“There is still much about the early days of working various jobs in the tech industry in the late ’80s that I’ll never forget. That nervous excitement of heading to the BIG CITY of Atlanta, Georgia to take on my first position in marketing and sales. The company was a startup, primarily made up of seasoned IBMers that had ventured out on their own. These people spoke a different language. What started out as “My big move to conquer the tech world” instantly turned into a wakeup call to the deep complexities of the technological advancements of companies like IBM, Digital Equipment Corp, and Amdahl.

In 1999 after my own stint working for IBM, I started out on my own, with a mission to bring practical network solutions to small businesses in Tampa Bay. But before I got started, I must have “thought about starting a company” a thousand times, over a period of ten years. Questions like: “How would I do this exactly? Where would our funding come from? How would we pay the salaries of the initial employees? Would we ever be able to offer advanced Cyber Security Solutions, and always-on application hosting like we do today?”

Wouldn’t it have been great if there was an organization like the Tampa Bay Wave? What if I had a place to establish my operations in an incubator-style environment? How nice it would have been to have “neighbors” to bounce ideas off of.  What we really needed were other hard-charging tech firms walking the hallways, sharing leads, trends, and contacts that would have propelled our company in those early days. The Wave has established this environment in such an amazing way. The startup companies in their cohort are well chosen, future rock stars, they just don’t know it yet!  We are HUGE fans of the Wave, and enjoy watching them come alongside young entrepreneurs who are smiling on the outside, but freaking out on the inside. Mentor, mentor, mentor. We all should aspire to the collaborative environment that the Wave inspires through the very uniquely selected cohort of organizations that reside at the Wave. Did I say we’re BIG fans of the Wave?  Thanks for all you do Linda, Avril, Richard and team! Keep up the great work”

Written By: Sam Sandusky President & CEO, Big Sur Technologies, Inc.