- [Narrator] This is a production of WEDU PBS, Tampa, St. Petersburg, Sarasota.

(bright upbeat music) - Brain Drain.

That's the last thing you want, if you're trying to build a vibrant business community.

Brain drain occurs when the best educated and most talented people move away, because they see better opportunities elsewhere.

For decades, Florida struggled with brain drain, particularly among tech entrepreneurs.

But in the past several years, that's changed.

The best and the brightest are staying, or moving in from elsewhere.

And the Sunshine State is going from brain drain to brain gain.

You're about to meet the CEO and founder of an organization that's been a catalyst for that change.

Next on the Suncoast Business Forum - [Narrator] Suncoast Business Forum brought to you by the financial services firm of Raymond James offering personalized wealth management advice and banking and capital markets expertise, all with a commitment to putting clients' financial wellbeing first.

More information is available at raymondjames.com.

(bright upbeat music) - Startups and young companies create most of the new jobs in America.

And it's been that way for a long time.

So, what if you were able to create an organization that brings together promising, talented entrepreneurs, nurtures them, mentors them, and helps them succeed?

Since 2012, that's exactly what the Tampa Bay Wave's been doing.

In its first 10 years it's supported 450 startups, created nearly 4,000 jobs, and helped raise more than $600 million dollars.

Tampa Bay Wave is an important part of the robust brain gain now underway in Tampa Bay.

Linda Olson is the founder and CEO of Tampa Bay Wave.

Linda, welcome to the Suncoast Business Forum.

- Thank you for having me, Jeff.

It's an honor.

- It's good to be here.

Now, Tampa Bay Wave is Florida's number one accelerator.

And it's also an innovation hub for entrepreneurs, by entrepreneurs.

How does it work?

- When we say our organization is by entrepreneur for entrepreneur, it's because we entrepreneurs kind of decided to roll up our sleeves and be part of the solution.

And it was a little bit challenging, but you know at some point we said, if we're going to do something, well what is it we're going to do?

Right?

It was a blanks slate, we could do almost anything.

But what we really decided to focus in on was how do we create a greater density of high quality startups in the region?

Because if you have that, then the local community will get excited about supporting tech startups.

But you can also build kind of that national brand reputation for the region as a place where startups thrive and succeed.

And when you have that kind of reputation, now not only do you have startups succeeding, but you're attracting talent, capital, and other startups here.

And so we set out to kind of build a program, that's really what we are primarily trying to achieve, was a program that was gonna help foster that density of startups, provide them the coaching, the training, mentoring, access to capital, whatever it is that they really need to help thrive and survive.

- Tampa Bay Wave has an extensive business accelerator program, but there are accelerators, there are incubators, there are innovation hubs.

What are the differences between these things?

- What most industry experts would probably agree on is that accelerator programs tend to be time based.

Anywhere from two to six months, the average is more like three months.

They're highly competitive.

They only take in anywhere from eight to 12 companies.

And their big graduation day at the end of 90 days is usually something in front of investors, with the idea of they're gonna use this program to help accelerate your access to capital and get you ready for investors.

Incubators are not as time bound.

They tend to be more about a place for entrepreneurs, as opposed to a program, although many of them do have some mentoring networks and other programming going on.

Incubators are also a place where you usually find specialized equipment and or things like wet labs.

So incubators are those kinds of places that you think of biotech and other industry verticals, where startups need a longer time frame to get to high stage growth.

Sometimes they're waiting on certain federal approvals.

And then you've got innovation hubs.

And that's, to me, one of those areas that's really one of the the newer concepts that you see.

And it's really important to grow an ecosystems, because it's also a place for entrepreneurs.

They tend to have a lot of co-working.

They tend to have a lot of community events.

They may or may not have programming.

And now in the region we have at least two or three of these innovation hubs here, in addition to our accelerator program and some of these university incubators.

- How do business, government, and academia play into the whole growth of the entrepreneurial ecosystem here?

- They're all necessary.

In our early days when we, before we even set out to launch Wave's programs, we thought, well let's go talk to some of the economic development folks here and see what we can do.

And, we kept hearing from them and other business and political leaders, look, we leave entrepreneurship to the entrepreneurs.

And that was very frustrating to hear, because you really kind of said like, well they're taking a hands off approach.

That does not help grow or build this ecosystem.

Today, I don't know if you would find a politician who doesn't talk about tech startups and innovation and building entrepreneurial ecosystems.

When you have the voice of the politicians out there talking about the importance of these types of ecosystems, how it can really create a economic impact that touches everyone in the community, that validates the need for this.

Academia plays an incredible, critical role in producing the talent.

Sometimes it's the entrepreneurial talent, sometimes it's the tech talent, sometimes it's the other business talent, marketing, finance, you name it.

