TechTalk: Catalyst for Growth: How a Networking Organization Is Fueling Florida's Venture-Backed Future

Kevin Burgoyne: 

Thank you, Fritz. It's great to be here. 

Fritz Spencer: 

Likewise. Well, to get us all started, please if you could tell our listeners a little bit about yourself, your background, and what led you to the Florida Venture Forum. 

Kevin Burgoyne: 

I am a product of Florida. I grew up in Southwest Florida and went to UF undergrad. Then I left the state after college, never to return, or so I thought. I had a career in the corporate world, worked for Disney. I'm one of the few crazy people who left Florida to work for Disney. I moved to New York and California, working for the Walt Disney Company in the television side of the business in a variety of different marketing roles. Then I migrated to telecommunications from the media industry, and that brought me back to Florida in the early 2000s. Moved to Miami and was working in the corporate world still until I joined a family office that was run by a former boss of mine. That got me acquainted with investment world, venture capital and the Florida Venture Forum. And so, in 2012 when the family office wound down, I happened to see a job posting for my current role and threw my hat in the ring. I knew someone who knew one of the board members and went through a long interview process and was very lucky to get the job. I have to say, it's the best job I've ever had. Dirty little secret, just I love my job. The Florida Venture Forum is a terrific organization, mainly because of our members. They're just wonderful people, and VCs in general are, and people involved in VC tend to be just smart, good people. Yeah, I've been doing it. I didn't intend to do it for this long, but they allow me to stay, and we've been doing a lot of good work with the Forum, and I'm now in my 12th year leading the organization. 

Fritz Spencer: 

Wow. Congratulations on 12 years. I'm glad to know they're allowing you to hang around for a little while. Well, let's jump into the Florida Venture Forum and why you've been there for 12 years. Tell me about the Forum's mission. What is the thesis? 

Kevin Burgoyne: 

You said it well in your opening. The Forum is a 40-year-old, it was founded in 1984, so now we're in our 41st year. It's a member organization. We have over 100 paid members, some all firms, companies, investors, ranging from early seed to private equity, mostly centered around the venture Series A+ stages on the investment side, corporates who are active in the innovation ecosystem or in venture capital. Then attorneys, accountants, investment banks, other debt providers, any firms that are active in the venture ecosystem or in innovation in Florida. Then we have an alumni category of membership, which is made up of companies that we have selected over the years, who've presented at our various events and conferences. Really what we do is, it's all in the name. I often say the word forum. We create opportunities for founders and startups looking for capital and services that they need to grow and scale to connect with capital sources and the firms that provide those services. We do that through a series of events, virtual and live and in person. We do major conferences throughout the year. We do get togethers roughly every other month. We just try and create opportunities for founders to learn from each other, to learn from our members, and to connect with capital. I didn't invent the secret sauce. The organization's been around for a very long time. Interestingly, I think one of the unique things about the Forum is unlike some incubators and accelerators and organizations like that, we don't take any equity in the companies that come through the Forum. We don't charge them anything. They go through a rigorous selection process, but once selected, they join the Forum system, so to speak. It's really been very, very successful. I would dare say, most of the major venture-backed success stories in Florida have been Forum companies at one point or another, presenting at one of our events or attending one of our events, or getting mentoring from one of our members or being served by one of our members. It's proven to be a really great model and a lasting one. 

Fritz Spencer: 

You touched on something there a lot that... The capital raising and how you're introducing these ventures to capital raising mechanisms, and that's what I'd love to talk about next, because from my experience, founders are always laser-focused on either attracting capital or talent. As the president and CEO of the Venture Forum, I'd love to know how you're helping founders through your methods network and raise these capital. 

Kevin Burgoyne: 

