Three Times is the Charm

Three Times is the Charm

Entrepreneur by Janet Leiser | Senior Editor

First he worked at the Kennedy Space Center. Then he taught college. But it's his work as an entrepreneur that gained him recognition.

Kurt J. Long achieved profitability and success early at EpicTide Inc. - the third technology firm he founded.

He sold his first two technology companies. Houston-based BMC Software Inc. bought OpenNetwork Technologies, his second company, for $18 million in March 2005. The other was sold years earlier.

His newest company is capitalizing on a niche related to his second company in the "AAA" software security industry known as authentication, authorization and audit. EpicTide's software tracks unauthorized computer use for health care providers.

Long, 44, was recognized this month by the Tampa Bay Technology Forum as its Entrepreneurial Leader of the Year.

A 1980 Clearwater High graduate, Long began his career at the Kennedy Space Center after he graduated from the University of Florida with a business degree and credits in advanced physics, chemistry and math.

He worked at Lockheed Space Operations at Kennedy for about five years, he says, when he decided to go elsewhere to find new, exciting challenges.

Long joined IBM and earned a master's degree in mathematics from the University of South Florida where he was an adjunct professor.

In fact, he sings the praises of Florida's colleges. He says other entrepreneurs don't take advantage of one of the state's biggest benefits - talent at its universities.

"Most are missing out on the opportunity to work with world class experts that are in our state's colleges and universities," Long says. "They make the assumption that since K through 12 is weak, the universities are weak."

He points to his alma mater, the University of Florida, as a "showcase of talent."

At EpicTide, he has created an advisory board that includes Dr. Richard Newman, an information security professor at UF; and Dr. Joachim Hammer, a UF professor who specializes in large databases. And Long has formalized a relationship with UF for research on information security.

In April 2005, he began hiring software developers for his new St. Petersburg-based company, he says. It now has eight employees and already is profitable. But he declined to discuss specific revenue or profit figures.

"We reached profitability very quickly," he says.

Lee Arnold, chief executive of the Arnold Cos. in St. Petersburg, has invested in EpicTide.

The company's mission is to protect patient privacy and provide its customers a lot of value.

As for advice for other entrepreneurs, he says, "It all starts with your value proposition to the customer. You must identify a market need and a unique way to defend and grow it over a period of time."

To survive, a company must uniquely deliver a solution to customers, he says.

Marketing and sales are also key.

"I was an engineering guy," Long says. "It really does boil down to can you market, can you sell? Delivery is amazingly important."

EpicTide's customer base is worldwide, he says, since there's a global need to protect patient confidentiality.

"It's a large, growing niche market," he says.

Although the marketplace is usually rife with competition, Long says he's after a slice that others aren't chasing.

"We've targeted a niche market that information security vendors don't seem to like," he says. "We don't have any head-to-head competition right now."

Wikipedia founder and St. Petersburg resident Jimmy Wales met the Tampa Bay area technology community for the first time at an event to recognize outstanding entrepreneurs and companies.

The Tampa Bay Technology Forum honored Wales, whose free online dictionary is one of the most visited Web sites, with its first Visionary Achievement award at its Nov. 9 Industry Achievement Awards Gala.

Wales was recognized earlier this year by Time magazine as one of the top 100 people who are shaping our world for his creation of Wikipedia.org, a dictionary written by those who use it.

By allowing users to create entries on Wikipedia, Wales may have created "the most powerful industrial model of the 21st century: peer production. Wikipedia is proof that it works, and Jimmy Wales is its prophet," states the Time article.

The site is one of the 50 most-visited sites with nearly 5 million entries in 100 languages.

Other awards include Innovation of the Year given to Electronic Learning Products Inc., a Tampa software platform company founded by Carlo Franzblau (profiled in the Review, March 2, 2006).

Kurt Long, founder and CEO of EpicTide (see article this issue) was recognized as entrepreneurial leader of the year.

The Quantum Leap Technology award went to Creative Recycling Systems, Tampa. The family business recycles electronic parts, from televisions to computers, with a state-of-art computer called David.

Surgical Safety Institute received the Emerging Technology Company of the Year award. The business provides training and support to healthcare facilities to improve safety.

Shyam Mohapatra, founder of TransGenex Nanbiotech, was recognized as Technology Professional Leader of the Year, and Bright House Networks received the Community Outreach award for its service in the community.