Miami

Leadership: Johanna & Juha Mikkola

Founded: 2014

Awards: Beacon Council Educator of the Year, an Inc. 5000 Company, an Endeavor Company, South Florida Business Journal Startup of the Year.

Website: wyncode.co

 

With the COVID-19 crisis keeping unemployment too high in South Florida, particularly in communities of color, Wyncode Academy will bring back the Future Leaders of Tech Fellowship, with Knight Foundation support.

The fellowships offered by the Miami-based technology training academy will include a choice of Wyncode’s full-time 10-week Full Stack Web Development or UX/UI program and a paid 3-month tech internship with a South Florida company in the tech sector upon graduation.

It’s the fourth iteration of its partnership for the Future Leaders of Tech Fellowship, supported by the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation. Raul Moas, Knight Foundation’s Miami program director, called it “an investment in Miami.”

The goal is to provide technology education to low-income, underrepresented residents in the tri-county area impacted by pandemic.

“As the tech ecosystem grows, we must work to make the benefits of working in this industry accessible to all those who seek to be part of it, and through it find upward mobility,” Moas said.

Initially, scholarships valued at $60,000 will be provided to four students. However, through a partnership with The Miami Foundation, individuals or companies can make contributions to fund more scholarships. Wyncode is contributing 40% of each scholarship.

Applicants must belong to an underrepresented group in Miami’s technology ecosystem, have under $50,000 in combined family income, and be authorized to work in the U.S. Preference is given to candidates with limited to no post-secondary education. The deadline to apply for Wyncode Academy’s upcoming Full Stack Web Development cohort is Oct. 16th, 2020. There will be more opportunities later in the year.

Fellowship program applications are now open here: wyncode.co/futureleaders.

“We are proud to continue leading this initiative and work towards supporting communities who have historically not had fair access to well-paying jobs in tech, an issue that has only been exaggerated due to COVID-19.” said Johanna Mikkola, CEO of Wyncode Academy and chairwoman of the Future Leaders of Tech Fellowship, “We need to create opportunities in order to see our city’s diversity represented in our tech ecosystem, as that is our strength compared to other more established technology ecosystems.”

Also this week, Wyncode released its 2019 Jobs Report. The overall job placement in 2019 was 90% among job-seeking graduates, and 85% of them took jobs in technical roles – most frequently as Software Developer/Engineer, Product Manager/Support, and UX/UI Designer. Nearly half – 49& — of them landed jobs within two months. The average salary for grads was $53,721. Access the jobs report here.

Other interesting findings were around the diversity of its cohorts:

  • Wyncode has an internal goal that half its student enrollment will be female by 2020. In 2019, female enrollment reached  35%, up from 31% in 2018 and just 20% in 2014. “We are particularly proud of this because while women make up 47% of the U.S. workforce they hold only 25% of the tech roles,” said Mikkola. “We previously pledged $1.4 million in scholarships to help close this gap.”
  • Wyncode nearly doubled the number of veterans in its programs between 2018 and 2019, growing from 7% to 16%, Mikkola said. “According to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics, the unemployment rate for post-9/11 veterans exceeds that for the general population. Having veterans trained in the skills companies are looking for is extremely important, and veteran Wyncoders now work at companies like Microsoft and Amazon.”

Since its founding in 2014, Wyncode has trained more than 850 people in South Florida through its accelerated, immersive programs. The team now numbers 15, and Wyncode’s programs went virtual during the pandemic (shown in photo at top).   Wyncode has more than 400  hiring partners in its network.

This report was written for Refresh Miami and republished with permission.

 

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21
Sep, 2020

By Nancy Dahlberg

Member Spotlight | Boca Code & Todd Albert

Read Time 4 Minutes

Business: A coding academy offering short courses in web and mobile development,  game development, data analytics and UX/UI.  In the plans for early 2021: a 10-week career course.

Address: 7035 Beracasa Way, 207, Boca Raton

Team: Todd Albert, founder and lead instructor; Emily Cleary, lead UX instructor; Mariela Pascual, developer and instructor; Ashley Taylor, creative director; Pearse Brolly, business development, Maddie Galvelis, social marketing.

Website:  Bocacode.com

 

Todd Albert learned to code when he was 7 and built his first arcade game as a teen. For some reason he did not pursue a career in tech, but instead he became a scientist as a NASA research fellow and then taught at in universities for 15 years, as well as at the middle school level. “And through my research and in my teaching, I was always coding.”

When Albert decided to leave teaching after moving back to South Florida in 2012, he followed his heart into tech and started a tech agency. At one point the agency had 17 developers, and Albert said finding local developers was always difficult. Most of the resumes were coming from code schools in Miami or from out of state.

