Monthly Archives: January 2021

01.25.2021

Featured Founder: Christopher McElveen of LogNovations

Welcome to our Featured Founder series, where you’ll meet startup founders from Tampa-St. Petersburg who are building and scaling their ventures to solve some of the world’s greatest challenges. We interviewed Christopher McElveen, Co-Founder of LogNovations, an IP licensing company focused on reducing data storage, data transmission, and data complexity costs for enterprises from the edge to the cloud.

What were you doing previously and what inspired you to launch your company?

I don't think there was one single a-ha moment that catalyzed me to start this company. It was very non-linear and a combination of a few different things, both experiences, relationships, and a couple thousand hours of work prior. In the summer of 2010, I began working on developing a framework for analyzing the flow of non-point source information within boundless systems to better understand how the things around us spin off potentially useful information. That work is still on going, but consumes the majority of my time outside of work. I put in around a thousand hours a year in it for the past 10 years. So, fast forward to 2015, I had recently relocated to San Francisco and was working as the CTO of a budding startup out there. An individual at one of the angel syndicates (a senior Google Fellow) took an interest in me and my skills. He was telling me about the D-Wave Quantum computers that Google had recently acquired and the massive data corruption issue they had. When the data was entangled in a quantum state, it was highly unstable meaning a ground tremor in Indonesia would corrupt the data in Menlo Park, just like when you shake an Etch-a-Sketch. I had also read a recent article from Peter Theil about how technology had stalled in the late 70s from MIT's technology review. The thought was could you reduce the size of the data, through compression, so much that it was simply a series of instructions that could fit into the cache on the D-Wave system and thus be in a processing state versus storage state? This would fix the corruption issue because quantum data is much more stable in a processing state than at rest.

What pain point is your company solving? What gets you excited to go to work every day?

LogNovations is developing fundamental technology for the future of computing that enables to have a fighting chance at holding back the on-going data growth onslaught. I've always liked attempting to solve things that others say can't be solved. Whether I solve them or not doesn't matter because the technology, process, and ideas along the way feed my curiosity.

Name the biggest challenge you faced in the process of launching the company. How did you overcome it?

Doubt. I never graduated college, so being in a space that is largely dominated by highly credentialed experts makes it tough to break in and gain respect. We haven't overcome it yet, but I truly believe in the proof in the pudding mentality. By developing useful and applicable technology that betters people's lives, we will overcome the credibility issues.

Where do you see your company headed next?

Our vision is to create the future of computing, but that starts with generating revenue, sales, and a core of enterprise advocates that can champion our technology. For profit, companies feed on cash. The more cash you have the longer you can last and the greater the chances that you can succeed.

Give us a tactical piece of advice that you'd share with another founder just starting out.

Don't give up. Life is not linear, neither are companies. Enjoy the process and you will succeed, because you can't fail if you never give up.

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01.12.2021

2020 Impact Report

 

Embarc Collective has put together its second annual Impact Report, outlining our work during the course of 2020.

Within the report, learn about:

  • Tampa Bay's growing startup community
  • What it was like to launch just before the onset of COVID-19
  • The support we offer to founders and their team

You can download our 2020 Impact Report here.

01.06.2021

Recognizing Excellence

At Embarc Collective, one of our core organizational values is "Execute with Excellence." I am lucky to have an entire team that embodies this value. This allows us to deliver on our mission with a speed and effectiveness I have not seen in any other organization I have been a part of - and I am so grateful and proud of them.

As we start out the year, I wanted to recognize two team members with promotions.

Allie Felix, Promoted to VP Platform

Allie has become our most prolific ambassador for not only Embarc Collective, but also Tampa Bay's startup community. As my first hire for Embarc Collective, she took a chance on this big vision and has been instrumental in bringing it to life. In 2020, Allie led the architecture of our member programming - weekly sessions curated based around the needs of the startups we serve, which received a rating of 3.75 out of 4.0. She also spearheaded so much of our external content, including our Early-Stage Investor Conference in February, our Southeast CEO Summit in October and our Glaring Gap Summit in November. She serves as the account manager to about 20 member startups. In addition, Allie is a Venture Partner for Republic and has become a go-to resource for member startups raising capital. Allie has developed a brand for herself nationally, and we are lucky to have her in Tampa Bay.

Kelly Kehoe, Promoted to Administrative and Operations Director

Kelly leads from behind the scenes. She was instrumental in helping the physical Embarc Collective facility come to life and developed the facility's processes and procedures so that this space can be fully leveraged to deliver on our organizational mission. When COVID-19 hit, Kelly built the plan that incorporated the CDC and medical guidance so that we can could re-open in June with safety at the focus of how we operate our space. We are a new organization, so Kelly has taken the reigns and focuses on ensuring we are adhering to administrative best practices with how we operate. Kelly's love of detail and level-headedness is such an important asset for our organization.

Please join me in congratulating Allie & Kelly!