Podcast - Inside Florida's Angel Ecosystem: How Syndicates Strengthen Startup Communities

Patrick Driscoll: Welcome everyone, and thanks for tuning in to "The Innovation Imperative." My name is Patrick Driscoll, and I'm the Director of Emerging Companies and Venture Capital at Holland & Knight, where we work closely with founders, angel investors, VCs and other investors navigating the tumultuous, formative stages of company building. A core part of our work sits at the intersection of law, capital and strategy, helping innovators and investors make smart decisions at moments where early choices have outsized long-term impact. "The Innovation Imperative" is about that journey. Each episode, we sit down with founders, investors and operators who are shaping the innovation economy, often behind the scenes, to unpack the real lessons, inflection points and frameworks that don't always make it into pitch decks or press releases.

Pretty excited about today's conversation, which will focus on early-stage angel investing, organized syndicates and the role they play in strengthening startup ecosystems, particularly in Florida. We'll explore how angel capital supports founders at inception, why Florida has emerged as a compelling early-stage market and why syndicates actually operate and how they operate in practice. Joining me first is my colleague, Ed Sarnowski, a partner at Holland & Knight in our Jacksonville office. He'll lead today's discussion. Ed works closely with founders, angel groups and early-stage companies across Florida and other parts of the U.S. and brings deep experience advising companies and investors at the earliest stages of growth. And we're mostly thrilled to be joined by our guest, Timothy Cartwright. Timothy is the chair of Tamiami Angel Funds and a partner at Fifth Avenue Family Office. He's been a founder, operator and investor and brings thoughtful perspective on how organized angel groups can support founders beyond capital through governance, credibility and long-term ecosystem building. So with that, Ed, I'll turn it over to you and let's get it started.

Edward Sarnowski: Thanks, Patrick. Very much appreciate the intros and you setting the stage for us. Tim, thank you again for your willingness to join us for this episode. Thrilled to have you on. So I'd like to start with some background on you and your journey to where you're at today with the Tamiami Angel Funds, now in its fifth fund, and Fifth Avenue Family Office. So to get us started, can you kind of walk us through your background as a founder yourself? And your experience with early-stage investing, how those experiences have shaped your approach to investing in general at early-stage companies over the years and through the five funds that you have run.

Timothy Cartwright: Sure. That's quite a list of things I need to check off here, but first, let me say thanks, Eddie, and thanks, Patrick, for the opportunity to sit down with you and talk about early-stage investing. I think that entrepreneurship is one of the things that the United States does best. We're still number one in it, and I hope we continue to dominate the world when it comes to entrepreneurship, and the free flow of capital is critical to that. And I think angel investors investing in the earliest stages of companies are a critical component to that whole entrepreneurial life cycle.

So yeah, from the background perspective, I'll start in Chicago. Actually, I can start at Madison, Wisconsin. I went to undergrad at the University of Wisconsin, was recruited through on-campus recruiting to go to Arthur Anderson in Chicago. Most people don't know what Arthur Anderson was, because they're really no longer around, but it was a top CPA, or a certified public accounting firm, and also a consulting firm. But I spent two years with them in Chicago and left to start my own supply chain consulting company. And we implemented ERP packages for manufacturing and distribution companies in the middle market. ERP stands for enterprise resource planning. So it's software that covers all aspects of a manufacturer. It covers the financial aspects, the manufacturing, the financials, orders, customer orders, quoting, all those aspects of a manufacturer's business. And that was my first endeavor as an entrepreneur off on my own. I decided to grow that company cashflow from operations. I didn't take any outside capital. It was a services business, so I didn't have a time-to-market need that would require capital, and I didn't have a product that needed to build up, you know, build a bench model or build up inventory before I went out into the market and sold the product. So, it was a good time to start an ERP or supply chain consulting business because it was Y2K. Remember what that is, Eddie?

Edward Sarnowski: Oh yeah, I remember Y2K.