And then the corporate world.

I think it took a while for some of the corporate community here to also understand like we need them in here.

We need you to be maybe sampling or trying some of the startup technology, maybe considering purchasing or doing business with the startups.

Because if you want the startups to grow, they need customers.

But also, I think the corporates here have found, hmm some of these startups are actually working on something that's kind of interesting.

Maybe there's something, a strategic reason for them to be working with the startups.

Or sometimes it's about giving their team access to that innovative mindset that can now come back inside the corporation walls.

- Over the years, one of the challenges facing entrepreneurs in Tampa Bay and the state of Florida was lack of access to venture capital and private equity.

You had to go to California or you had to go to New York to get that.

Has that changed?

- In the early meetup days of Wave, there really were no funds here.

There was a handful of local angels.

There was a couple angel groups in Florida.

Today you've got, well certainly Florida Funders is probably the largest, most recognizable organization, a venture capital group.

They have a fund and they have other ways for people to participate.

You've got Tampa Bay Ventures, you've got Deep Work Capital in Orlando.

I mean, lots of options.

The best thing we could do for this ecosystem in Florida and Tampa Bay is have a healthier marketplace where there's more buyers and sellers.

But, so definitely huge improvement.

But I would say we still don't have enough capital in the state to support the ecosystems we can build here yet.

So hopefully it's still coming.

- Let's talk about your formative years.

Let's talk about growing up and your family.

- I was born in St. Pete, grew up on St. Pete Beach.

My parents were college educated.

My dad, though, was an artist.

He got his early training at the Art Institute of Chicago.

And so I grew up in a house on the beach that had a large art studio that had painting and colored pencils and clay, it had everything in there.

My dad was also a little bit like, I think he thought himself as a little bit of a modern day Leonardo DaVinci, always was trying to create new things.

His business had a lot of this.

And as a kid I remember some of those low points.

And I remember as a, you know, I think it was probably like ninth or 10th grade just one night hearing yet again we couldn't afford something as a family.

And just going to bed saying I am just not ever going to be in that position when I'm an adult, when I have my own.

Like I remember, that was something that was important to me.

I didn't have the answers, but I knew that I wasn't gonna let that happen to me.

But I also think being around that creative environment was helpful.

My parents also had me go to this small, parochial school called Keswick Christian from kindergarten to 12th grade.

In that school, I got to do everything.

I was on cross country, that was my primary sport.

But towards the end of high school I was having a part-time job.

Again, our family was, had some struggles here and there.

So, I was juggling all of that.

But it's just what you did, right?

- After high school, you went to Florida State University.

Did you know what you wanted to do career wise?

- No, you know, going back to the K through 12 school I went to, they really didn't offer a lot of like career counseling.

But I loved creative writing, so I heard Florida State had a good communication school.

A lot of my good friends were going there, so that seemed like the right school to go to.

Yeah, so I was really focused on the creative writing side.

But, just as I was finishing up my sophomore year is when my father kind of suddenly passed away.

And I remember I was, okay well the school was nice enough to let me make up some exams.

And I was gonna spend the summer with my mom, trying to kind of close up his business and take care of some household manners.

And it was in that process, somehow, just thinking about his business, thinking about all those things that I was thinking about as a high school kid, going like, well maybe I don't want to go into journalism or one of those fields where I can't be in control of the destiny.

And then I had this aha moment.

I remember I was mowing the lawn at her house.

And I was like, maybe I should be on the business side of whatever I wanna do, because then I would feel like I have some sort of control.

I remember feeling that way.

I'm like, maybe I really need a business degree.

So I, what are you gonna do?

You gotta choose a major for business.

I'm like, hmm business management, 'cause I was gonna go manage something.

But in my first classes, I took an accounting class and boy that just clicked with me.

It just weirdly clicked.

Most of my classmates would come to me for help versus the teacher.

And I remember like, gosh I don't know anything about this, but everyone says accounting is really hard but it pays well.

And so I talked to one of my teachers, she's like you'll be fine, you'll pass.

So I switched my major again to accounting and I was like I'm off to the races.

I have solved that problem, that I said as a ninth grader I wanted to solve for myself.

I'm gonna have a well paying career.

And then I realized the best job options for the best accounting students are in audit or tax.

I'm like, there should be a better prize.

I went with audit, thinking it was the lesser of two evils.

I took an internship with KPMG as an auditor.

And it was in that time where I saw that these large accounting firms also had consulting arms, technology consulting arms.

And I was like that, that is interesting.

Because rather than looking at historic financials, now I can actually help solve peoples' problems for the future.

I can help them build solutions in the consulting thing.

And so that is, that was a pivotal time.

But yeah, I went from a communications major and snaked my way up to looking at consulting.

