Shari Dingle Costantini saw firsthand the limitations of the Entrepreneurs Alliance of Orlando’s original vision.
The nonprofit launched in early 2020 with a team of advisers and a list of members composed of successful entrepreneurs and CEOs from across Central Florida.
The purpose of the Entrepreneurs Alliance of Orlando was to recognize the up-and-coming generation of local businesses that could attract investment dollars and scale rapidly, and use fellowships to mentor companies and stimulate their growth.
One of the fellowships was for Orlando-based industrial measurement Red Meters LLC, which in 2021 named alliance member Dingle Costantini its CEO. Dingle Costantini, who founded and scaled Avant Healthcare Professionals LLC until it was bought by Alpharetta, Georgia-based Jackson Healthcare in 2018, brought with her the knowledge of how to quickly grow a company.
However, she and the Red Meters team were on different pages, Dingle Costantini told Orlando Inno. “I went in there and then ended up leaving, because I just didn't feel that they would make the right decisions to scale the business, which is absolutely their personal decision. It kind of dawned on me and others within the alliance, there might be a better way.”
Now, Dingle Costantini will lead the alliance’s embrace of that “better way” as its new executive chair. In late 2022, she replaced Richard Milam, who now serves on the alliance’s advisory board as executive chair emeritus.
“The better way may be, instead of wrapping all these resources around the fellowship, being able to expand our reach within the ecosystem to be able to provide more support to more companies — but in smaller pieces," Dingle Costantini said.
In addition to Dingle Costantini, the alliance in February added PGFL Consulting LLC President Paige Greninger as executive director.
Building companies is not new to Dingle Costantini, who founded Casselberry-based health care staffing firm Avant in 2003 and scaled it to $160 million in revenue before she retired from the company in 2021. In addition to her stint at Red Meters, Dingle Costantini has been co-founder and president of Orlando-based disinfection startup Kismet Technologies LLC since last summer.
Here’s more from Dingle Costantini about how the alliance plans to help early-stage companies grow in Central Florida and plant the seeds to diversify the region’s economy:
What is the “better way” the Entrepreneurs Alliance of Orlando will help local businesses this year? I'll give you an example. I connected with this woman, she has a second-stage business called Curis Decontamination in Oviedo. Ten years in, she has bootstrapped it and built this business to between $10 million and $20 million. She said, “This is my first business. I'm trying to figure out what's next.” Through the alliance, we've connected her with CEO Nexus, connected her with Simetri President and CEO Angela Alban and we connected her with an investment banker who could say, “Here are your options if you want to exit, but looking at the industry and where you could get the maximum value, grow it to this level.” These are the things that, when you're an entrepreneur, it's pretty lonely, and you don't have all the answers.
When you talk about the Entrepreneurs Alliance of Orlando expanding its reach, does that mean help more companies or find higher quality companies to help? With some of the early-stage companies that we are reaching out to, it's a matter of helping them with some important resources, and then seeing what they do with those resources. Because some people aren't going to take every opportunity. The ones that are going to have that high ROI, they're going to make it to a certain level. Then you feed them a little more; then we make it to this level. Sometimes it takes a little while with startups to say, “Is this really somebody that's going to be investment grade?”
What traits do you look for in an entrepreneur? What I saw in Kismet founder and CEO Christina Drake was this resilience and this persistence. If I had to say what were the two most important things about being an entrepreneur for me, it was those two things. I had to be persistent. When it didn't go the way I wanted it or hoped it would go, I had to be resilient.
You’re a prominent member of the region’s entrepreneurial ecosystem. How have you seen the ecosystem change in the last decade? Where I've seen that ecosystem come from is there is less fragmentation. We're not perfect yet, but there's less fragmentation. Raising our profile, hopefully, will allow more connections and referrals within the ecosystem.
What is the 2023 outlook for entrepreneurs? I think it's going to continue to be challenging. If you follow PitchBook, we're seeing impacts in valuations, especially for companies that are stage two and beyond. Based on the Florida Venture Forum and some of the conversation there, I think you're going to see some valuation impact for companies in the early stages of funding. I don't know how much that is. There's been a lot of great activity in local investing. The challenge is: Will some of those higher-net-worth people pull back? If they start pulling back, that's what impacts the startup world.
Contact
To learn more about the Entrepreneurs Alliance of Orlando, check out the website or email Executive Director Paige Greninger at paige@entrepreneursallianceorlando.com.
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