I mean, sometimes it's sometimes very direct. We get inbound solicitations from founders or outreach from founders saying, "I'm new to raising capital. What should I do?" And we try and provide the resources in a scalable way. Obviously, I'm just one person and we have a small staff, so we try and make it scalable and make it very easy for founders to access the organization. The front gate of that is for them to apply to the Forum. They can apply anytime, go on our website flventure.org, fill out a simple application, it gets reviewed by a committee of active venture investors. When selected companies will get invited to present at one of our events, we do an annual Florida Venture Capital Conference, which is our big conference every year. We do that in Q1. We've set records three years in a row. We've doubled the size of the conference in the past three years. We can get into more of why and how that's happened maybe later, but we also do an Early Stage Capital Conference, which will be coming up in June. Then we do industry-focused events. We've done aerospace. We've done healthcare. There are a number of other events. Then we do regular meetups with our membership where we invite our alumni, we invite companies that have applied or have been accepted. As I said, create the opportunity for them to network directly with our members. One of the things we always tell founders is, accessing venture capital is, as you said, often a mystery. Founders have been so focused on running their business, they don't really know how to approach it. Just looking at our membership is a great way to start, because pretty much every venture investor is either a member... Or active in Florida anyway, is either a member or a regular attendee at our events. Coming to our events or looking at our membership and then doing some homework on which of these investors is a good fit for my business know. For example, if I'm an early-stage software company, approaching a late-stage healthcare investor it's probably a waste of my time and the investor's time, and probably going to be an indicator to the investor that I didn't do my homework. The good news is that most venture investors, particularly at the earlier stage, have a way, usually on their website, to submit an executive summary or some type of jot form or something where a founder can present what they've got and maybe elicit a conversation. That's often the starting point. Then, I always advise people, luckily the innovation ecosystem in Florida in my time with the Forum has probably grown by 5X. I mean, it's just incredible, the infrastructure that has built up in Florida over the past 10 years or so, attend events. Apply to present at events, not just ours. I mean, there are lots of great conferences and every major market, and many of the smaller markets in Florida have tech events and founder meetups. If you're near a university, they all have entrepreneur centers. Incubators and accelerators are located in every market in Florida and they do meetups. Just start networking. It's a great way to meet people. I'll tell you, people sometimes perceive that venture investors are these elusive folks that are very hard to get to. Believe me, they are out looking for companies too. I mean, they've got their own offensive and out there looking to they have capital to deploy, and they have to deploy it. You've got to run your business, but you also have to get out there and network and build a Rolodex. 

Fritz Spencer: 

Right. Yeah, that's so interesting. The way you described it while you were describing it, I was imagining the Florida Venture Forum success machine in my head. What keeps the wheels greased is your members and these firms and VCs. Then the product is these entrepreneurs, and their businesses and you're just cranking them out to success. That's how I was just imagining it in my head. 

Kevin Burgoyne: 

Well, that's a nice picture. Yeah. I mean, it absolutely does work that way. Put yourself in a VC's position. You've raised a fund, you've got capital to deploy, you've got a thesis that you've sold to your LPs, so you're staying within those parameters. You want to see companies, you want to meet companies. You're going to go to tech events and meetups and events like the Forum's event and other organizations, and you're going to get referrals. A lot of times those referrals come... You're going to build your own network as a venture investor with other investors, with attorneys, accountants, investment banks, people in the ecosystem who see a lot of companies. I always tell founders like, "Yes, you should absolutely network with venture investors, but you might get a warm intro from a lawyer or an accountant or someone like me, or your fellow tenant at an incubator, an accelerator." You never know who's going to be that connector for you. It's just really important to be out there and be open and be ready to describe your company in a short elevator pitch, that's another one, and have your deck ready to send. There are a lot of other basic blocking and tackling things that I think founders need to get good at, doing what you say you're going to do if you meet somebody and they say, "Yeah, that sounds interesting. Send me your deck," do it. It's amazing how often people don't follow through when they actually have an opportunity. It's unfortunate, but we're all human, and we all have our shortcomings. If you're a founder and you're marketing yourself, that can't be one of them. You've got to follow through and do what you say you're going to do. Yeah, that's just one of many things I see sometimes people don't do a great job of. 

Fritz Spencer: 

Well, I'd love to talk about maybe someone who did follow through. Can you share a success story of a tech company that benefited from the Forum support? 

Kevin Burgoyne: 

Oh, wow. Yeah. That's a tough one. We've had so many companies meet their investors at our conference, and I'm just so hesitant to name any specific one. I'll do one. We have a testimonial from... There was a company in Orlando called Fattmerchant, which was a terrific company. It's since been acquired, and I can't recall its new name, but the founder was a woman named Suneera Madhani. Started at our early-stage conference, met a venture investor at our conference who ended up investing in the company and leading at least one of their rounds. They've had a successful exit. I know the founding team is now on to another new thing. That's just one, there are a number of those. We've had 2,500 companies present at the Forum over the years, and there are many, many success stories like that where people make a direct connection at the conference or through one of our events. Not just to investors. They meet their lawyer or their accounting firm or their trusted advisor, and that can be equally as valuable for the long-term success of the company. 

Fritz Spencer: 

I feel like I have to do the NPR. EisnerAmper is a contributing member to the Florida Venture Forum, full disclosure. 