That’s when Albert began noodling with the idea of starting a local code school. Then, after he has seen some schools come into Palm Beach County or northern Broward and then fail – and the mistakes they made — he took the plunge, founding Boca Code in February of this year.

“I love to code and I love to mentor young developers. And I realized — and people around me realized too — that having a code school was really not just my dream but it almost felt like that was what I was destined for. My background in teaching, in coding, in mentoring, it was all me leading towards this.”

 

MAKING AN IMPACT

With a code school, you’re helping people enter a good career with great earning potential, he said. Graduates can earn $60-$65k in their first job, and in just a few years it could be six figures.

But just as important: “The community is desperately needing the talent.”

Boca Code’s home – a 2,900-square-foot bright and modern space at the intersection of Palmetto and Powerline in Boca Raton — is nearly built out, but Boca Code started offering virtual intensive short courses classes this spring and summer and has offerings such as Data Analytics & Python and AR, VR and Game Development through the fall.  It is in the process of obtaining its state of Florida license to teach its signature career course – a 10-week full-time bootcamp – and Boca Code expects to begin offering that in January. Boca Code also offers a number of free workshops and offers a scholarship to women.

While other code schools have tried and failed, Boca Code has a few differentiators that will make it successful, Albert believes. First, Albert is not only the owner but the lead instructor, so he doesn’t have to worry about the lead instructor quitting mid- class, as happened at other schools. He also has built a very talented team who are also instructors as well as experts in sales and marketing. He and his team are also well-connected within the community. “Being a part of the larger South Florida tech community I think is really important for the success of the school but for placing the students in jobs afterwards.”

 

DEDICATION TO COMMUNITY

Another key differentiator is that Boca Code students are going to be doing real projects for real companies. “So for small businesses that are just getting started, we can help develop their app or their website. The students are getting real experience and the companies are getting affordable development work. And I don’t know anyone else who is doing that.”

In addition to the 10-week bootcamp, Boca Code plans to always offer the 15-hour short courses, such as Intro to Web Dev for people who just want to dip their toe into an introductory coding course or who want to upskill in the latest technologies, like React, or learn more about UX/UI. The courses are often offered at nights and weekends to accommodate full-time employment.

“We are all dedicated to helping not just the students but the community as a whole,” Albert said. “We want to become a central hub in the community for training and for talent, and we are starting to make good progress.”

This is Albert’s third time living in South Florida, and he likes what he sees: a unique and cohesive tech community.

“Rather than competing and vying for talent, we’re all getting together and supporting each other as a community, which is owed in large part to South Florida Tech. Joe [Russo] has provided us a central hub,” Albert said. “And when you have such a giving community it makes you want to be a part of it and it makes you want to help others. It’s contagious.”

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14
Sep, 2020

By Nancy Dahlberg

Member Spotlight | Digital Resource & Shay Berman

Read Time 3 Minutes

Business: A full-service digital marketing agency

HQ: West Palm Beach

President: Shay Berman

No. of employees: 55

Website: yourdigitalresource.com

 

When Shay Berman moved his digital marketing agency, Digital Resource, into new offices last year, he wanted room to grow.

The company had been on a growth tear over the past couple of years and had outgrown its 1,500 square foot offices. The trade-up: 9,000 square feet that can accommodate up to 101 employees. Now that the team is back in the office, the much roomier space seems rather prescient with the pandemic still a threat.

Berman believes a creative team like his needs to be together physically to bounce ideas off one another and collaborate. “There is a culture that’s created when we’re physically together that can’t be recreated in a digital environment,” he says. So as soon as they were able to go back to the office, they did, although they moved back into physical offices in four phases.

And when the company – now with about 55 employees — is ready to grow again, there’s room for that too.

 

‘AMAZING PROCESSES’

In the past two years, Berman has been busy putting systems and processes in place to maximize growth and efficiency. He says the company has increased services by about 50% and the team has been growing by about 15 members a year and has become more specialized. “We used to have one person doing multiple things, and now every one of our services has its own dedicated specialists,” Berman says.

Clients represent over 100 different verticals, including fitness, restaurants and bars, medical groups, retail stores and financial companies. Berman is justifiably proud to be a Great Places to Work winner twice, which says a lot about the team and the company culture.

Digital Resource has racked up a number of awards, including its third time in the Inc 5000 Fastest Growing Companies. Shay was also named to the South Florida Business Journal’s 40 under 40 this year and to the 4 under 40 by the American Marketing Association.

Berman believes a key to Digital Resource’s success is its focus on innovating customer service processes. That included invested in custom reporting software that will report on all aspects of the client’s digital marketing campaign. “It’s 24-7 accessible by the client, It’s manipulatable and maneuverable to where the client can look at all the different metrics they want without support from a team member here.”

The company also systemized how team members communicate with clients, and incentivized account managers for retaining clients. Now, the account managers own the relationships — and the results.

