Technology Reboot

Technology Reboot

After a few years of quiet time, a company that focuses on helping new technology businesses get going is back at it. It hopes to make some noise.

If Rich Swier were into bragging, this would be a good time to say he told them so.

It was six years ago that Swier and a few other technology entrepreneurs tried to get a group of Sarasota-area community, business and higher education leaders to put some serious effort into creating opportunities for startup technology companies to grow and prosper. Swier was concerned that the area was becoming too dependent on "dirt and sunshine" and that it would need a business base made up of other components besides real estate and tourism.

"No one really cared and the people who did weren't willing to put a lot of time or effort into it," says Swier. "Maybe now more people will listen."

To be sure, his motives weren't entirely altruistic. In 2002, Swier and his partners, a group including Dan Miller and Jason Broom, founded a company called Startup Florida. The company was a for-profit business designed to serve as an incubator and consultant for new technology companies.

Swier says they met with resistance from some of the more established economic development and local government agencies in forming partnerships and other efforts. Colleges and universities were also slow to work with Swier's group. "We did as much as we could," says Swier, "but it didn't catch on."

Not all the efforts failed. Miller, for instance, helped form 82 Degrees Tech, a networking and support group for local technology companies. The group has since partnered with the Greater Sarasota Chamber of Commerce and the Economic Development Corp. of Sarasota County on several events geared toward helping technology startups in the area.

Meanwhile, Startup Florida went to work on its own, helping grow 10 companies and several new technologies. The list includes www.movomobile.com, a cell-phone marketing firm that was ultimately bought by Naples-based Neighborhood America and www.fastpitchnetworking.com, a Facebook for the business set.

Still, Sarasota and Bradenton aren't often thought off as hotbeds for technology startups.

Swier and the Startup Florida gang, including Miller and Broom, are still trying to change that image. While Swier says the company never actually went away, the past few years have been a quiet period as Miller and some others with the company pursued other ventures. With a new marketing push launched earlier this month, the company is officially back.

Its latest efforts involve working with a pair of separate marketing and advertising-based Web site companies. One company, www.thisweekin.tv, is the network behind a local TV channel for area hotels that runs ads and information about an area's restaurants, tourist spots and businesses. The other company is www.3stepcontact.com, which helps businesses create and implement e-mail marketing plans.

Startup Florida isn't a venture capitalist firm, Swier says, although it has invested up to $50,000 in the startup phase of a new company. Instead, Swier wants to find companies in need of technological expertise, in taking an idea from a cocktail napkin to the Internet. The company is seeking ideas that cost less than $20,000 to launch, where it can be an active equity partner. It hopes to work with two companies a year. "We consider ourselves 'venture creationists,'" the company states on its Web site. "We like starting companies, not managing money."

-Mark Gordon