Timothy Cartwright: That's the old two-digit year in computer programming. So on 12/31/99, the whole world was going to come to an end, and we were going to be back at 01/01/1900. And so all of these manufacturing companies that had legacy systems or manual systems or other software packages that hadn't moved to a four-year digit – they had to have a solution. So there was a lot of change in the market. They were looking for state-of-the-art ERP packages, and we implemented them. I worked with a couple of different software packages, one called MFG Pro by QAD, we also implemented Bonx, and then PeopleSoft. And the company grew, in 1999 I sold the company, a year before Y2K. Probably a good idea, kind of selling at the peak. And I took my proceeds from the sale of that business and started a ".com" with a college roommate of mine.

We focused on building an internet exchange for food and agricultural byproducts – so a two-sided marketplace. And we focused on the byproducts marketplace because they were byproducts, they weren't primary products in the agricultural space, so they were not traded at the Chicago Board of Trade or the Chicago Mercantile Exchange and open outcry exchanges. They were just products that were traded out the back door of food processing plants or different things like that. And we decided to create an internet exchange. We raised angel capital, we did a seed round and a Series A round, we also got some corporate venture capital from a couple different groups in Chicago. We hired a management team, built the online exchange and purchased two businesses. A brokerage company, which was the leading tallow brokerage company, and tallow is beef fat that's a byproduct when you take the cow, when you get steaks and beef ribs, those are the primary products, the byproducts are the cow fat or what's called tallow, and also the hide, the leather, those would be by-products. And we bought the largest broker of beef fat or tallow, and then we also bought a publishing company, which was a price reporting agency that had started in 1865 in downtown Chicago.

So it was started by a gentleman named R.C. Jacobson. The company was called the Jacobson Publishing Company. And what R.C. would do is he would ride his horse down to the stockyards in south Chicago and he would write down how many head of cattle were slaughtered. And then he'd race back to his office, type it up, and he would send out his report of how many head of cattle were slaughtered, what the price of leather was, what the price of beef was, what the price of fat was, and he would send it out via Pony Express. Fast forward to the year 2000 when we bought it, we were converting them from fax delivery to internet delivery of the same publishing report that was delivered way back by Pony Express. So we moved across the technology gaps there and were bringing it into the latest technology. We went up with the internet boom, and we went down with the burst of the internet bubble. And we saved the company, we divested from the brokerage company, we kept the publishing company alive. And my business partner who had domain, or industry expertise, decided that he should stay with the business, he could not afford two executives to run the company. I left and looked for greener pastures and actually sandy beaches and blue water. We moved to Florida, but he ran the company and did it very well.

We had a good thing happen to that company as time went on. The country started to get interested in alternative fuels, and so biodiesel became a very important alternative fuel and our price reporting in the Jacobson Publishing Company that we were delivering to the market was the source for pricing for all the feedstocks that went into biodiesel. So we had pricing data going back to 1966 in Excel spreadsheets and we can supply data to a lot of the investment banking world and a lot of the capital providers that were investing in biodiesel plants. So that really helped that business to the point where we sold By-Products Interactive or the Jacobson Publishing Company in the year 2000 to Euromoney Institutional Investors, which owned Fast Markets, and Fast Market is an agriculture reporting and publishing company. So, it was, I guess, a 20-year overnight success. From an exit perspective, we paid back all of our seed investors, all of our Series A investors, and everybody who stuck with us made a nice return on it. So that kind of completes the story of By-Products Interactive.