“We have optimized the last two years to have amazing processes,” Berman said, adding that Digital Resource has a two factor layer of communication among team members so “almost nothing falls through the cracks.”

BERMAN’S AMA

Berman also does one on one sessions with everyone in the company every quarter now. “They can ask me anything … and it has also allowed us to continue to innovate for clients with new ideas I never thought of.”

We did our own AMA with Berman:

Areas of growth? Over the next year, Berman wants to steer the company into a lot more automation to help clients. “So instead of just sending them a lead, we help nurture that lead and track the metrics at a level that we don’t really see other marketing companies doing.”

What about hiring? “My philosophy for hiring is hire fast, fire faster. We give a lot of people that opportunity and we expect performance right away. … When I’m in the hiring process, I look at who the person is — are they someone who I see passion in their eyes or are they looking to punch a time clock.”

Secret to culture? “I believe in being fully transparent, where people know the goals and intentions behind everything, not just for themselves or their team but for the entire company, because if you want to get everyone rowing in the same direction, everyone has to know where they’re going …  If you show people your cards and  they are on the same team, they are going to help you get the win.”

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31
Aug, 2020

By Nancy Dahlberg

Member Spotlight | Bridge Connector & David Wenger

Read Time 4 Minutes

Business: a healthcare integration platform-as-a-service

CEO: David Wenger

No. of employees: 165 (12 in Palm Beach Gardens)

Main offices: Nashville and Palm Beach Gardens

Funding: Raised $45.5 million in Venture Capital

Recent awards: Inc. 2020 Best Places to Work; Gartner 2020 Cool Vendors; Modern Healthcare 2020 Best Places to Work;  South Florida Business Journal’s 2020 Best Places to Work and 2019 H. Wayne Huizenga Startup Award.

Website: Bridgeconnector.co

 

Bridge Connector, the healthcare platform-as-a-service company founded in 2017 and born in Palm Beach County, now has 165 employees and services about 100 enterprise customers spanning some 750 sites across the U.S. The company has raised $45.5 million, including $25.5 million announced last week — yes, during a global pandemic.

David Wenger, Bridge Connector’s co-founder and CEO, makes hyper-growth look easy, but he has led the company through a number of strategic moves that have unleashed the growth, including properly scaling up talent by continuously bringing on additional roles and raising levels of expertise. “We’ve been really good at seeing the forest through the trees, so to speak, and overcoming any major issue that would prevent us from ultimately continuing to grow at the pace we’re growing now,” he said.

 

THE STORY

The story of Bridge Connector begins with a pitch competition at Palm Beach Tech in November of 2017, says Wenger. (Bridge Connector didn’t win. It still stings.) But shortly after that, Wenger raised the startup’s first round of funding and “it has been a rocket ship since then,” he said.

Bridge Connector provides a suite of vendor-agnostic integration solutions and a full-service delivery model, helping healthcare vendors, providers, and payers more easily share data between disparate systems, such as electronic health records or patient engagement solutions.

“What we figured out is a way to build an integration in healthcare that is agnostic of specification – we can work with any type of vendor no matter how you expect to connect to it. And then, what we’ve created is a way to reuse the integration,” Wenger said. “On top of that, we’re a no-code platform. We’re in that new wave of technology vendors that are focusing on the business user rather than the engineer.”

The company moved its headquarters to Nashville, a healthcare hub, last year and recently expanded the offices there to 37,000 square feet to accommodate about 250 people. But Palm Beach Gardens will always be an important base for the company, Wenger said. Much of the company’s management team, including Wenger, work out of offices above The River House restaurant in Palm Beach Gardens. The company also recently hired a president who will also be working from Palm Beach Gardens. Wenger said South Florida Tech (formerly Palm Beach Tech) has been very supportive as the company has continued to grow. Even that 2017 pitch competition he didn’t win pushed him to push on harder.

 

KEY TO SUCCESS

A key to the company’s success has been its focus on scaling partnerships and creating an ecosystem of healthcare technology vendors.  About a year ago, the company made a strategic decision to focus on hospital vendors instead of hospitals or health systems. “Simultaneously we have created a technology here that we don’t view as another tool or another technology. We view it as a solution to a pain point for all health systems,” he said. Instead of hiring an engineering team to build an integration, they pay Bridge Connector a monthly recurring fee not to worry about it. “Our customers rely on both our people and our technology to help stand up their integrations.”

The result: Business grew 1,000% last year and has doubled during the COVID-19 pandemic, Wenger said. During the pandemic, the company has seen many additional use cases for Bridge Connector, from contactless check-ins and SMS appointment reminders to integrating telehealth visits directly into the EHR. Bridge Connector has hired 40 people since the pandemic started.

