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SEMINOLE COUNTY, Fla. — The way to do business is different all around the world, so established companies that want to break into the U.S. market may need a little help.
That is where the University of Central Florida’s Business Incubator Program comes in.
The program recently expanded to a new office on the Seminole State’s Heathrow campus. A Costa Rican software company, InnovaSoft, was the first in the space.
“It can have big data analytics and a lot of other cool and productive tools through AI,” said Andrey Umaña, the growth strategy executive for InnovaSoft.
Umaña helps the founder, CEO and his dad, Ricardo. “It is a little challenging at some points, but it is definitely rewarding,” he said.
The software is in 14 Latin American countries, but they have big goals to bring their software to schools in the U.S. “The best part has been the support, the accessibility from the U.S. system. And the most challenging part has been the communication part, not only for the language, but mainly because of the marketing and the businesses culture,” Umaña said.
To help with the individual needs of each company, Michael Weiss goes over their business plan.
“We started by doing that initial assessment and then discussing a marketing plan for the state of Florida and then identifying different universities, colleges and technical schools that they can target and begin marketing too,” said Weiss, the UCF Business Incubation Program site manager.
While in Central Florida, they do marketing and networking. “Schedule as many meetings as we can to see how we can improve and grow the most out of it and learn a lot from the system and culture,” Umaña said.
But they also find some family time while out of the office.
“I personally love exploring new foods,” he said.
For lunch, that means Pickles, the restaurant in Longwood, and actual pickles. It was their first time at a deli. “A lot of options,” Umaña said. He went with the most popular order, the Rueben. “Very good,” he said.
The owner of Pickles also went through a program at the UCF’s business incubator. “The UCF Incubator Program as a whole has been an incredible impact for the county,” said Esteban Saldarriaga of Seminole County Economic Development.
Companies can learn and grow, but it also benefits Seminole County, as the new landing spot sits on the same campus as the economic development office.
“We are now able to attract really interesting companies from target industries the county is already looking at,” Saldarriaga said.
As the business incubator program expands in Seminole County, the soft-landing spot has had interest from companies in Germany, Poland and Hungary. Right now there are only two companies in the new office, but they expect it will grow.
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