When I moved down to Florida, we moved to Naples, and I had picked up my MBA while I was doing my entrepreneurial endeavors at By-Products Interactive from Kellogg (School of Management) at Northwestern in Chicago, and I just got addicted to high finance. I love raising money, I love buying companies, I, even going through the divestiture, learned a ton, and so I came down to Naples without a job and decided that I wanted to get into M&A. I wanted to help families sell their family businesses. And so I became a sell-side M&A advisor for my own firm, Compass Advisory Group. And I grew that company selling a number of businesses. And when you work with a family and sell their family business, you become very intimate with that family. A lot of trust is built along the way. I would work with them, we'd go through the M&A process, we'd create a liquidity event and after that liquidity event they would ask me, "Hey, Tim, we've trusted you to sell our baby, our family business, we want to trust you to invest this liquidity that you've just helped us create." And I said, "That's probably the worst decision you can make." I am not a stock guy. I'm not a financial planner. I'm an M&A guy, I'm already trying to find the next deal I'm going to do. I bumped into my current business partner at Fifth Avenue Family Office here in Naples. Got a referral to him, and I found that he was a similar type of businessperson, practiced very similar ethics, had strong core values, and he was financial planner and did manage investments. So, we ended up putting my M&A consultancy together with his financial planning business and we created Fifth Avenue Family Office.

As I was growing my career and my professional reputation here in Naples, I learned about an organization called the Gulf Coast Venture Forum, which was a 501(c)(6) non-for-profit. And I figured it was where all the investment bankers and all the startups and entrepreneurs and angel investors and VCs hung out, so I went to the meeting in Naples and I met the leadership and I told them about my background, the background that I just described to you, and they said, you need to be a part of the organization, we'd like to offer you the role of membership director. So new to town – I didn't know anybody – I figured that might be a good way for me to meet people. Fast forward nine months later, I got a number of battlefield promotions and I was chair of the Gulf Coast Venture Forum. At that time, they were doing garage.com boot camps. They had a small little angel investor club that would judge pitch competitions. But the problem was the Gulf Coast Venture Forum did not have a business model, didn't have a revenue model, had no staff and relied upon all volunteers. And so as chairman, I said, if I'm going to take this over, I really want to put a business model to this organization so that it can be sustainable. And I worked with the board and they said, what's your idea? I said, let's create an angel investment network. There is a business model called an angel investment network, we'll create membership requirements. To be a member of the Gulf Coast Venture Forum, this non-for-profit, you had to be an accredited investor. We were going to charge membership fees, so we fixed the revenue model. We then started to solicit deal flow. And then once we got sufficient deal flow that we felt was good quality, we'd pick the top three companies each month to present to the members that were paying membership dues. We would let them present in front of the members, and if anybody wanted to do a deal, they just did a deal.

That was the end of the Gulf Coast Venture Forum, we were just the forum to allow capitalism to kind of spontaneously break out between the entrepreneur and the angel investors. In 2007, I had grown the Gulf Coast Venture Forum to two chapters, one in Naples, one in Sarasota. We had about 125 members across both chapters. And I knew a number of the regional economic development councils and offices in the six counties in southwest Florida. And they came to me and said, Tim, there's this economic development act that the Florida legislature just passed, which includes the creation of the Florida Opportunity Fund. That's going to be a fund that will be a fund of funds. So it's a fund that would invest in venture funds or angel funds that promise to invest in high-tech, high-potential Florida-based startups. And they said, why don't you create a fund out of this Gulf Coast Venture Forum. And I said, that's a great idea, sounds like a lot of work [because] I'm doing this all for volunteer. I think I'd like to assess the probability of success of raising an angel fund because I've never really heard about a successful angel fund in the state of Florida.

So we did a 12-month study. We assessed the probability of success using a scorecard from the Ewing Kaufman Foundation out of Kansas City, which is a foundation for entrepreneurship. They had a scorecard for picking the right angel organization for your region. They gave us six metrics to measure for success, and out of the six, southwest Florida had one. We failed on five and we only had one. That's when I knew it was a good idea, Eddie. So we moved forward because that one metric was potential angel community. And as everybody knows in Florida, particularly if you live in southwest Florida, there is quite a few affluent, highly successful people that have moved here, either full-time or part-time, and we have the data to back it up. We studied 1099 income for our region, the number of boat registrations in our regions, the number airplane registrations, charitable giving, FDIC deposits, so we had data that backed this up. And so we knew we had the audience. And I figured with that audience, we could create some demand to aggregate that private capital and start investing in startups. So we created Tamiami Angel Fund One in 2010. And I'll stop there because there's more to the story, but I've been talking quite a bit.