Kevin Burgoyne: 

I should have mentioned that. Yes. You're a great member. EisnerAmper partner Christine Gagnon is our program chair, helped us put on our conference and you guys have been great. Actually, I'll brag on EisnerAmper a little bit here, because as I mentioned at the onset, all of our members are great and make a contribution, not just to our organization by being members and helping fund the organization, but really giving their time and their energy. Christine and EisnerAmper are great examples of that. Your partners, Alan Wink and Artie Unger. I hate to start naming people, because I'll forget somebody, but really just have been so supportive of the Forum, but it's really support for the ecosystem, and it's really about making a commitment to not just taking but giving and putting it out there. Certainly, we're all capitalists and we're in business to... Well, I run a nonprofit, so maybe I shouldn't include myself in that, but it's definitely enlightened self-interest though, certainly for us all to have a thriving innovation and venture ecosystem, because it builds on itself the more... That's part of the recent success, I think, that Florida has had. Coming out of COVID, a lot of people moved to Florida during COVID, a lot of people in the venture space moved from California and New York, and the Mayor of Miami was very progressive, and a lot of great things happening in Tampa and Orlando and Jacksonville. It really has put Florida on the map in terms of maybe when I started with the Forum, it was a probably not a place that every venture fund in the country that invests nationally would cover, but now someone at, I thin, every fund that can invest in Florida through it by its thesis, is covering the state for sure. We've become a can't miss market, because so much innovation is happening here, so many companies are growing here. That's really exciting, and that builds on itself and attracts more capital and more founders, because you become a place that is a great place to live, great place to grow a company and where there's funding, both early stage funding native funding and where later stage capital is willing to come and look and deploy. All of that is happening. 

Fritz Spencer: 

Great. Thanks so much for sharing a little bit about the ecosystem of Florida and beyond, where the outside forces are also influencing the ecosystem of Florida. I couldn't agree more, especially I've attended Venture Forum events every year for the last three or four years, and all the growth is what I see, not only in the companies, in the Forum, in the people that attend, but in the success and also in the merit and quality. To leave us off, if you could really quickly... I know you touched on it a couple of times what's coming up next? What people can do to get involved? Remind us, what's coming up next for the Forum and how can people get best involved? 

Kevin Burgoyne: 

We don't have the exact date yet, we're working on it, but in early June we're targeting, we'll have our Early-Stage Capital Conference. That's a great event, especially for early startups, pre-revenue companies. It's a very accessible conference. The tickets are not expensive. We try to be very founder-friendly. We always have a founder rate that's reasonable. Look on our website, flventure.org. We will post news as soon as we have a date, and it'll probably be in the Orlando area. We do that Early-Stage Conference typically in the center of the state, so we're probably going to be in Orlando. Also, we produce and distribute a weekly... We call it a newsletter. It's really the Florida Venture Report, FL Ventures we call it. It comes out every Monday morning. It's free, sponsored by FPL 35 Mules, one of our members. Thanks to them. 

Fritz Spencer: 

Nice. 

Kevin Burgoyne: 

It's just a great compendium of venture news, major events that are going on. We do a Forum spotlight where we spotlight a different member of the organization or a startup. You could subscribe to that for free at our website, flventure.org. That's a great way to stay connected. It's for the whole ecosystem, so it's not just our events. Any major tech or venture event we try and feature in there so people can know what's going on. Florida's a big state. If you're in Fort Lauderdale, it's hard to know what's going on in Tampa, but we try and break down those walls and give people information that'll give them a good view of what's happening throughout the state. 

Fritz Spencer: 

Great. I'm a big fan of the like, share and subscribe model, so feel free to do so. We'll have Kevin's information and the Forum's information linked in the article below, so please give it a read. Please reach out to him if you have questions or reach out directly to the Forum. We'll have all that information available for you. Kevin, I want to thank you so much for having this conversation with me today. It was an absolute pleasure. 

Kevin Burgoyne: 

Thank you, Fritz. Really appreciate you and EisnerAmper and all you guys do for Florida and for the Forum and for the venture ecosystem. Really appreciate it. 

Fritz Spencer: 

Thanks so much, and a special thanks to our listeners for tuning into TechTalk, the entrepreneurs and innovators who turn to EisnerAmper for audit, tax, advisory and outsourcing solutions to help propel their business forward. Again, please subscribe to EisnerAmper's Podcast to listen to more TechTalk episodes or visit eisneramper.com for more tech news that you can use. 

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