Submitted by Founder Institute
Ten entrepreneurs from eight companies pitched their new startup at General Provision last Friday in front of their families, friends, mentors, business leaders and colleagues.
These entrepreneurs are the first graduating cohort from the Fort Lauderdale-Boca Raton chapter of the Founder Institute, a global entrepreneur training and startup program that has helped launch over 1,600 companies through chapters across 85 cities and 40 countries
For the ten graduating entrepreneurs, Graduation Day was the culmination of a 3.5 month program where they “learn by doing” and launched their company with structured training, expert feedback, and support from experienced startup CEOs. Thirty-four candidates initially joined the program in November 2015 after going through the application and ‘entrepreneur DNA aptitude’ testing process.
Rodolfo Novarini, Michel Triana and Mark Volchek, three serial entrepreneurs and business leaders, led the Founder Institute’s efforts in Fort Lauderdale and were supported by a strong network of 34 CEOs and founders in the South Florida business community.
The eight emerging startups from the Fort Lauderdale-Boca Raton chapter are:
- GameFace (com): an ecommerce subscription-based men’s personal care called ‘Nasty’ for athlete consumers.
- ONENESS: a solution for cities and marinas to meet their sustainability goals for water clean-up with proprietary line of green boats.
- SpeechMED (com): a voice and video information platform that gives people the ability to see and hear their medical information in their native language (see Startup Spotlight).
- Teak Health: the “mint.com” of medical health records striving for patient empowerment and provider solutions.
- Velatino (com): an internet video network exclusively curated for Hispanic audiences.
- Vendor Hive (com): centralized platform that manages information and transactions between festival event producers and retail vendors.
- VidTec (co): automated tool for digital marketers that converts products and other website content into videos.
- Winspire: a software solution to help people improve their people and leadership skills by partnering with Leadership Coaches.
Robert Valli, one of the graduates and the CEO of VidTec Corporation, emphasized the access to the mentor network as a key benefit of his participation. “Thanks to the new Founder Institute chapter here in Fort Lauderdale, anyone in Southeast Florida with a good idea has a very real opportunity to build a tech company—backed by their own local network—by the time they graduate, even if they had neither to start. I know, because I did it," says Valli.
The Fort Lauderdale-Boca Raton Chapter will accept applications for the next session this summer. Interested applicants can visit fi.co for more information and to join the mailing list.
