Dawn Haynes still gets a rush from helping entrepreneurs pursue their passions.
Across a career that spans more than four decades, the Starter Studio CEO said hearing people get excited about their ideas feeds her energy.
“The ability to take my experience and expertise to help the next generation of innovators and entrepreneurs is a privilege; I love it,” she said. “You are dealing with individuals and their passions, their vision. That fills you with energy and positivity.”
Haynes, who has been CEO since 2022, watched the latest group of entrepreneurs who finished Starter Studio’s pre-seed stage accelerator in a demo day last week.
It was a group that Haynes called “exceptional.”
The companies in the cohort include businesses in hardware security, a farm-to-table marketplace application, an offshore wind industry tech company and a biosciences firm.
As Orlando’s tech community continues its post-pandemic resurgence, programs that were once staples will be bellwethers to the ecosystem’s collective re-emergence.
Even as she focuses on the young companies that navigate one of three programs at Starter Studio, Haynes has her eye on the city’s overall entrepreneurial ecosystem.
She said several pieces in the community have started to come together, creating a more robust support program for young entrepreneurs.
“No one organization can give an entrepreneur everything they need,” she said. “The strength of any tech hub is how well the different stakeholders work together around a singular purpose. The vision is to support as many entrepreneurs as possible.”
At the Demo Day, the collective quality of pitches across each startup appeared to be higher than in the past.
Each presentation provided an important problem to solve and each entrepreneur handled judges’ questions smoothly.
Haynes said that is an indicator of a wider awareness of Starter Studio’s benefits among a variety of industries.
“They see and understand the value of the learning opportunity that they have for their entire business,” she said. “What we offer is very complementary to any of the accelerator programs that are very specifically focused on their industry and technology.”
In Orlando, collaboration across sectors, agencies, support services and other entities in tech will be key to the ecosystem’s success and, thus, the number of successful companies that emerge, Haynes said.
“People realize now that the success of Orlando will come about by adopting an ‘and’ attitude versus an ‘or’ philosophy around helping entrepreneurs,” she said. “We are not competitors but collaborators. We are getting better at that and that enables us to support higher quality startups on their journey to success.”