To be sure, fund-raising during a pandemic has been a major challenge. Originally planning to raise more than $25.5 million, Wenger met with 100 or so or the top VC firms in the country during the first 8 weeks of COVID, all remotely. Some were interested but a lot of them were just not doing deals. Bad timing.

So Bridge Connector decided to keep the round to its internal investors, which include the firm of former Public CEO Howard Jenkins, and pursue a larger round with top-tier VCs as soon as they can, Wenger said.

 

A DREAM TEAM

For now, Wenger said he couldn’t be happier with his dream team. “It’s because they truly love what they do and where they work. We’re lucky to have the level of talent that we have here.”

To entrepreneurs, he advises: “Stick with your guns and always believe in your idea, you’ll find someone eventually who also believes in it. Create a solid distribution strategy and your go-to-market segment early on. Focus on customer segmentation early on in the life cycle of being an entrepreneur. First, figure out what your ideal customer profile is… and figure out how to create a scalable pricing model that has a solution for any type of buyer that fits within that ideal customer profile.”

Why is your product better than everybody else? Have a good answer for that, Wenger advised, and as you scale proper financial modeling will be a key to success. “And ultimately, don’t be afraid to dream because it might just happen.”

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18
Aug, 2020

By Nancy Dahlberg

Bridge Connector raises $25.5 million in Series B funding

Read Time 2 Minutes

Bridge Connector, a hyper-growth healthcare platform-as-a-service company born in Palm Beach County, on Tuesday announced it has raised $25.5 million in Series B financing to continue its national scale-up.

The round was led by its largest investor, Tampa-based Axioma Ventures, which was co-founded by Howard Jenkins, former CEO of Publix Super Markets. Entrepreneur and Tampa Bay Lightning owner Jeff Vinik also participated in the round, which was  joined by all existing investors.

To date, Bridge Connector has raised $45.5 million.

Bridge Connector provides a suite of vendor-agnostic integration solutions and a full-service delivery model, helping health care vendors, providers, and payers more easily share data between disparate systems, such as electronic health records or patient engagement solutions.

“The lack of integration in health care has resulted in care teams relying on antiquated technology like fax machines to relay mission-critical information,” said CEO and co-founder David Wenger, in announcing the raise. “In the face of the COVID-19 pandemic, it has never been clearer that this inability to share patient data between health care technology vendors creates dangerous care gaps that can mean the difference between life and death for some patients. Bridge Connector is building an ecosystem of connected solutions that is solving this problem.”

Founded in 2017, the company now employs about 165 people, said Wenger, in an interview with South Florida Tech. That’s up from just 25 employees two years ago. Coming off 2019 with 1,000% growth, Wenger said the company’s revenues nearly doubled during the COVID-19 pandemic. Bridge Connector has also added 40 employees since the pandemic’s spread in the U.S., Wenger said.

The company moved its headquarters to the healthcare hub of Nashville last year, but still has offices in Palm Beach Gardens, said Wenger, a serial entrepreneur was raised in Palm Beach County and previously ran a marketing and advertising agency before founding Bridge Connector. Wenger and much of the executive team are based in Palm Beach County. Bridge Connector recently hired a president, who is also based in Palm Beach County.

The new funding will further support the company’s scale-up as well as the growth of Destinations, a new integration-platform-as-a-service  that connects health data systems using use-case-based interoperability blueprints to speed integrations with major vendors.

“We believed strongly in Bridge Connector’s mission to improve interoperability in health care when we made our seed investment, and they’ve exceeded all of our expectations along the way,” said Jenkins, who has participated in every funding round.  “With the company on track for 800 to 1000% growth in 2020, we are eager to see how our continued investment will help Bridge Connector impact the industry and create a health care system that works better for patients.”

Stay tuned for a Member Spotlight coming soon with more about Bridge Connector.

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06
Jul, 2020

By Nancy Dahlberg

Member Spotlight | Improving & Adi Raina

Read Time 3 Minutes

Business: a full stack IT consulting company

Background: Improving’s Palm Beach County office was formerly part of Innovative Architects, an IT consulting company acquired by Dallas-based Improving in January 2019.

Services: cloud strategies, interactive design, custom development, integration services, strategic consulting, collaborative solutions, data engineering, agile training and coaching.

No. of employees: 600+ across North America

Website: Improving.com

 

Trust Changes Everything – it’s Improving’s tagline.

Improving is a technology management and consulting services firm rooted in its deep commitment to establishing trust within its team and with clients, partners and communities. Trusted advisorship is what the company offers.

“With any IT project, we can fit in anywhere,” explains Adi Raina, Principal Consultant with Improving in Palm Beach County. “We are also one of the largest trainers of agile and scrum in the nation. We are doing multiple projects from mobile to data or consulting.”