So I went back to FSU for my Master's degree so I could get some information systems training under my belt to qualify for those jobs, and also make sure I had the hours I needed to get the CPA exam, so I had a backup just in case.

- After you got your Master's degree, you went to work for Arthur Andersen on the consulting side, right?

Tell us about the skills that you learned while you were at Arthur Anderson.

- For such a large company, I found the right consulting group.

Lots of big accounting firms had consulting groups.

This one in particular at Arthur Anderson in the Tampa Bay region was led by folks like Rick Bishop, Tony D'Benedetto.

You had Mike Hardigan and Brian Deming also were part of kind of the growing leadership team.

It was a small group.

I might have been the first woman in that group of like 10 or 12.

And I remember on the very first day, Rick Bishop told me, he goes if I could give you equity in our consulting group, I would, but I can't.

But I want you to run your projects and operate as if you are an entrepreneur, as if we were a standalone company.

So it was very entrepreneurial thinking and that, it was very different.

And I think it really taught me, not just the skills you need to effectively manage projects, but those entrepreneurial skills.

I was, that's probably my biggest takeaway from that experience there.

- After working at Arthur Andersen, you joined HSN, the home shopping network.

- Sorta.

- Tell us about it.

- I actually got, it was pre y2k, so if you kind of can remember what that world was like.

And every large company was out there doing everything they could to ensure that their systems didn't go down on that December 31st date.

Home Shopping Network was one of them.

So I got recruited to actually work for a little boutique consulting firm, who was looking to hire somebody to lead the project for HSN.

In fact, my first day there they handed me the book that People Soft had given them.

'Cause that was the company, the software I was supposed to put in.

They said, this is the book of the, or here's the implementation plan.

It was already bought and paid for and you just have to follow the recipe.

Great.

I sit down, I start flipping through this.

And immediately I'm like, this is not right.

So I went to the CIO of Home Shopping Network, they were publicly traded at the time I started this.

And I said, I don't know enough about this implementation plan.

Apparently they paid something like 30 or $40,000 for this plan.

I said I'm just not sure this is right.

He's like, okay, why?

And I told him, he's like, okay, well maybe we can talk about it some more in the morning, end of my first day.

Second day I show up, he is now pulling me into a meeting that I didn't have expected, with the CFO and several other senior management team.

Wanting me to explain why they should throw away a $40,000 implementation plan.

And trust me, and basically an independent consultant who wasn't even 30 years old, telling them I know how to implement this 5 million dollar project, which I'm not sure what that would be in today's dollars.

And, that was a little bit of a heat.

But they went with my plan.

And I was there for, I don't know, two and a half, three years after that, so.

- Following HSN, you went to Boston and you worked for a startup, Yet 2 Come.

And it also introduced you to the startup and entrepreneurial community in Boston.

Tell us about that.

- Yeah, when I first arrived in Boston, I didn't even know that's what I was gonna do.

And then I had people tell me, well based on your experience, you should look at this dot com world here, 'cause that's what they called it back then.

And I'm like, what is this?

And my eyes were opened up.

I'm like, what?

Wait a minute.

Everything I was trying to do with, you know these technology implementation projects was helping build technology solutions.

And I'm like, there's a world of technology solution building going on right here, and venture capital will fund this with new businesses.

And I'm like, this is a whole new world.

So I found a company, Yet 2 Come.

They were based in Cambridge.

Really interesting company, founded by Ben duPont.

As in his dad, Pierre, ran for president in 1988.

In the tech transfer space, really incredible company.

I saw us raise more capital, I saw us do this, we sold the company.

It was everything in a box of a startup experience, without the total crash and burn.

And I was like, ooh, I wanna do that again.

- After years in the startup community in Boston, you enrolled in the MBA program at Columbia University in New York.

Tell us about it.

- I had adjunct professors who were actually real role venture capitalists.

And to have them teach these classes, I learned firsthand, these are some of these, some of these VCs are household names, talking about the challenges they have, and how they look at investment opportunities.

And that would really play a role later on in my formative years as an entrepreneur in Tampa, and even in building Wave, because it really helped me better understand how these out of region investors thought and acted.

- In 2006 you moved back to the Tampa Bay area, to be closer to family.

And before long you actually started your own startup.

And what, tell us about the startup, tell us about moving back.

And, how you saw the landscape at that time.

- You know, when I came back I thought now that I have all this great experience I'm gonna go find one of those tech startups in Tampa Bay that I just didn't see before.

But then when I started trying to find people who could maybe help with venture capital or other resources, the ecosystem was a lot less built than I ever even imagined.

It was a discovery process and, but also it started becoming frustrating to me, 'cause I was like, well who's fixing this?

Why isn't somebody fixing this?

I just saw, you know, what they have in Boston.

