As a university
professor and an engineer, the husband and wife team of Amin Ismail, Ph.D. and
Rhonda Copley had a lot going for them when they founded Praxis Software, Inc. (PraxSoft)
as a small engineering consulting firm. However, expertise in business was not
among their strong points. It was during a 2005 meeting with the U.S. SBA’s
Business Opportunity Specialist, Nancy Alvarez-Hernandez, that Copley explained
her firm’s desire for business advice, particularly with market expansion and
navigating the intricacies of selling to the government. “We needed to ensure
that strategic decisions for our business and resource allocation were
appropriate and wanted expert advice from experienced business professionals who
had worked with successful entrepreneurial firms,” said Copley.
Alvarez-Hernandez recommended the SBDC at UCF’s Advisory Board Council as a way
to access the needed expertise. PraxSoft was accepted into the program and a
board of advisors was hand-picked comprised of experts in the fields of finance,
government contracting, law, marketing, and strategic planning. The board kicked
off their first meeting in early 2006. “We have a strong technical background,”
says Ismail, “but having an advisory board has helped us from a business and
financial point of view.”
“The board members
have given so unselfishly of their time and have been able to share so much of
their experience with us, that it’s been invaluable,” reports Copley. In fact,
in two years of participation in the program, PraxSoft’s volunteer advisors
donated more than 200 in-kind hours of service to the firm, representing a
market value of $31,031 of pro-bono consulting services. “Not only did the
advisory board provide guidance on financial issues and increasing sales,”
remarked Copley, “they mentored us on putting the proper processes into place to
sustain that growth." In addition to regular board meetings, Copley worked with
her board’s CFO to develop spreadsheets for product pricing, cost of goods sold
and margin analysis. Another board member has been a huge help with government
contracting and in assisting PraxSoft to take full advantage of their 8(a)
certification. “We didn’t know how to operate in the Federal/Military
environment and he helped guide us,” comments Copley. PraxSoft has also utilized
the services of the Procurement Technical Assistance Program (PTAC) at the SBDC
at UCF to assist with government sales.
When Copley and
Ismail moved the business from Ohio to Central Florida in 2004, they began
development on a group of products to collect real-time data from remote
wireless sensor devices and deliver it via multiple communication methods.
Today, PraxSoft has nearly 1,000 customers in commercial and government markets
as a developer of cutting-edge products that integrate hardware and software in
order to collect and display real time sensor data through the use of
meteorological, environmental and networked RFID tags. Their
unique combination of RFID and wireless sensor
network technology is utilized in the firm’s three
main products: WeatherActive™;
SensorActive ™; and AssetActive™
which have applications
in a wide range of industries including public works,
defense, security, public safety, transportation, sports, media and
communications.
PraxSoft has
demonstrated success in the government arena and garnered excellent ratings for
their work with the U.S. Military. Recently, the firm won contracts with the
U.S. Army and participated in a project with the State of Florida. At the
McKenna Range in Fort Benning, PraxSoft deployed indoor tracking devices and a
2-D GIS-based program to show real-time tracking of live soldier entities. The
system integrates location and status from soldiers into a GIS featured map with
buildings, elevation, terrain, and live soldier identification to monitor the
actions being performed in both real time and post experiment through play back
or After Action Review (AAR). Another success was the Florida Department of
Forestry’s Wildfire Predication/Mitigation and Asset Accountability project.
This project helped the Department of Forestry predict, detect and react to
wildfires and improve situational awareness during event response to enhance
safety, resource management and asset accountability.
All of the expert
assistance PraxSoft received from the SBDC at UCF has paid off for the company.
Since becoming a client of the Advisory Board Council, PraxSoft tripled their
annual revenues. “Each member of the advisory board has their own strengths and
areas of expertise which we have learned from,” remarked Copley. “As individuals
they have mentored young business owners. As a group they have helped contribute
to the success of Praxsoft.”
SBDC