As Covid-19 began its deadly spread in the U.S. forcing businesses to close or go fully remote, many of Improving’s clients found themselves needing help with the challenge of working virtually for the first time and making sure the remote environment was cyber secure so they could resume their businesses, said Raina, who has engineering degrees from Georgia Tech and Southern Polytechnic State University and has worked for Improving for 12 years.

During the pandemic, a lot of businesses have leaned on Improving’s trusted advisorship more than ever. “They are saying I have so many things going on I am glad I can hand this off to you and focus on the other 10 things. Everybody’s job has changed and everyone is wearing multiple hats in business and in their personal lives,” said Raina.

Navigating these COVID times has put a spotlight on the importance of communication and relationship building. Some businesses have had to delay projects, but Improving has helped them keep learning and innovating, Raina said. “We ask them, how can we help you so you are not suffering operationally and also not suffering by not having any innovation.”

As a conscious capitalist company, Improving is responsible for its customers’ success, Raina said. “We could say ‘you can do it a different way,’ which might reduce our hours but it is better for you,” he said.  “We are the managers  they trust enough to say ‘we trust you to lead our teams’.”

Education and training is a big part of what Improving’s team does, and during COVID, they found was that by offering education sessions virtually they could help more people, including distributed team members in Europe and Asia, as the sessions could be viewed anytime.

Take Improving’s popular lunch and learns. for instance. Topics have ranged from how to run a good Zoom meeting, to talking about new software upgrades on the horizon, to providing specific learning opportunities.

“We try to cover awesome new topics and technology. We put our lunch and learns online for everyone to see them free,” Raina said. “The feedback has been tremendous. We are going to continue some version of this going forward. We are giving clients a chance to request topics too.”

Giving back to the community is also key pillar of Improving. Raina, who moved to Palm Beach County with Improving in 2017, serves on the board of Palm Beach Tech, where he is the Community Chair, and has served on the School Advisory Council of South Olive Elementary School since 2018.

Raina said the company looks forward to getting back to participating in local in-person events and good old-fashioned networking when the time is right. That includes resuming its “Game Nights,” where Improving invites the community in for a night of board games. No technology required.

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22
Jun, 2020

By Nancy Dahlberg

Member Spotlight | Modernizing Medicine & Erin Shaw

Read Time 4 Minutes

Business: Modernizing Medicine aims to transform how healthcare information is created, consumed, and utilized to increase practice efficiency and improve patient outcomes.

HQ: Boca Raton (BRIC), with offices in California and Chile

Founded: 2010

Co-founders: Daniel Cane (CEO) and Michael Sherling (Chief Medical and Strategy Officer)

Employees: About 800

ModMed Telehealth: modmed.com/telehealth

 

“Crisis brings out true character,” says Erin Shaw. She should know because she has been on the front lines as a Product Manager at Modernizing Medicine, one of South Florida’s most successful healthcare technology companies.

With the full support and trust of senior leadership, Shaw worked with a team of ModMed’s developers to build an advanced telehealth platform in two weeks just as COVID-19 was beginning to spread in the US. Then the entire company was on board to train users, market, and release the product by the end of March so that its thousands of physician clients nationwide had free access to the real-time audio and video telemedicine platform, modmed® Telehealth, when it’s needed most.

“We knew we needed to get it out there fast – we developed an entire telehealth platform within two weeks,” said Shaw, noting that a project like this typically would take four months.

All the while, ModMed’s clients — mainly physician practices — were champing at the bit to get the product.

“We hammered it out and built an incredible experience with that group of developers,” Shaw said. “We are continuing to iterate as we get feedback and push things out very rapidly, which is what the market needs right now.”

FINDING HER WAY TO MODMED

Shaw started working at ModMed in January 2018 as a Senior Business Analyst, and then was promoted to Product Manager in 2019. Before ModMed, she worked at Office Depot for nearly four years as the company was launching its e-commerce department. “It was a huge opportunity to learn how to bridge that gap between business and development and create good experiences for customers,” she said.

Shaw is also a cancer survivor. During her time at Office Depot, the company was very supportive during her treatments, but she was also going through a personal journey and wanted to transition to making an impact in healthcare. She thought: Why can’t healthcare tools be just as simple to use for patients as e-commerce sites are for consumers? After that she worked with nonprofits in healthcare for two years before coming aboard at ModMed, which was recently named a 2020 Best Workplace by Inc Magazine.

‘ORGANIZED AND EXCITING CHAOS’

“Something cool about my job is I get to focus on our patient engagement tools, anything that gets in front of patients to collect information or provide access to a portal or a more user-friendly intake process, so obviously telehealth, and we also have a kiosk product and our web patient portal,” said Shaw.

