< Previous168 MAY 2019 SI T E S E L E C T IO N e Tax Foundation, meanwhile, recently ranked Florida as having the fourth-best state business tax climate in the nation and overall best climate for individual taxes.Finding the Midwest in the SouthCarpenter says they knew their idea would work when they took the leap of faith and relocated their business to St. Pete. “We got really frustrated back in , and that anger became our fuel,” she says. “We wanted to make data more aff ordable and accessible for the fi nancial industry. So we raised some capital and moved to Florida.”She says they chose St. Pete because “we fell in love with the area. Both of our families had moved here to retire, but we knew we could go anywhere in the world. Once we got here to St. Pete, we really started programming and growing. We have employees now in downtown St. Pete. We are in a growth stage and we are raising more capital. We absolutely love the area.”Carpenter cites several location assets as critical to the company’s future: low costs, inviting climate for recruiting talent, vibrant arts and culture scene, a pro-business government, an accessible airport with direct fl ights to key markets, and “a Midwestern mentality” that is conducive to growing a business.St. Pete may be in the South, but Carpenter found that, like her parents, many of the residents are Midwestern transplants. “Building a company is never easy, but it is very easy to attract talent here because so many people want to come here,” she adds. “ e outdoor activities are phenomenal, and it is an extremely aff ordable place to live and work. We have the capacity to add fi ve to more people, but we will soon need to fi nd larger space somewhere in downtown St. Pete. We plan to stay here for a long time.”Carpenter may soon have a lot of company, as word is getting out that Florida welcomes entrepreneurs. e Florida Chamber recently predicted that the state would add , new jobs this year, and the organization known as GrowFL is a big reason why. A state program designed to take successful companies to the next level, GrowFL is expected to generate $. billion in additional gross domestic product over the next decade, according to a report by Florida TaxWatch.By , the report states, GrowFL will help companies in the Sunshine State create , private-sector, non-farm jobs with an average annual salary of $,. is will produce $. billion in additional personal income for Floridians and generate $. million in additional state tax receipts, says TaxWatch.Tammie Sweet, director of GrowFL, says the Florida Legislature created GrowFL in to support the economy during the recession. “ ey looked at this program to help support a segment of the business population where they saw a need: second- ey (second-stage businesses) represent 8 percent of the small business population in Florida, but they generate over 30 percent of the jobs.”— Tammie Sweet, Director, GrowFL (Continued on page )170 MAY 2019 SI T E S E L E C T IO NLegendary football coach Bobby Bowden rewrote the record books by taking the Florida State University Seminoles to unprecedented heights on the football field over 34 seasons. Today, records of another kind are being achieved by FSU’s Jim Moran School of Entrepreneurship.On Feb. 27, the school in Tallahassee announced record growth and a new expansion. Less than two years after its launch with an inaugural class of 80 students, the Jim Moran School now counts 500 students taking entrepreneurship classes, with another 200 freshmen and sophomores waiting in the wings.Growing pains are forcing changes, including the addition of staff and space. To accommodate increased enrollment, the Jim Moran School recently increased its staff from seven to 20 and added a 12,000-sq.-ft. lab in the renovated Shaw Building near the Strozier Library.“The Jim Moran School has moved forward quite a bit since classes started in fall 2017,” said Susan Fiorito, director of entrepreneur-in-residence. “We brought in the Department of Retail Merchandising and Product Development from the College of Human Sciences, which added about 250 undergraduate students to our program, and now we’re planning to create two new graduate programs.”The first master’s-level program, Textiles and Apparel Entrepreneurship, will launch this fall and will include opportunities to learn valuable skills in the trade at FSU’s study center in Florence, Italy, the region of Tuscany that brought the world Gucci and Armani. Also, starting in fall 2020, the Jim Moran School will partner with the FSU Dedman School of Hospitality to offer a one-year master’s program in hospitality and entrepreneurship. Students will spend one month in FSU’s study center in Panama to learn about supply-chain logistics along the Panama Canal.“Building the Jim Moran School of Entrepreneurship has been a dream come true for me,” Fiorito said. “We have the beautiful downtown Jim Moran Building that offers special networking opportunities and more space for collaborations. The Shaw Building is great for students and faculty because it brings everyone together as a team, and we want to create a warm, friendly and open environment that nurtures creative thinking.”The Jim Moran School expansion coincides with another innovation that is about to launch on the campus in the state capital: an all-electric bus fleet. Florida State just signed a 10-year deal with StarMetro, the City of Tallahassee’s public bus system, to operate an all-electric university bus service.COACHING UP SEMINOLE ENTREPRENEURSFlorida State will soon become one of the first universities in the nation to deploy an all-electric bus fleet. Photo courtesy of FSU Photography Servicesby RON STARNER172 MAY 2019 SI T E S E L E C T IO Nstage businesses with a million to $ million in revenue,” she says. “ ey represent percent of the small business population in Florida, but they generate over percent of the jobs.” rough a partnership with the Edward Lowe Foundation of Michigan, GrowFL helps these companies with their revenue needs by helping them fi nd expansion opportunities that bring more revenue to Florida. “We help the CEO learn how to start shedding tasks to focus on the most important things and start hiring other people,” Sweet says. “We provide a support system for the CEO.”Over the course of the program’s nine years, it has recognized fi rms as Florida Companies to Watch. ese include high-growth fi rms like Sarasota Medical Products Inc., D Digital, AA Solar Contracting, AdRizer, Big Top Brewing Company LLC, Global Safety Management, Hydro-Dyne Engineering, Inspired Technologies, JAX