It’s a big week for Ricardo Garcia.
Not only will he be leading a summit for veteran-owned businesses for the third straight year in Lake Nona.
But, one day later, the Veterans Entrepreneurship Initiative’s cofounder will welcome the first cohort in VEI’s SPEAR Accelerator to a Demo Day.
The journey was supported by mentors from several industries.
Garcia said he sensed some real appreciation coming not only from the veteran entrepreneurs but from the mentors, as well.
“It was unique in the sense that they were so willing to help and coach these veteran entrepreneurs,” he said. “Beyond providing insights related to health tech, it was more of, ‘Veterans served our country, now let me help serve them.’”
We caught up with Garcia for a quick chat as Demo Day approaches.
Tell me about the purpose of this kind of accelerator.
We’re trying to create a win-win-win, right? So a win for them, the opportunity to connect with potential partners, potential investors, potential customers for their emerging tech. On the other side, for investors, essentially putting them in front of a curated group of high-speed, veteran-led tech startups. And for the healthcare ecosystem, it’s about putting them in front of emerging technology that could solve real problems for their enterprises.
Why was it important to have diversity when it comes to how experienced the entrepreneurs were?
There was one guy who said that he understood that sometimes when you’d have lessons, it’s stuff you already knew. But at the same time, there’s lessons that he really learned from. So it was about having that balance of making sure everybody got something out of this. Entrepreneurs who have gone down this path before are maybe a lot more receptive to understanding what they don’t know. And then you have folks that this is their first rodeo down this path. So it could be new to them. And sometimes they have to hear it a couple of times for it to resonate.
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Talk about the interactions between the cohort.
As we’re going down this path, if veterans in the cohort didn’t feel like somebody else’s business model was going on the right path, they weren’t shy to tell them. It’s like, “Hey man, you might be going on the wrong path, so you should try X, Y, and Z instead.” Establishing trust is key to fostering the peer-to-peer learning. And so, trust is established from Day 1. I think it’s because of that common bond that we all have, which is we all served in the military. And so, you break down those barriers much faster. And so the class became a lot more dynamic, more eager to help.
Why did you have weekly roundtables?
It was an opportunity for them to share milestones achieved or pitfalls encountered since the last time we met. And that dynamic was just so powerful. There were folks that encountered some pretty serious pitfalls from cash flow challenges to dealing with large organizations as customers. There were others in the group that had been there, done that. So they were sharing insights on how to overcome it. And so, I thought that was a really powerful component of what we did.
Talk about the mentors’ interactions with the business owners. I was told it was something different and that mentors often started by thanking the veterans for their service.
That was something really unique and valuable that happened. We brought in some high-level mentors. We facilitated connections. Provide insights and mentorship, and that was something that was really powerful. I didn’t anticipate, or I didn’t expect that to be something that came out of it. So, yeah, it was really, really powerful to see, and these mentors were going above and beyond. They opened up their contact books and just facilitated introductions and helped them through this journey. It was really neat.
Who should be at these events this week?
We’d love to have a really strong audience of healthcare leaders and investors from our community. Part of the big vision here for SPEAR is to attract top veteran talent to our entrepreneurial ecosystem. We have a really unique and robust entrepreneurial ecosystem. And so I would love to bring top veteran talent like we’re doing here to come and live and work and play here. That’s part of the dynamic. And then with that, if we do that correctly, we’ll bring other pieces of the puzzle, other capital to invest in our region.