Last year, I posed the same question for 2015 and the response was far greater than I expected, so I decided to do it again this year. After spending the last year with entrepreneurial companies all over the country, this list was hard to create. For the sake of brevity, I had to intentionally leave people out who should be celebrated here. Here is my very abbreviated list for 2016.
Jason Provonsha, Warble
Jason is a founding partner of Warble, a beacon technology start-up within the Lamppost Group of companies. Their tech allows marketers to reach audiences and engage them based on physical locations that range from several thousand feet to a single square foot. As marketers double down on the logic that where someone see your message is as important as how it’s seen, Warble is already on the leading edge of this tech.
Jason is as pragmatic as he is hard-working so he is easy to like immediately. He will describe the tick-tock he hears in his head as he focuses on generating revenue to replace the seed investment Warble received. This practicality, coupled with some very compelling usage cases, creates the sense that Warble is already started on the “I knew them when” trajectory. There are many challenges in front of them but when you spend time with Jason and his team, you feel their commitment to winning.
Adeeba Kahn and Jason Templin, Shu Shop
I had the pleasure to serve as Adeeba and Jason’s mentor during their recent entry in Rev Birmingham’s Big Pitch Competition. Their collaboration will create Birmingham’s first ramen shop and izakaya (Japanese-style pub) in the downtown theater district. Renovating a space that has been empty for more than 30 years and creating a concept that fosters regular patrons driving a sense of community in a once derelict part of town, the anticipation surrounding the opening of Shu Shop is incredible.
Adeeba does not currently possess a filter between her brain and her mouth in the most entertaining and endearing manner possible. Jason is chasing a dream and the passion he has for the food, the izakaya concept and creating a neighborhood space near the Alabama Theater comes across immediately. The difficulty of succeeding in the restaurant business is well-documented but they are tapping into an unmet need and creating a market in Birmingham. Their brilliance might be in the simplicity and sincerity of what Shu Shop will become.
Sam Eskildsen, Main Street Family Urgent Care
As private health care in the US becomes exceedingly challenging for providers and patients alike, there is a growing need for urgent care facilities. The concept of these purpose-built facilities is nothing new in urban and suburban areas but Sam is building a chain of Urgent Care facilities in rural markets. These areas have been underserved for decades and as rural private medical practices fold under the difficulty created by the Medicare/Medicaid and Affordable Health Care Acts, patients no longer have access to quality health care in these areas.
Make no mistake, Sam is a capitalist. The model he has created will generate some healthy returns and allow them to grow from the facilities they currently have into additional markets. Sam opted to go out and solicit his investors one by one without brokers or other institutional funders. He raised a significant amount of capital in 18 months based on the strength of the model. His tireless work ethic led to Main Street opening its first fully functional location within 2 years of creating his business plan draft. Public and private health care will continue to create a myriad of hurdles to overcome for Sam and his team but if there is anyone capable of pulling it off, its Sam.
Paul Hottle, Nature’s Art Studio
This mention has been in the making for at least 20 years. My father, who spent the better part of his professional career as an entrepreneur and organizational development professional, recently followed his heart and did something truly for himself. Dad started Nature’s Art Studio to combine his love for the natural world and carpentry. Taking discarded materials from sawmills and material suppliers and repurposing them into pieces that range from functional to why not, he creates things as he imagines them- without commercial concern for their ability to generate revenue. This near-blatant disregard of the economic viability of each piece is probably why most of them sell within hours of posting them to his own website or Etsy.
After years of supporting our family as an OD consultant and spending more time in hotels rooms and rental cars than in his own home, Dad finally gets to spend some time doing what he wants to do. He taught me and my brother that luck and fortune are a byproduct of hard work. Thinking of him finally enjoying the fruits of his labor drives me to succeed as an entrepreneur, dad and husband. This is my feeble attempt to recognize what he gave me over the years by saying that I’m rooting for him in 2016. The truth is, I’ve always rooted for him.
This is certainly a partial list and I’m not excited about having to exclude others- but now it’s your turn. Will you take the time to think about who you are rooting for in 2016? Will you tell them you are rooting for them?
Few things are more powerful than knowing someone is pulling for you simply because they appreciate who you are and what you are trying to accomplish. So, who are you rooting for in 2016?