Edward Sarnowski: No, that's great, Tim. The background's awesome, and I love it because it illustrates your street cred as a founder yourself and the companies that you've launched, then your evolution into M&A and now running Fifth Avenue Family Office and then Tamiami. But I want to drill down into the Tamiami Angel Funds. And so you're on your fifth fund, you've been investing for years in Florida and certainly beyond Florida, too. So I'd love for you to share more about, you know, you kind of hit the history that got you there, but talk maybe about the history of the Tamiami Angel Funds themselves. So the five funds, how those funds have evolved, what role you view them as having played in the Florida early-stage ecosystem, and maybe how the members interact and the value that they provide to the founders. Because I know from talking to you, your membership base is part of the value add here and the folks who have invested in the fund and their own experiences and talents. So whatever you can share about that, I think it'd be great for folks to hear more about the funds.

Timothy Cartwright: Awesome. And once again, Eddie, you've hit me with a multi-part question with five different options for me to –

Edward Sarnowski: I'm giving you a lot to work with Tim.

Timothy Cartwright: So I'll try and cover all of those things. I'll start first by mentioning that our tagline at the Tamiami Angel Fund is "intellectual and growth capital." And that's because it's not just money. There is intellectual capital that comes from our members because they are highly successful C level or entrepreneurs themselves that have had distinguished careers. And they're really looking to go from success to significance. And they found that angel investing is a way that they can continue to be active without having the responsibility of that day-to-day operational role they had when they were in their career. So we started Tamiami One in 2010, as I said. Very, very small fund, $2 million in the first fund, 40 investors, actually 39, because I had to eat my own dog food, I was investor number one. So we each had to pony up $50,000, and that's what gave us our $2 million fund. It was a tough time to raise an angel fund. It started in 2010, but I was fundraising in '08, '09, during the Great Recession. So I had 600 conversations to find the 39 investors that would invest in the first-ever angel fund in southwest Florida. And now in 2026, we're the only angel fund in the state of Florida. And I think the largest angel fund in the southeast United States. So we've come quite far. Fund Two started in 2014. That was a $4.4 million committed capital fund with 48 members. Fund Three in 2016 was a $5.7 million committed capital fund and that was 43 members. Fund Four was $7.7 million of committed capital in 2020 with 58 members. And then I think I mentioned Fund Five, maybe you did Eddie, Fund Five is an $11.1 million committed capital fund with 76 members. So we've grown in size and grown in memberships, but we are truly a member-managed angel fund.

So it's probably important for me to call out the difference between a venture fund and an angel fund. Your typical venture fund is GP/LP structure, right? GP stands for general partner, LP stands for limited partner. The limited partners supply the investment capital for the fund based upon the investment thesis that the general partners put forth. The general partners say, hey, we've got all this great experience, we know this super specific industry sector that we're really connected with, we're going to find the best and brightest med-tech entrepreneurs and we're going to make a lot of money. And they say that pitch to the limited partners, the limited partners believe them and they give them their capital. To further incentivize the general partners to make the right decisions and the best decisions, the limited partners agree to a 2-by-20 model: 2 percent management fee, 20 percent carried interest. So the fund charges a 2 percent management fee on an annual basis, and then the limited partners agree to share 20 percent of the profit from the fund. So that's how a GP/LP venture fund works. That's the economics behind that fund.

An angel fund is member-managed. There's no GP, there's really no LP. Or another way to say it: The LPs are the GPs and the GPs are the LPs, or we just call them members. And we operate off of an investment governance model through democratic voting. So we have various committees that we organize the members into, and you helped me set this operating agreement up, so if I get anything wrong, please step in and correct me, Eddie. But the members can form any number of committees. They've agreed to form at least one committee, which is the executive committee, our highest-level committee that's responsible for overseeing the day-to-day operations of the fund – so remember that.