Shaw describes a typical day as “organized and exciting chaos” full of brainstorming sessions and strategy meetings with the developers, as well as with her boss, marketing, client services, and various stakeholders.

Never boring.

“I love it because I don’t have direct reports but I work with a development team that is responsible for all my products and so it is very much an invested team environment. As soon as you start to feel like the load is getting heavy, there is always someone there to brainstorm with you and help you work through things.”

RALLYING TOGETHER

She’s managed other product launches, but COVID-19 urgency made this one extra special.  “The entire company rallied together, from marketing and sales to client services, they were all a part of this project to get things out the door and in front of our clients, whether it was awareness, or materials, videos for training, or webinars … I literally cried because it was such an emotional roller coaster ride because our clients needed it, their patients needed it and we are building something now that they are going to get to start using immediately.”

Support came from all quarters, from senior leadership to the women of mmWIT, which includes women from throughout ModMed. Regarding mmWIT, Shaw said, “I have been able to partner with them and go to them for support and encouragement.  We really lift each other up … I played soccer in college and always had that team mentality and I feel like mmWIT is also my team.”

Shaw, who is part of mmWIT’s leadership team, continued:  “The whole goal of mmWIT is to make sure women are honing skills so we are ready for advancing in the workplace. To be part of this project and a woman responsible for driving it, I felt like it was an opportunity to showcase what women can do for the organization.”

CLIENTS LOVED IT

Once ModMed released the telehealth platform, client response was quite strong. About half of its clients are already using it, Shaw said.  The use cases are widespread in all the specialties that ModMed serves, particularly in dermatology and plastic surgery, Orthopedics can use it for post-op follow-ups for wound checks and range of motion checks. ENTs use it, too, said Shaw: “You’d think it would be difficult to look up the nose or the throat with a camera, but because the quality is so clear they are using it a lot.”

What’s next? Among the focuses will be the launch of ModMed’s mobile Patient Portal that will have the telehealth capabilities as well as enhanced contactless ways to pay bills, request appointments, and provide information prior to the visit.

The emotional roller coaster ride was well worth it, Shaw said.

“It’s almost like your moment — our developers, our trainers, our educators, we all felt this way. We are in healthcare, these are the things that matter and this is how we get it done together.”

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08
Jun, 2020

By Nancy Dahlberg

Member Spotlight | Crown Castle & Lonnie Maier

Read Time 4 Minutes

Business: Crown Castle is the nation’s largest provider of communications infrastructure.

HQ: Houston

South Florida offices: 2 in Palm Beach County, 2 in Miami-Dade County, 1 in Broward.

No of Crown Castle employees in South Florida: About 400

Head of Sales, South Area: Lonnie Maier

Website: www.crowncastle.com

 

In this time of crisis, Crown Castle is certainly on the front lines too.

Crown Castle, a national, publicly traded company, provides the underlying infrastructure to cellphone providers, wireless carriers, businesses, governments and other entities that are deploying mission-critical networks.

Lonnie Maier is Head of Sales for Crown Castle’s fiber division in the Southeast region, including Florida, Georgia and Texas. “We provide custom-built networks to businesses hospitals, governments, and financial institutions. We provide the communications infrastructure for them to be able to connect their various offices to serve their employee base and customers,” she said.

Maier is responsible for about 1,700 customers. “My job is supporting my sales team, talking to customers, making sure that we have proposals in front of them and implementation plans for the sales we made. It is always about understanding our customers’ challenges and we’ll work together to offer them connectivity options.”

The sales leader has been looking at the big picture and connecting the dots to solve customer needs her entire career in telecom. Maier was promoted in 2019 to oversee the Southeast and recently celebrated her 10-year anniversary with Crown Castle (in 2017, Crown acquired FPL FiberNet, where she worked since 2010).

Maier is proud to work at Crown Castle.

“We understand – especially now – that the infrastructure everyone is dependent on is an essential part of your daily life. If we take good care of our employees we will be doing a better job of taking care of the customers who depend on our infrastructure.”

MANAGING DURING COVID

Maier, who was born and raised in South Florida, thrives on doing business face to face with her customers, some of whom she has had for 30 years.

With about 100 offices across the U.S., Crown Castle too has a face-to-face culture, but was quickly able to work remotely once COVID-19 was declared a pandemic. Even so, Crown Castle was an early adapter in stopping employee air travel and moving to telework as the pandemic started its spread its the U.S., and Maier says, the 25-year-old company hasn’t missed a beat.

“Now that we are all virtual, it is all about coordinating WebEx meetings to talk to your customers and keep them posted,” said Maier. “It’s been great — you get to see people in their own environment. We have become more understanding as a leadership team, more nurturing.”

Crown Castle is also active in community service through its Connected for Good program; the company most recently serving meals to healthcare workers during the COVID-19 crisis. Maier has also always been passionate about community involvement, particularly economic development.

