Fuel your
ascent

You don't have time to waste on generic startup advice. That's why we created Startup Fuel — tactical insights from coaches and hard-won lessons from entrepreneurs like you who've navigated the path to scale.

Bookmark-worthy resources
Founder favorites

A curated selection of our most actionable frameworks, playbooks and guides, ready to power your next breakthrough.

Builder Series Recap: Scaling with Discipline — Lessons from A-LIGN Founder + CEO, Scott Price

At our latest Builder Series, Scott Price, Founder & CEO of A-LIGN, joined Tim Holcomb, CEO of Embarc Collective, for a candid conversation on scaling a cybersecurity firm from startup to global leader — and the leadership, capital discipline, and culture required to do it right. From launching his first IT audit firm post-Enron to […]

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Embarc Collective, TGH Ventures, and TMRD Form Strategic Partnership

Embarc Collective, TGH Ventures, and Tampa Medical & Research District Form Strategic Partnership to Accelerate Health Care and Life Sciences Innovation Across Florida Embarc Collective, Florida’s fastest-growing startup hub and home to a peer community of 300 founders and cofounders building 135-plus early-stage tech startups and growth companies, today announced a new strategic partnership with […]

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Embarc Collective Welcomes Tom O’Neil to Board of Directors

Embarc Collective Welcomes Tom O’Neil to Board of Directors We are thrilled to welcome Tom O’Neil, Tampa Market Lead for Brixey & Meyer and seasoned CPA, to the Embarc Collective Board of Directors as Treasurer. Tom brings a wealth of experience in audit, assurance, tax, advisory, and strategic financial leadership that will be invaluable as […]

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Get inside the minds of
our founders

Explore targeted insights on raising capital, scaling operations and building teams, plus the latest news and updates from the Collective

From Assumption to Evidence: How Customer Discovery Creates Investment-Worthy Startups

At Embarc Collective's inaugural Angel Investor Summit, Kate Heath (Brand and Marketing Strategist Coach and SVP of Marketing at Certus Core) and Jason Putorti (Product Strategist Coach and Executive Director & Founder of ResistBot) delivered a compelling presentation on one of the most critical yet often overlooked aspects of startup success: customer discovery.

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Beyond the Hype: Lessons in Resilience and Focus from ReliaQuest’s Brian Murphy

In a recent Embarc Collective Builder Series event, ReliaQuest Founder and CEO Brian Murphy shared candid insights from his 17-year journey building a cybersecurity powerhouse.

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Strengthening Our Foundation: Welcoming Three Exceptional Leaders to the Embarc Collective Board

We’re thrilled to announce that Embarc Collective is deepening its roots in the Tampa Bay community with the addition of three outstanding leaders to our Board of Directors: Drew Weatherford of Weatherford Capital, Dr. Rhea Law, President of the University of South Florida, and Kim Hill, Chief of Staff at ReliaQuest. These strategic additions reflect […]

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What (Really) Matters When Hiring Your First Employees

This guest post was contributed by our partner, Established. “Coming together is a beginning. Keeping together is progress. Working together is success.” — Henry Ford As one of the greatest innovators in American history reminds us, the team you build around you — and how you develop them — will ultimately be what determines whether […]

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Supercharge Your Leadership: Lessons From Six Leaders Who Transformed Their Startups Into Global Success Stories

Advancing one’s leadership style has been top of mind for the entrepreneurs a part of our community at Embarc Collective. Embarc Collective hosted its fifth annual Leadership Summit, made possible by The First Bank, which spotlighted proven strategies from top operators and visionaries who have steered their startups into global success stories. Skillful leadership involves […]

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Open Opportunities Through Diversity and Inclusion

Each week at Embarc Collective, we bring in a local or out-of-market expert to talk about a specific pain point or skill that is being voiced by the startup community we support. We are lucky in Tampa Bay to have startups that are focused on building diverse and inclusive teams from Day 1, and from […]

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The Continuous Journey of Knowing Your Customer

The coaches at Embarc Collective have diverse backgrounds and skill sets, coming from all corners of the tech industry with a wide range of experiences. However, we all share one critical characteristic: like the successful founders and teams we support, we are customer-obsessed. Understanding the people you do (or hope to) serve is fundamental to […]

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Your Startup Guide to Strategic Planning

Use this outline to guide your annual planning process As we dive deeper into Q4, it’s an opportune time to reflect on your startup’s past year of growth and plan for what comes next. This is a critical practice for startups—to zoom out of day-to-day execution and make a deliberate effort to work on the […]

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Forming A Board and Running Effective Board Meetings

As a seed stage company, running a board meeting can be strange, new territory. Holding effective board meetings are critical for early-stage startups to make sound decisions, provide detailed updates to stakeholders, and re-evaluate the current plan of action to continue to scale quickly. Recently, we invited Julia Taxin of Grotech Ventures to share tips […]

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Building Your PR Narrative: Why Most Founders Get It Wrong

Learn practical PR strategies for startups from PR expert Kathy Osborne and Cope Notes founder Johnny Crowder. Discover what's truly newsworthy, how to prepare your foundation for media coverage, and why PR is a long-term investment that builds credibility over time.

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From Zero to Revenue: Building Your First Marketing Strategy That Actually Converts

Embarc Collective Growth Strategist Coach Tyana Daley breaks down how early-stage companies can build a systematic marketing strategy that transforms prospects into paying customers.

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The Secret Sauce to Maximizing Your Time at Conferences

We’ve all been there: circling around the coffee station until you find someone to introduce yourself to, only to discover that they are in a completely different field and not strategic to you or your business at all. The new year is just on the horizon, and it’s time to start figuring out how you’ll make […]

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Case studies

Meet the founders
behind the frameworks

Learn from the founders in our community — how they tackled obstacles, overcame challenges, and built companies that matter.

How ShyftOff grew 600% in one year - without VC funding

Discover how founder-first support helped Trevor Clark build a self-sustaining business and choose founder control over investor funding.

Trevor Clark
Founder and CEO, ShyftOff
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