We have other committees like a syndication committee, a screening committee, a finance committee, a due diligence committee and an exit strategy committee. I'll just touch on a couple of them. The syndication committee goes out and does deal sourcing. And that is a critical component of running a fund, whether it's a venture fund or an angel fund, because if you don't have deal flow, there's no need for you to have a fund. The lifeblood of a fund is your deal flow. So they go out and source deals from service providers, universities, other angel groups, VCs, syndication networks, etc. We bring that deal flow in, our screening committee will narrow that down through a process of interviewing CEOs and having them go through some dress rehearsals and presentations, and we'll pick the top three companies, again, each month, and will allow them to present at our monthly member meeting. At the meeting, the companies get 15 minutes to present, 15 minutes of Q and A, we do that three times, we ask the entrepreneurs to leave the room, we have member feedback, and then I call for a vote. I ask the members, on company number one, do you want to go to due diligence, yes or no? It takes a two-thirds super majority of members to vote yes to take the company from presentation status to due diligence status. If it's less than two-thirds, we tell the entrepreneur no.

Now, normally, that's tough to hear as an entrepreneur, but what the entrepreneurs really love, Eddie, is that we're a quick no. We're not a long, drawn-out maybe. They do appreciate the fact that we are getting back with them and saying no so they can move on. The smart entrepreneurs say, I understand you said no, but why? And we will share the reasons why we said no. And I think that's an important point for entrepreneurs to hear. Get answers to why people say no because it's a data point. And you're out in the marketplace of ideas and you are searching for capital and that capital is free flowing to any idea out there.

Let's talk about what happens when we say yes. Two-thirds of the members say yes, we go to due diligence. Our due diligence committee will create a due diligence team of five to seven members. We'll staff that from a few of our members on the due diligence committee and then have some at-large members join the due diligence committee. They go through a due diligence process and complete an investment memorandum, and they vote on whether to recommend that the fund invests. That due diligence team must be unanimous. So we must have five or seven, depending upon the size of the due diligence team, must be unanimous in their recommendation for the fund to invest. There's one last stop, and it's that executive committee that I talked about earlier. The investment recommendation goes up to the executive committee. The executive committee reviews it, asks questions and then they take a vote. It must pass by a four-fifths super majority there in order to trigger an investment. Then we invest from the fund, go out to the members and ask if they've got any additional add-on interest – some people will call that sidecar or co-investment interest, we call it add-on investment. And then we'll put the fund's investment together with the members' add-on investment and we'll invest as one entity on the cap table in that startup company.

So I think I covered a lot of ground. I talked about all the funds, what our investment governance model is and the difference between an angel fund and a venture fund. What'd I leave out?

Edward Sarnowski: No, that's perfect. I mean, you covered the ground that I hoped you would, knowing the uniqueness about your fund structure and the involvement of the members. So I mean, that's great, and I think it gives listeners a good window into the differences between a traditional LG/GP structure, a traditional venture fund and what you have been operating. I want to pivot over to the Florida market. And I know you have extensive experience in the Florida market, I know the various Tamiami funds have done a ton of deals in Florida, certainly beyond two, but definitely heavily in Florida. And I myself have attended the Florida Venture Forum events for well over a decade. And I know the metrics and kind of the growth and the investment community within the state over the years, but from your own perspective, can you share kind of why you think Florida has been and continues to be a compelling and attractive investment market, a great market as a founder to grow a company in and a great market for investors to look for deals in. I'd love to hear your take on that from over the years and kind of what your future outlook is as well.