Maier retired from the Florida Atlantic Research and Development Authority board last year after serving 12 years. That’s when Michael Fowler of FPL gave her a call to suggest joining Palm Beach Tech. Since then, she has been helping Palm Beach Tech with content for meetings and initiatives and sometimes mentors small businesses. She’s also the membership chair on Palm Beach Tech’s board. Maier has also served stints on the Greater Fort Lauderdale Alliance’s board over the last 20 years.

‘WE AREN’T COMPETING, WE ARE COLLABORATING’

“Our governments are working closer together than ever before,” said Maier. “We are defined now as a South Florida Tech region and definitely work for the betterment.”

Maier says that mentoring and connecting startups to resources is a big need —  especially now. “Every day you turn on the news it is a bad news story. We have to focus on the assets and the support mechanisms in place to help our small businesses.”

Palm Beach Tech, the Research Park at FAU and FAU Tech Runway are all setting an example by helping these young companies stay focused and get resources they need, she said.

For example, she said Palm Beach Tech is asking the right questions — what does the community need? What do small businesses need? What do potential unemployed workers need? Then they look at the big picture and try to connect the dots to bring about solutions.

“We even had a virtual job fair. There are efforts in place that are really focused on who needs the resources the most. It is all about just keep going, don’t get frustrated, don’t get distracted … We are not going to lose hope,” Maier said.

“I feel that South Florida has a way of coming together.”

Pictured at top of post: Lonnie Maier and Crown Castle’s network operations team visit with FAU in 2019.

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18
May, 2020

By Nancy Dahlberg

Member Spotlight | FPL & 35 Mules

Read Time 4 Minutes

Business: Florida Power & Light Company is the nation’s largest energy company, serving more than 5 million customer accounts across Florida. FPL’s typical 1,000-kWh residential customer bill is among the lowest in the U.S.

Parent Company: NextEra Energy

HQ: Juno Beach

President and CEO: Eric Silagy

Senior Director of Economic Development: Crystal Stiles

What’s new: 35 Mules, an innovation hub for selected startups in energy or energy-related industries.

 

This September, 20 startup entrepreneurs with game-changing ideas will move into FPL’s Juno Beach headquarters, in a collaborative workspace being designed for them. For 12 to 18 months, they will be part of FPL’s inaugural cohort of 35 Mules, an incubator and innovation hub.

In addition to the workspace, the companies will have access to subject matter experts in solar, renewables, innovation and smart grid, and free coaching from FPL executives, along with a grant of at least $50,000 to help scale their ventures. In total, in this first year, this is a commitment from FPL of about $2.5 million.

“We are looking for big, bold, brave, game-changing, world-changing ideas. We will be looking for things we have not thought of, products we have not heard of, solutions that seem 5 or 10 years down the road,” said Crystal Stiles, FPL’s senior director of economic development. “If we find a startup with a game-changing idea in any industry we will consider it, but we are really focused in the energy and energy-adjacent areas because that is where the expertise in our company lies.”

 

Rooted in History

The name of the program is a nod to the humble beginnings of NextEra Energy, FPL’s parent company. Because of FPL’s innovative culture and its focus on being a driver and a promoter for the state’s economic development efforts, the startup incubator was a natural project to launch.

“We started our company 95 years ago with an ice plant, a sponge fishing boat, and a herd of 35 mules among a few other assets and 95 years later we have grown into a company that is globally significant. We are… the world’s largest renewable energy company and we are the country’s largest utility by retail energy sold. We have a lot to be proud of and we have a lot to share with these startups. We’d like to take some of these ideas coming from brilliant individuals in our community and outside our community and help them grow into businesses that we can ideally plant right here in Florida,” said Stiles.

 

Spirit of Innovation

The 20 companies have not been selected yet, but the decision will be difficult. Strong applicants hail from within Florida and beyond – at least 7 states and 3 countries, Stiles said.

35 Mules plans to customize the program to each entrepreneur in the incubator. “All of the startups will be at different stages … We want to work with each individual entrepreneur and make sure we are putting together a program of success that moves their company to the next level, whatever that next level is for them,” Stiles said.

In addition to cultivating industry-changing ideas, the program will also complement FPL”s spirit of innovation. The company has run internal Shark Tank competitions and offers a number of programs supporting innovative thinking. This culture has spurred internal innovations such as augmented reality training on safety equipment and the deployment of drone technology for line inspections that have made FPL’s jobs safer. “Bringing brilliant minds outside our organization will help inspire the brilliant minds inside our organization to think even bigger,” Stiles said.

