Every big company was once a startup.
As Buffalo celebrates the rapid growth of startups such as ACV Auctions, Centivo and Circuit Clinical, it still needs entrepreneurs who are willing to take a risk on their own growth story.
Buffalo Inno gathered three early-stage founders in Buffalo on Oct. 7 at the University at Buffalo’s Incubator @ CBLS, a new facility on the Buffalo Niagara Medical Campus geared toward startups across the community.
“State of Innovation: Starting from Scratch” explored the stories of Chris Miano, the co-founder and CEO of MemoryFox; Sonya Tareke, co-founder of Team Real Talk; and Ryan Young, the co-founder and CEO of Opollo Technologies.
They told the crowd that they pursued entrepreneurship instead of other, more stable pathways, precisely because it offers them a chance to build something tangible.
Young earned both a master’s in business and a medical degree from UB, but he and his Opollo co-founders believe they’re working on a solution that can revolutionize surgery.
And Young gets a three-dimensional intro into how business works.
“Today I was a CEO, tomorrow I’ll be a senior staff engineer, and this weekend I’ll probably do a little bit of marketing,” he said. “When you enjoy what you do then you won’t work a day in your life, and I truly believe that.”
Adding some perspective to the panel was Christina Orsi, UB’s associate vice president for economic development.
Orsi oversees a large-scale initiative at UB to get more involved in the local startup community, including the $7 million, 42,000-square-foot incubator project and a $10 million fund for equity investments in local tech companies. Those resources are mixing with programs such as UB’s Cultivator accelerator program.
“We’re at the top of the funnel and we’re trying to catalyze and support these early ventures,” Orsi said.
Each of the panelists is a UB graduate who has taken advantage of the university’s startup services. Opollo won the Panasci entrepreneurship competition last year, and MemoryFox secured a $100,000 investment.
Tareke entered the UB School of Management’s MBA program thinking it would give her options as she explored a corporate career. But she was working at UB’s BlackStone Launchpad program when its director, Hadar Borden, suggested she turn her academic project into a business.
Team Real Talk is an online social learning platform that promotes diversity, equity and inclusion in higher education.
Not everyone in her circle understands tech entrepreneurship, Tareke said, but it’s a way of life that lets her build something with her own hands, in a manner of speaking.
“I’ve never been told ‘no’ so many times in consecutive order,” Tareke said of the early days at Team Real Talk. “But it really grows you. It develops you as a human being. And whether your business succeeds or fails, you’re going to succeed at something eventually down the line.”
Following his graduation from UB, Miano had to work another job for two years before MemoryFox made enough revenue to become his full-time gig.
MemoryFox is a web-based platform that helps nonprofits collect and tell stories about the people they serve.
MemoryFox raised a seed round earlier this year and is seeing tremendous sales traction, Miano said. MemoryFox is a passion that Miano never turns off.
“There were a lot of late nights, he said. “You let it take over you and every free moment you're thinking about it. You’re always working on the business.”