Timothy Cartwright: Sure, sure. So you can imagine back in 2010, there was not a lot of venture activity in the state of Florida. There was even less angel activity. I think at the time there was Springboard Capital up in Jacksonville, Florida, and New World Angels over in Boca Raton. Besides that, there was not a lot of angel activity. We've grown quite a bit in the state of Florida and become very, very sophisticated. So we've always had the wealth, it just actually needed credible people to come together in the various cities to organize the angel groups and angel networks, as well as sophisticated people to start launching venture capital funds, like Deep Work Capital up in Orlando. So, we've really come a long way. We've always had the capital, but now it's better organized. So that checks that box, because access to capital is something every entrepreneur, every economic development official that talks about what it takes for an innovation economy – that's usually ingredient number one for an innovation economy. What's our access to capital? And I think we've checked that box.

So if you're a non-corporate investor, a founder or just an angel investor, you can shelter your capital gains if you meet certain holding periods, and that's a federal law, Section 1202 of the IRS code. The state of New York says, we're going to undo that federal code and not allow that in New York, and it's being proposed right now. I'll tell you, we have none of those types of threats in the state of Florida. We're founder-friendly Florida, is what we are. And there's a lot of other reasons why you would want to, as a founder, come to the state of Florida. We have, obviously, advantageous state income taxes, right? State income tax rate is what, Eddie, in Florida?

Edward Sarnowski: It's zero.

Timothy Cartwright: Zero, yeah, zero. Let that sink in if you're from another state that has income tax. We also have homestead. Your primary residence, if you are a Florida resident, can be exempted from creditors so that you don't lose your house. We have a balanced budget amendment in the state of Florida in our constitution so that the state will never borrow money. So you're going to develop or start your company in a state that won't be bankrupt. That's a big advantage. We've got also home rule principles so that edicts like the one that came out of New York state legislature don't come down and pass those things statewide. There's a respect of home rules so that decisions that affect local municipalities and local citizens are done at the source and done locally. And then finally, we just have such a diversity of talent. Our university system has some of the largest enrollments in the country and there's highly technical schools inside those universities. So from a founder perspective, I couldn't think of a better state. Did I mention the weather, Eddie? Oh, yeah, it's sunny almost every single day, you probably can get to a beach within about a half-hour drive. If you're in the middle of the state, it's probably a two-hour drive, but if you're in the middle of the state, you get to choose if you want the Atlantic Ocean or the Gulf of America. It's just really what I call a high quality of place. You know, some people call it quality of life. I think quality of life is your personal decision, and I think what's really important about having a high quality of life is to live in a place that is high-quality. So a high-quality place is an ingredient for a high quality of life. And I think it's just exactly what entrepreneurs are looking for, this kind of entrepreneurially friendly government. Florida has access to the world because it's very cosmopolitan here, but also a LatAm influence in Miami, great talent and access to capital. So I really think it checks all the boxes for the startup ecosystem.

Edward Sarnowski: Yeah, I agree. I mean, I've been here for a long time and couldn't agree more. I think you make a great case for launching a company and growing a company in Florida. We got time for maybe one more question, Tim. I'd love to hear from you maybe some tales from the front line in terms of how folks outside of Tamiami Angel Funds and Fifth Avenue Family Office have helped you on your journey. Whether they're accounting or legal service providers, how in your experience have those types of service providers helped give you an edge or helped you along this journey as you've grown five funds? What advice can you give to either other folks running funds or maybe even companies taking into account your prior experiences as a founder yourself, what advice could you share in that regard, or stories would you like to share?