 

The Big Florida Picture

In addition, FPL plays a strong role in supporting the state’s economic development efforts, Stiles said. “Our headquarters is here, our home is Florida, and we want to see Florida’s economy vibrant and thriving and strong. It makes sense to add an entrepreneurial or startup focus to the typically more traditional economic development programs we have offered over the years.”

Bigger picture: 35 Mules can help drive Florida’s already strong culture of entrepreneurship forward, Stiles believes. “I believe Florida can compete on that level with all the other areas of innovation in our country including Boston, Silicon Valley and New York,” Stiles said.

The idea is to add to what is already being offered by entities like Palm Beach Tech, FAU Tech Runway and other organizations, she said.

“We would love to see the next wonderful technology that is going to transform the energy industry as a whole. From our company’s standpoint, we are always striving for excellence, we are always looking to change the way we do things. If there is disruption on the horizon, we’d love find it, see it, nurture it and see what happens.”

FPL hopes to continue the incubator program with more cohorts down the road, Stiles said. “Get involved, stay tuned and come see us when the facility is open and it is safe to do so.”

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20
Apr, 2020

By Nancy Dahlberg

Member Spotlight | Meggie Soliman & DSS Inc.

Read Time 4 Minutes

Business: DSS is a health information software development and systems integration company, providing solutions at VA medical facilities nationwide, as well as in the private sector.

Year founded: 1991

CEO: Mark Byers

Headquarters: Juno Beach

Employees: 600 nationwide; 304 in Palm Beach County

Corporate values: Family, Agility, Synergy, Teamwork, Pioneers, Quality.

Website: dssinc.com

 

The COVID-19 pandemic is playing havoc with clinical processes and administrative workflows in hospitals worldwide at a time when the healthcare institutions have one focus: saving precious lives. So DSS Inc., a healthcare technology company, is on the front lines of tech, implementing and updating its software applications to support locations battling the novel coronavirus.

DSS was founded in 1991 in by three brothers who had a passion for software, Mark, Ron and Joe Byers,  in their Colorado garage. They won their first contract ever from the West Palm Beach division of the Department of Veteran Affairs a few years later. DSS started with one product and now the company has 600 employees working in offices across the U.S., including its Juno Beach headquarters.

Today, DSS provides 70-plus software applications to improve veteran healthcare in VA hospitals nationwide. “We develop applications across the healthcare spectrum – billing, administrative, clinical. We have several applications in every VA hospital today,” said Meggie Soliman, Director of Strategic Innovations, Applications.

Pivoting to the Private Sector

DSS also now has a commercial division, and is developing an EHR (Electronic Health Record) application. It’s important because one out of five EHR implementations fail today, Soliman said. “Clinicians are developing the EHR so it is for clinicians by clinicians. We want to make sure we are the forefront of usability and technology and we are really excited about it and will be launching soon.”

Patients , particularly veterans, are at the center of DSS’s mission.

“That’s been a big gap in the healthcare world and it something DSS does very well – we are engaging clinicians very early on in the process and making sure they are part of our building of cutting edge technology applications,” Soliman said.  ” It is not just about having cool technology and nice apps but it’s about making sure you are patient-first.”

Soliman has been with DSS for six years. She earned her master’s degree in biomedical informatics and worked at a clinical research company in Miami and a big pharma company in New Jersey before joining DSS. At DSS, she started as a product owner and moved into project management operations and now is directing strategic innovations for applications.

A typical day for Soliman involves working with customers and clinicians, and brainstorming with the team. “We have a family culture, an open collaboration … brainstorming is really our art.”

Soliman also enjoys collaborating with the greater tech community, for instance her recent work with Palm Beach Tech Association and the Chamber of Commerce. “I feel we can make bigger strides if we all work together.”

At one recent event, the topic was the millennial impact on the workforce in South Florida. “As a millennial myself in leadership, I believe that organizations need to adapt and adjust to the needs of the millennial to attract that workforce. … [Millennials] are more about working for a purpose and that is really important for organizations to have that in their messaging and in their mission.”

Building an Innovative Team

As for hiring, DSS looks for collaborative team members who are creative and open-minded, said Soliman, who is currently looking for a data scientist and engineer for her team. “I look for those innovators who really love to collaborate and think outside the box and challenge themselves.’

She said what’s most special is DSS’s family values — “the openness our leadership has for providing environments for us to truly innovate. We are very patient centered, and that gives everyone purpose, they know at the end of the day their work is impacting a patient’s health.”

That’s clearly evident as the COVID-19 pandemic continues. DSS has a product that provides customized surveillance alerts and reports to clinicians, streamlining their workflow, for instance. It also has consult tracking and a chemotherapy manager that have been implemented for COVID-19.

“I am passionate about all that DSS has to offer because it truly is coming from an amazing place,” Soliman said. “The end product is coming from working with clinicians and our innovators, the end result is going to be cutting edge. I stand by that.”

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