And, while we don't maybe have everything Boston has, I kept saying, Tampa Bay has, there's plenty of money here.

It's just not going to the startups.

There's plenty of talent here, it's just not going to the startups.

Like we had all the ingredients.

But, without that ecosystem, I know I was like well I'm committed to figuring out how to build this here.

And then I started finding some peers who also had that same, it might be tough but we're gonna do it anyways, and we're not leaving, we're gonna stay.

And that's what really formed the Wave meetup group.

- Then in 2012 you got a million dollar grant from the US Economic Development Administration.

How do you go about doing that?

And, what was the intent?

- You know, sometimes I look at that story and it still amazes me, because I still don't know how a meetup group essentially was able to secure a million dollar federal grant.

But that's essentially what happened.

But, in 2011 I had started pulling some folks together.

'Cause I'm saying like we're still talking about the same issues and it's been three years, and I don't know, I can't keep talking about it and not do something.

So like I said, the by entrepreneur, for entrepreneur thing was starting.

So we put together a little bit of a shell of a strategic plan and said, if we ever had funding, this was what we would do.

But we had just got into the summer of 2012 saying, okay now we gotta figure out how to get that funding.

And, it's kind of like as fate would have it, this opportunity came about.

And this particular grant was about launching a new innovation hub, and or an accelerator program.

- [Geoffrey] How would you say the programs at Tampa Bay Wave have evolved from the early days to now?

- In the early days it was primarily local companies.

We were certainly, cared about local companies.

We still care greatly about the local companies.

But as our program continued to evolve, they became more and more competitive.

In 2018, the Nielsen Foundation came along and said, hey, we would love to sponsor one of your cohorts, exclusively for diverse and underrepresented founders.

We came up with the name Techdiversity Accelerator.

And, they said but, we want you to recruit nationally for this program.

And, I know some people at the time, thought well that's outside of the scope of Tampa Bay Wave.

And I said, no, no, no.

If you remember, we said building a national reputation for Tampa Bay is part of what we're trying to do.

And how better to do that than to be out there nationally, bringing startups in here, and then thus bringing investors in here, and talent in here.

So today, we recruit across the US and beyond.

We have an international company or more in all of our cohorts for the last, gosh, at least year plus.

FIBA, the Florida Israeli Business Accelerator, they actually refer some of the Israeli companies into our programs now.

And the good news is, is lots of them look at Tampa for relocation.

We've had lots of companies already relocate.

And we have more that are continuing to talk about relocating here.

And we just are getting started.

- Tampa Bay Wave recently received a 2 million dollar grant from the US Economic Development Administration.

So this is another grant, federal grant.

What is this for?

- Well proudly this is grant number four, from the EDA, and this is the biggest one yet by far.

So what I try to stress with people is this grant, while it will fund some programs, it'll help us continue to run our CyberTech focus program, our FinTech focus program, and add a a HealthTech accelerator, what this grant is really trying to achieve is building regional innovation clusters around those industries.

So our program should be part of that, but the intent is to bring industry leaders in the region together, so that not only are we working better together as industry clusters, but fostering innovation in those clusters, helping the region attract more talent, startups, and capital associated with those industries.

- Let's talk about some of your colleagues who are also doing things to encourage economic developments among startups, among entrepreneurs, because the number of them are expanding.

- I can't tell you how grateful I am to have peers in the community, 'cause this is just too big of a lift for not just one person, but one organization.

Synapse Florida is a big piece of this.

I think they do events in Tampa, Orlando.

They've actually done some smaller things in other parts of Florida, as well as Miami.

And they've partnered with Emerge America.

So they do a terrific job of, again, helping showcase the startups that are here.

But also showcase the talent, and build connections across all of that.

Embarc Collective, of course, the Vinik backed innovation hub in downtown Tampa.

We've partnered with them on several programs, including one for women entrepreneurs and women investors, which is great.

You've got Kathy Wood now sponsoring what was Tampa Bay Innovation Center, but now will be the Ark Innovation Center in downtown St. Pete, my hometown.

But there's also like what HCC, or Hillsborough Community College, is doing.

There's smaller groups, Action Zone, that's supporting veteran entrepreneurs.

And there's actually a lot more in the works that are emerging that are gonna be supporting other groups in this community.

To me, that's the most exciting thing is hopefully there's not anyone left behind, who wants the opportunity to take their next innovative idea and bring it to life.

- Linda, I'd like to thank you so much for being our guest today.

- Well, thank you for having me.

It's really an honor.

Thank you.

- Thank you.

If you'd like to see this interview again or any of the CEO profiles in our Suncoast Business Forum archive, you can find them on the web at wedu.org/SPF.

Thanks for joining us for the Suncoast Business Forum.

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