Timothy Cartwright: Yeah, you know, I guess when it comes to the legal front, I'm a huge fan of Holland & Knight. I think that one of the most expensive mistakes that you can make is to hire somebody that doesn't know what they're doing. And so when it comes to law firms, and [when] I started Tamiami, I wanted to go with a very reputable law firm and I wasn't afraid of fees. I just knew that I wanted to work with people that could give me an advantage. I didn't want to go down the street and just grab any attorney. I shopped around, talked to a bunch of different angel groups, asked them who they're using, and Springboard Capital, out of Jacksonville, Florida, said they used Holland & Knight. And I met your former partner, James Main, and he was exactly what I was looking for. And it's really a secret weapon now that we consider at the Tamiami Angel Fund that we can go toe-to-toe with any startup, even a Silicon Valley startup that has the top VCs in it. And we can have Holland & Knight step in and review our documents, and we're going to be represented and defended, as little old Tamiami Angel Fund in Naples, Florida, as an investor on that cap table. So it's incredibly helpful. I mean, if anybody is looking to start a fund or start a company, that's the one area where I wouldn't try and short sheet. I would get the best representation you can. We did the same thing on the accounting side. We use Plante Moran to do the fund financials. Now, because we're small, Eddie, we don't do an audit. We do a review of our financials, but it's critically important to get your K-1s out on time. And one of the advantages of investing in the Tamiami Angel Fund is you get one K-1 for all of your startup investing. If you were an individual angel and you went out and started investing in five different companies, you'd have to chase each one of those five companies for their K-1. When you join the angel fund – and we have those five or 20 companies in our portfolio – you get one K-1 from us. So a lot of advantages to using professional service providers that are sophisticated and knowledgeable.

Edward Sarnowski: Great, Tim. Very much appreciate all that. And thanks as well for the kind words about our firm. We've certainly enjoyed working with you over the years.

Timothy Cartwright: I remember, Eddie, one deal that we did. There was a VC that had made an investment in a company. We were following them, we asked to look at their documents, and when you reviewed the documents, you came back and said, I think they have profit defined incorrectly. And I said, Eddie, there's no way a big VC firm would not have caught that. They pay for the best attorneys. And you said, here, you read it, Tim, you read this. And I read what the definition of profit was and it was confusing. You suggested better language. We took it back to the entrepreneur, the entrepreneur shared it with the lead investor, the VC, and they agreed. And they said, you're right, we had confusing language, we're going to use your language. So to me, that avoids problems down the line, Eddie. And that's what you're looking to do, is to get really good representation so that you avoid problems down the line. They don't seem that big when you're, you know, a $5 million post-money valuation company. But when you sell for $500 million, you have got to believe people are going to be paying attention to definitions like profit and how much money do I get in the distribution versus what you get, and what are the liquidation preferences and things like that. So you want to get that right from the start.

Edward Sarnowski: Absolutely.

Patrick Driscoll: I love that, and what a great way to end the conversation. And as I typically do, I'll jump in with some key takeaways that I noticed in the conversation. Number one, angel investors are the most vital capital-at-the-inception component in ecosystems like Florida. I think this is an understated fact. A lot of companies want to go directly to institutional VCs. Angels are always going to be there, and they're going to be way more approachable and liquid and they can move fast and get quick to a no as well. Founder and operator experience matters in investing. Tim, I love your story about understanding how to launch a company, scale it, acquiring companies, M&A, partnering with a good business partner, launching, selling and then using that experience to get into good deals and add value. The intellectual and growth capital tagline is incredibly important. So not just being money for the sake of money, you're going to get in there, everyone has their own operational experience who's a member of Tamiami and they can roll up their sleeves, get in there and be a little bit more strategic. Fast, honest feedback helps founders get better faster. So if there is a no, founders should ask that. Why is it a no? And then actually getting feedback from investors is not something that a lot of investors will do, specifically busy VCs. So the fact that you do that is, I think, very understated and should be appreciated. And then the right legal and accounting partners are a force multiplier here, right? So getting in with a good law firm and a good accounting firm can avoid a lot of headaches down the pike and save you a ton of money, even if it's a little bit of cash out of the pocket to get things going.

But before we sign off, I did want to say a sincere thank you to Tim Cartwright for sharing his experience and perspective. To Eddie, always a pleasure to have a conversation with you. If you are a founder, angel investor or family office looking to navigate early-stage capital, company formation, governance, feel free to reach out to myself or Eddie or anyone else at Holland & Knight. We'll be happy to steer you in the direction of getting an intro to Tim, if it's appropriate as well, of course. He's a great guy and great leader in the ecosystem in Florida and across the U.S., I'd say. And thanks again for tuning into "The Innovation Imperative." We'll see you next time.