Portland tech entrepreneur urges Maine investors to be better startup 'ambassadors'
Screenshot / Startup Maine
In the latest installment of the "Startup Maine Entrepreneurs and Ecosystem Builders Speaker Series," Startup Maine President Katie Shorey, left, chats with Torey Penrod-Cambra of HighByte, a Portland-based maker of industrial software.
Maine startups need more investment "ambassadors" who are well-versed in the vocabulary of Silicon Valley or Boston, says a technology entrepreneur with a corporate background.
"Creating more of a shared network and then shared expectations and a vocabulary for investors inside and outside the state will help Maine companies so much," said Torey Penrod-Cambra, of Portland-based startup HighByte, to more than 60 people attending the second installment of Startup Maine's new virtual speaker series on Tuesday.
Her message to investors: "Keep driving forward and being ambassadors for the state of Maine, too ... Founders can't do it alone."
Penrod-Cambra is the co-founder and chief marketing officer at HighByte, an industrial software company established in 2018. It's her first entrepreneurial endeavor after working in the health sciences, pharmaceutical and medical device fields.
She joined Portland industrial automation company Kepware in 2012 and was part of the core leadership that helped expand the company and take it through an acquisition by Massachusetts-based PTC in 2016. She left Kepware in 2018.
Penrod-Cambra said her experience there taught her that people with corporate pedigrees can make great entrepreneurs, noting that she is does not fit the stereotype of an entrepreneur in that she does not like to take risk and never saw herself in that role until she was in it.
"On paper," she said, "I'm not a Silicon Valley poster child. But the truth is, entrepreneurs come in all shapes and sizes.'
Penrod-Cambra said Maine offers a lot of opportunities to tap into institutional, governmental and organizational support, including partners that HighByte has worked with such as Maine Technology Institute, the Finance Authority of Maine and the Maine Venture Fund.
She also said Mainers have a "pay-it-forward" attitude and "certain kind of generosity" that leads them to seek opportunities to mentor, and so it's easy to ask someone out for coffee.
"Maine to me," she said, "is a network of people that are so generous with their time."
At the other end of the spectrum, she said that finding senior technical talent and diverse staffing is a a major hurdle for many startups, along with the lack of physical incubator space.
She also issued a challenge to listeners to come up with a solution to help companies start here and "graduate up in your space," noting that startups usually don't know what they will look like or what space they will need five years down the road.
To Maine-based investors, she issued a call to become better ambassadors for the state by growing their professional networks and expanding their familiarity with vocabulary used in other parts of the investment world.
As examples, she cited SAFEs (Simple Agreements for Future Equity) vs. convertible notes, or what seed vs. pre-seed means. She later told Mainebiz that Boston-based firms her company deals with prefer SAFEs, which are still fairly uncommon in Maine.
"That's how the West Coast wants to do business," she said. "And it will be up to our Maine investors to help create those bridges built out of common vocabulary and shared expectations."
Opportunity to 'feel connected'
More generally about the new speaker series, Penrod-Cambra said, "I think the value of these talks is having the opportunity to genuinely feel connected to people in our community who are passionate and trying to make a difference. We haven’t been able to network with one another for nine months.
"I don’t want to see Powerpoint slides. But I do want to see people sharing their challenges, wins and ideas in a way that’s really raw. I hope the interviews continue to go in that direction."
Summing up her own biggest impression of the talk, Katie Shorey, president of Startup Maine and a 2020 Mainebiz Next List honoree, said, "There’s an educational opportunity and a need to encourage people to move across industries, such as corporate companies to startups. That fluidity of talent will bring new learnings and potential collaborations to our economy. Or in the example of HighByte, a new tech startup."
More information
Find out more about the "Startup Maine Entrepreneurs & Ecosystem Builders Series" here. The next session, on Nov. 24, will feature Kristine Logan, director of TechPlace in Brunswick.
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