Last week, I saw that Tampa Bay Wave was ranked the #3 accelerator in the U.S. by TIME.
As a Wave alum, that made me incredibly proud. But it also made me stop and think about how much the Wave has meant to me personally and to DUKAPAQ.
Back in 2022, DUKAPAQ was still very early. I was coming out of a six year corporate stint in the Point of Sale (PoS) software industry. We were testing ideas, figuring out the market, and trying to answer a pretty basic question:
Could this actually become a real company?
Then we were selected for Tampa Bay Wave’s inaugural FinTech|X cohort.
Looking back, that experience was a real turning point for me, both professionally and personally.
What I appreciated most was that the Wave was willing to invest in founders without asking for equity in return. That’s something increasingly rare among the growing number of selective startup accelerator programs.
There’s certainly an argument that programs like YC and Techstars demonstrate “skin in the game” by making equity investments in their early-stage portfolios. Some university-affiliated programs at elite institutions have also explored models designed to capture value through ownership or intellectual property.
But from a founder’s perspective, the equation can look very different.
At the earliest stages of building a company, equity is incredibly valuable. Founders are often making decisions with limited information, and terms that may seem reasonable at the time can look very different a few years later. Taking capital or giving up equity too early can have meaningful long-term consequences.
That’s why I appreciated the Wave’s approach. They invested in us; our ideas, our development as founders, our network, and most importantly, our ability to build without requiring us to give up ownership in return.
And the real value went far beyond the program itself.
It was the mentors. The introductions. The candid feedback. The opportunities. And, perhaps most importantly, the other founders who understood what it felt like to figure things out in real time.
Four years later, DUKAPAQ looks very different.
We’ve built, broken, rebuilt, expanded from Kenya, and are now entering the U.S. market, starting in Houston.
A lot has changed, but the Wave remains an important part of that story.
TIME’s recognition is a great reminder that you don’t have to be in Silicon Valley to build world-class startup infrastructure. And you certainly don’t have to give away your most precious equity at the earliest stage of building a company.
Tampa Bay Wave has built something special in Tampa, and I’m proud that DUKAPAQ was part of its early FinTech journey.
Congratulations to Linda Olson, Dr. Richard Munassi, the entire Wave team, the mentors, partners, and all the founders who have helped build this community.
Here’s to continuing to build and to building ecosystems where founders can do so on their own terms.