Refrigeration and Marion Precision Tool Inc.A Scary Proposition? Not ReallyMany of these fi rms are fi nding their way to the Tampa Bay Area, with St. Pete in Pinellas County serving as prime breeding ground. Other disruptive entrepreneurs in St. Pete include Presence, which is changing the way colleges and universities maximize student engagement and success; e Penny Hoarder, which provides online fi nancial advice for the average Joe; Inside Out Sales Innovation Labs, which is changing the way tech companies sell their products; and Callyo, which helps law enforcement fi ght human traffi cking.One of these upstarts is even working on the scarier side of business — iHorror.com. Founded a few years ago in St. Pete, this Bay Area fi lm and entertainment media company already has . million Facebook followers and is making headway in the original short fi lm area. e company is releasing two new projects this year: Monstrum, the fi rst movie directed by website founder and company CEO Anthony Pernicka; and Terror Tales, a -part 1. Maitland2. Doral3. Naples4. Palatka5. Sebring6. Coral Gables7. Longwood8. Stuart9. Orange City10. Lake MarySource: NerdWalletBest Places to Start a Business in10FLORIDABy 2027, GrowFL will help companies in the Sunshine State create 43,794 private-sector, non-farm jobs with an average annual salary of $97,815. Source: Florida TaxWatch projection(Continued from page )MaitlandBest Places to Start a Business inFLORIDABest Places to Best Places to Best Places to Start a Business inStart a Business inFLORIDAFLORIDAFLORIDAFLORIDAFLORIDAFLORIDAFLORIDAFLORIDAFLORIDAFLORIDAFLORIDAFLORIDAFLORIDAFLORIDAFLORIDAMaitlandMaitlandMaitland(Continued from page )(Continued from page )(Continued from page )(Continued from page )(Continued from page )(Continued from page )(Continued from page )stage businesses with a million to stage businesses with a million to stage businesses with a million to stage businesses with a million to stage businesses with a million to stage businesses with a million to 174 MAY 2019 SI T E S E L E C T IO Nanthology series directed by Dominic Smith of Tampa.“The idea is to have films that are consumable, 5-minute or less stories. We’ll grow from there,” Pernicka told the Tampa Bay Times.J.P. DuBuque, president of the Greater St. Petersburg Area Economic Development Corp., says startups love St. Pete because they find a welcoming environment that provides both low costs and an abundance of opportunities for quality networking with likeminded people.Carpenter agrees. That’s why she’s helped start an incubator-like program to train and encourage developers of new apps. “I’ve been here five or six years with the business,” she says. “What I saw happening was incredible — an influx of young people, bars, restaurants, artists, musicians and entrepreneurs. The average age in St. Pete is going down. If you’re looking for a value opportunity, this is the place to be.”About 150 miles north of St. Pete, another organization is lending a hand to startups. It’s called UF Innovate, the commercialization arm of the Office of Technology Licensing at the University of Florida in Gainesville.Jim O’Connell, assistant vice president for commercialization and director of UF Innovate, launched a couple of successful startups himself before taking over this new gig, and he says the rate of entrepreneurship in Florida is under-appreciated by most outside the state.“UF has done less than a stellar job of marketing ourselves,” he says. “We are on par with Cornell and Penn in the first gene therapy approved by the FDA. It is for a very rare genetic disease that makes children go blind. It literally makes children see again. People in the industry salivate over this kind of stuff, but even our own faculty don’t know about it. No one has any idea that UF is doing this kind of work.”In fact, notes O’Connell, UF ranks No. 2 in total deal flow in the country for the last two years and has ranked in the top 10 for the last 10 years. “We are driving a lot of volume,” he says. “We will do close to $900 million in research expenditures this year. We did $867 million last year. We are Jim O’Connell AVP, UF Innovate (Continued on page 178)Tampa, FloridaPhoto: Getty Images176 MAY 2019 SI T E S E L E C T IO NDecades ago, people around North Port would look up into the sky to see a hot air balloon giving tourists rides while spreading the community’s welcoming message.The days of those balloon trips are long gone, but one thing hasn’t left this city of 70,000 people on Southwest Florida’s Gulf Coast: the desire to get noticed.After being con ned to relative obscurity for most of its rst six decades, the city swung for the fences in 2017 and launched the biggest of home runs — a $140 million spring training complex for the Atlanta Braves. Opened of cially on March 24 when the Braves hosted the Tampa Bay Rays for the nal spring game of the 2019 Grapefruit League season, the 6,500-seat stadium is already putting North Port on the map in a way that balloons never could.“The Braves have changed people’s perception of North Port,” says North Port City Manager Pete Lear. “The hopes and dreams are being realized of what people wanted to see come here. As soon as the Braves were announced, the interest from people and businesses started showing.”Targeting light industry, technology companies and other rms that pay livable wages, North Port hopes to turn around its business environment as well. “Every area wants that marquee business name. We feel like we have it now in the Atlanta Braves, which are widely regarded as the class organization of Major League Baseball,” says Lear. “When people see how so many entities worked together to bring the Braves here, they will come to the conclusion that this must be a pretty good place to be.”To expedite the project, Director of Neighborhood Planning Services Frank Miles deployed four building inspectors on site full-time. “This community is on the cusp of signi cant growth, and we wanted to make this project happen on time and on budget,” says Miles. “Our population is growing at a rate of 5% to 7% a year, and our commercial growth is starting to catch up. This is a great location in Southwest Florida due to Interstate 75 access. Our residential building is up 18 percent over last year. We are poised for growth,” says Miles of the town that’s celebrating its 60th (diamond) anniversary this year. “We are not seeing any recession indicators here.”DIAMOND DEAL: How a Ballpark Puts North Port on the MapBy RON STARNERWarm Mineral Springs Park in North PortPhoto coutesy of City of North Port Next >